August, 1923 
51 
This specially designed 
seat is built on stand¬ 
ard sectional drawer 
2 inits, and is convert¬ 
ible into a bed. It is 
fitted with a box 
spring, with a cover to 
match the chairs shown 
in the main illustration 
DECORATING the RADIO ROOM 
A New Thought for the House in Town or Country Where Listening In’ 
is Getting to he One Serious Pastime 
ALWYN T. COVELL 
W HEN tea-drinking became the fash¬ 
ionable thing to do in Queen Anne’s 
time in England, and the collecting of 
Oriental porcelains, at the same time, be¬ 
came a fashion and a passion, furniture 
designers at once rose to the occasion with 
a variety of tea-tables and glass-door cabi¬ 
nets. So closely does the design of furni¬ 
ture follow the demand of the hour. 
Within the year that radio “panels” be¬ 
gan to appear in every third house, and the 
receptance of words and music from the air 
became an accomplishment no longer con¬ 
fined to the rare electrical genius, furniture 
design has provided special desk-cabinets 
to hold the apparatus. It was the same 
with the phonograph, but radio involves 
rather more: from its very nature it suggests 
something more in the way of environment; 
it is a thing of great distance and far 
horizons. 
With the new radio desk cabinets as a 
point of departure it is not difficult to im¬ 
agine a special radio room, developed in an 
attic wing, and furnished in a manner be¬ 
fitting its purpose. 
A room of masculine character, obviously. 
No frills or trimmings. The first thought, 
for some psychological 
reason (perhaps the 
primary use of radio at 
sea) is of a room with a 
nautical air. Not an 
imitation ship interior, 
by any means, for at¬ 
tempts to do this usual¬ 
ly produce something 
very unreal and some¬ 
times silly. A room 
can have a nautical 
air without being in any 
way an imitation of the 
interior of a ship. 
The floor, in the sketch plan with this 
article, is of tile linoleum, in two shades of 
slate gray, and the walls are of sand-fin¬ 
ished plaster, tinted. The furnishings are 
of the simplest, and the nautical air is given 
by the accessories rather than by an archi¬ 
tectural device. 
On either side of the door on one end 
wall are sectional bookcases, finished in 
dark brown oak. On the long wall to the 
right of the entrance, the radio desk is cen¬ 
tered before a dormer window through 
which the aerials would be brought. The 
windows are all leaded, and their casings 
cut to give them a pointed effect. These 
casings, as well as the cut of the ceiling 
beams, while not strictly nautical are de¬ 
signed to give the whole room an unusual 
feeling, and to suggest, without attemjDting 
to imitate, the interior architecture of a 
ship. Two comfortable chairs are placed on 
either side of the radio desk, and these 
might be covered with dark blue mohair, 
corduroy or reps. 
The fireplace end of the room e.xplains 
itself, and suggests a setting for an old 
map. The remaining long wall is shown 
in another sketch, and is treated with a 
specially built seat and bookcases. The 
seat consists of a box spring placed on a 
base which is made of standard sectional 
drawer units—a convenient place for papers 
and maps. Also a compartment behind it 
where pillow and covers are stored away. 
Terrestrial and celestial globes serve both 
useful and decorative purposes in the room. 
