If you like FORMAL room

If you taste runs to 18^th century mahogany furniture, rather than simpler early American maple, you probably like a somewhat formal room. Happily, we today are talking all sorts of liberties with period furniture, combining English and French pieces, and using today’s colors and fabrics with them. This we can do, provided we keep the scale and, broadly speaking, choose pieces of the same period, as for instance, the 18^th century, but from different countries. And so, too, we have a way of combining a formal and informal atmosphere in a room to give us that “live able” quality and yet keep it on the formal side. This avoids stuffiness but gives restraint and a sense of order. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Arrangement

Arrangement follows right after scale. Large pieces naturally go against the walls and smaller ones out in the room. Good arrangement is a matter of liveableness. Who want a desk in a dark corner? Who wants an easy chair where you can’t see to read a paper?  In the room below a sofa placed against the wood paneled wall is the center of a comfortable group from which to enjoy television on the opposite wall and the view and the light through the insulated glass wall. Note the modern reading light, end – table lamp, practical tweed – like upholstery covering, and silk gauze curtains hung from ceiling to floor. Read the rest of this entry »

Scale

The general air of spaciousness and good scale in this room, given by the uncluttered brick fireplace wall and the full length windows, makes it possible to use big comfortable chairs and sofa.

Wood – finished walls may be of light birch, pine, or the darker wood tones. Plaster walls may be painted, or papered, in accordance with the color trend suggested. With walls of a neutral wood or stone tone, it is a matter of choice whether to have a contrasting floor tone, or use one a shade or so darker than the walls – but have color in it. Read the rest of this entry »