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THE BED-ROOM AND BOUDOIR.


[Illustration]




  THE
  BED-ROOM AND BOUDOIR.

  BY
  LADY BARKER.

  [Illustration]

  LONDON:
  MACMILLAN AND CO.
  1878.

  [_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved._]




  _FIFTH THOUSAND._

  LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.




PREFACE.


Too much attention can scarcely be expended on our sleeping rooms in
order that we may have them wholesome, convenient and cheerful. It is
impossible to over-estimate the value of refreshing sleep to busy
people, particularly to those who are obliged to do much brainwork. In
the following pages will, we hope, be found many hints with regard to
the sanitary as well as the ornamental treatment of the bed-room.

  W. J. LOFTIE.




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER                                          PAGE

     I.--AN IDEAL BED-ROOM--ITS WALLS                 1

    II.--CARPETS AND DRAPERIES                       15

   III.--BEDS AND BEDDING                            26

    IV.--WARDROBES AND CUPBOARDS                     44

     V.--FIRE AND WATER                              57

    VI.--THE TOILET                                  70

   VII.--ODDS AND ENDS OF DECORATION                 80

  VIII.--THE SICK ROOM                               94

    IX.--THE SPARE ROOM                             110




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                   PAGE

  A CORNER WARDROBE                      _Frontispiece_
  DUTCH BEDSTEAD                                     27
  BEDSTEAD AND TOILET STAND                          30
  OAK BEDSTEAD                                       32
  CHILDREN'S BEDSTEADS                               37
  AN INDIAN SCREEN                                   41
  WARDROBE                                           45
  ANTIQUE LOCK-UP                                    48
  BUREAU                                             49
  TRAVELLING CHEST OF DRAWERS                        51
  CHINESE CABINET                                    55
  FIRE-PLACE                                         58
  CHAIR AND TABLE                                    59
  BEDSIDE TABLE                                      62
  FIRE-PLACE                                         63
  CANDLESTICK                                        65
  FRENCH WASHING-STAND                               66
  CHINESE WASHING-STAND                              67
  CORNER-STAND                                       68
  SHRINE "A LA DUCHESSE"                             71
  ANTIQUE TOILET TABLE                               72
  CHEST OF DRAWERS                                   73
  A SIMPLE TOILET TABLE                              76
  CANE ARM-CHAIR                                     81
  CANE SOFA                                          82
  OAK SETTLE                                         83
  LARGE ARM-CHAIR                                    84
  CORNER FOR PIANO                                   85
  PRINT-STAND                                        88
  SOUTH AMERICAN PITCHER                             91
  INVALID TABLE                                     107
  DESK                                              112




THE

BED-ROOM AND BOUDOIR.




CHAPTER I.

AN IDEAL BED-ROOM.--ITS WALLS.


It is only too easy to shock some people, and at the risk of shocking
many of my readers at the outset, I must declare that very few bed-rooms
are so built and furnished as to remain thoroughly _sweet_, fresh, and
airy all through the night. This is not going so far as others however.
Emerson repeats an assertion he once heard made by Thoreau, the American
so-called "Stoic,"--whose senses by the way seem to have been
preternaturally acute--that "by night every dwelling-house gives out a
bad air, like a slaughter-house." As this need not be a necessary
consequence of sleeping in a room, it remains to be discovered why one's
first impulse on entering a bed-room in the morning should either be to
open the windows, or to wish the windows were open. Every one knows how
often this is the case, not only in small, low, ill-contrived houses in
a town, but even in very spacious dwellings, standing too amid all the
fragrant possibilities of the open country. It is a very easy solution
of the difficulty to say that we ought always to sleep with our windows
wide open. The fact remains that many people cannot do so; it is a
risk--nay, a certainty--of illness to some very young children, to many
old people, and to nearly all invalids. In a large room the risk is
diminished, because there would be a greater distance between the bed
and window, or a space for a sheltering screen. Now, in a small room,
where fresh air is still more essential and precious, the chances are
that the window might open directly on the bed, which would probably
stand in a draught between door and fireplace as well.

