Room without a mantel
“What shall I do with a room without a mantel?” It’s a positive wait that I have heard for years. The answer is, make a center of interest in another way. Use sofa, tables and chairs as one group with pictures or wall piece above sofa to give height. Also have an important “up right” interest: either high bookcase or importantly – draped window.
Mantel at end of room
With the mantel at the end of the room, on an unbroken wall or between windows, place the sofa at right angels and one or two chairs opposite it. If the room is narrow put a high secretary desk or bookcase between the windows. If space permits, the desk as placed here gives light over the left shoulder. Note spinet and the end conversation group.
Mantel on long side
As the average room isn’t over fourteen feet wide the mantel on the long side usually has two fireside chairs near it with the sofa on the opposite wall. If you have an end window, large or small, put a flat desk or game table and chairs in front of it. Hanging shelves, one with a leaf to form a comfortable little desk, flank the entrance door.
This delightful room with a glimpse of the dining room beyond with out benefit of door is in a recently built Colonial house. One of the interesting things about it is that the spirit and the letter of Colonial design is followed in many respects with such features of this day and age as the broad window from ceiling to floor and a not – quite separated dining room. Just as the heating is of the 20th century, so are these new architectural features, giving the lover of tradition the best of every thing. Against the plastered wall the fine, pine antique mantel and the china cupboard, turned bookcase, stand out, while sofa and lounging chair give the comfort with demand. The Windsor chair is easily moved about, and an antique can stand holds cigarettes and ash trays. This house, which is one of great charm, is also an example of excellent planning for our simplified living without loss of beauty or dignity. To begin with, it is all an one floor, with kitchen and maid’s room, and a two – car garage, connected by a gallery, in one wing; there bedrooms and two baths in the other, with the living – dining room in the center. As in so many of our newer houses, good architects have adapted features usual in Hawaii, Florida, or the West Indies to the central and northern states, to give us the outdoor living which is becoming universal.