I take it for granted that every one understands the enormous importance
of having a fireplace in each sleeping-room in an English house, for the
sake of the ventilation afforded by the chimney. And even then a sharp
watch must be kept on the house-maid, who out of pure "cussedness"
(there is no other word for it) generally makes it the serious business
of her life to keep the iron flap of the register stove shut down, and
so to do away entirely with one of the uses of the chimney. If it be
impossible to have a fireplace in the sleeping-room, then a ventilator
of some sort should be introduced. There is, I believe, a system in use
in some of the wards of St. George's Hospital and in the schools under
the control of the London School Board, known as Tobin's Patent.
Ventilation is here secured by means of a tube or pipe communicating
directly with the outer air, which can thus be brought from that side of
the building on which the atmosphere is freshest. If report can be
trusted, this system certainly appears to come nearer to what is wanted
than any with which we are yet acquainted, for it introduces fresh air
without producing a draught, and the supply of air can be regulated by a
lid at the mouth of the pipe. A sort of double-star is often introduced
in a pane of glass in the window, but this is somewhat costly, and it
would not be difficult to find other simpler and more primitive methods,
from a tin shaft or loosened brick in a wall, down to half a dozen large
holes bored by an auger in the panel of the door, six or eight inches
away from the top, though this is only advisable if the door opens upon
a tolerably airy landing or passage. If it does not, then resort to some
contrivance, as cheap as you please, in the outer wall leading directly
into the fresh air. In most private houses it is generally possible to
arrange for those to whom an open window at night is a forbidden luxury,
that they should sleep with their door open. A curtain, or screen, or
even the open door itself will ensure the privacy in which we all like
to do our sleeping, but there should then be some window open on an
upper landing, day and night, in all weathers. Believe me, there are few
nights, even in our rigorous climate, where this would be an
impossibility. Of course common sense must be the guide in laying down
such rules. No one would willingly admit a fog or storm of driving wind
and rain into their house, but of a night when the atmosphere is so
exceptionally disturbed it is sure to force its way in at every cranny,
and keep the rooms fresh and sweet without the necessity of admitting a
large body of air by an open window.

Supposing then that the laws of ventilation are understood and acted
upon, and that certain other sanitary rules are carried out which need
not be insisted upon here,--such as that no soiled clothes shall ever,
upon any pretence, be kept in a bed-room,--then we come to the next
cause of want of freshness in a sleeping-room:--Old walls. People do not
half enough realise, though it must be admitted they understand a great
deal more than they once did, how the emanations from the human body are
attracted to the sides of the room and stick there. It is not a pretty
or poetical idea, but it is unhappily a fact. So the only thing to be
done is to provide ourselves with walls which will either wash or clean
in some way, or are made originally of some material which neither
attracts nor retains these minute particles.

Nothing can be at once cleaner or more wholesome than the beautiful
wainscotted walls we sometimes see in the fine old country houses built
in Queen Anne's reign. A bed-room of that date, if we except the bed
itself, and the probable absence of all bathing conveniences, presented
a nearly perfect combination of fresh air, spotless cleanliness, and
stately and harmonious beauty to the eyes of an artist or the nose of a
sanitary inspector. The lofty walls of panelled oak, dark and lustrous
from age and the rubbing of many generations of strong-armed
old-fashioned house-maids, were walls which could neither attract nor
retain objectionable atoms, and ventilation was unconsciously secured by
means of high narrow windows, three in a row, looking probably due
south, and an open chimney-place, innocent of "register stoves" or any
other contrivance for blocking up its wide throat. Such a room rises up
clearly before the eyes of my mind, and I feel certain that I shall
never forget the deliciously quaint and hideous Dutch tiles in the
fireplace, nor the expressive tip of Ahasuerus' nose in the tile
representing his final interview with Haman. How specially beautiful was
the narrow carved ledge, far above one's head, which served as a
mantelpiece, over which simpered a faded lady with low, square-cut
boddice, her fat chin held well into the throat, and a rose in her pale,
wan little hand. A dado ran round this room about five feet from the
floor, and I used to be mean enough, constantly, to try if it was a
dust-trap, but I never could find a speck. That was because the
house-maid had been taught how to wipe dust off and carry it bodily
away, not merely, as Miss Nightingale complains, to disturb it from the
place where it had comfortably settled itself, and disperse it about the
room.

But what I remember more vividly in this room than even its old-time
beauty, was the thorough _conscientiousness_ of every detail. The
cornice might fairly claim to rank as a work of art, not only from its
elaboration, but from its finish. The little square carved panels on
each side of the chimney, serving as supports to the mantelpiece, held
but one leaf or arabesque flourish apiece, yet each corner was as
sharply cut, each curve as smoothly rounded, as though it had been
intended for closest scrutiny. The wood of neither walls nor floors had
warped nor shrunk in all these years, and the low solid doors hung as
true, the windows opened as easily, as if it had all been built
yesterday. What do I say? built yesterday? Let any of us begin to
declare his experience of a new, modern house, and he will find many to
join in a doleful chorus of complaints about unseasoned wood,
ill-fitting joists, and hurried contrivances to meet domestic ills, to
say nothing of the uncomfortable effects of "scamped" work generally. In
spite of our improved tools, and our greater facilities for studying and
copying good designs, I am