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Interior Design & Decor
20th Century Home Decorating Guide
The custom of appropriate and harmonious
treatment of home decorating, interior decorations and suitable
furniture, seems to have been in a great measure abandoned during
the present century, owing perhaps to the indifference of architects
of the time to this subsidiary but necessary portion of their work,
or perhaps to a desire for economy, which preferred the cheapness of
painted and artificially grained pine-wood, with decorative effects
produced by wall papers, to the more solid but expensive though less
showy wood-paneling, architectural moldings, well-made paneled doors
and chimney pieces, which one finds, down to quite the end of the
last century, even in houses of moderate rentals. Furniture
therefore became independent and "beginning to account herself an
Art, transgressed her limits"... and "grew to the conceit that it
could stand by itself, and, as well as its betters, went a way of
its own."
Interior Conservatory Finishing
The interiors, handed over from the builder, as it were, in blank,
are filled up from the upholsterer's store, the curiosity shop, and
the auction room, while a large contribution from the conservatory
or the nearest florist gives the finishing touch to a mixture, which
characterizes the present taste for furnishing a boudoir or a
drawing room.
There is, of course, in very many cases an individuality gained by
the "omnium gatherum" of such a mode of furnishing. The cabinet
which reminds its owner of a tour in Italy, the quaint stool from
Tangier, and the embroidered piano cover from Spain, are to those
who travel, pleasant souvenirs; as are also the presents from
friends (when they have taste and judgment), the screens and
flower-stands, and the photographs, which are reminiscences of the
forms and faces separated from us by distance or death. The test of
the whole question of such an arrangement of furniture in our living
rooms, is the amount of judgment and discretion displayed. Two
favorable examples of the present fashion, representing the interior
of the Saloon and Drawing Room at Sandringham House, are here
reproduced.
How The Gather Inheritance Influenced On The Home Decorations
There is at the present time an ambition on the part of many
well-to-do persons to imitate the effect produced in houses of old
families where, for generations, valuable and memorable articles of
decorative furniture have been accumulated, just as pictures, plate
and china have been preserved; and failing the inheritance of such
household gods, it is the practice to acquire, or as the modern term
goes, "to collect," old furniture of different styles and periods,
until the room becomes incongruous and overcrowded, an evidence of
the wealth, rather than of the taste, of the owner. As it frequently
happens that such collections are made very hastily, and in the
brief intervals of a busy commercial or political life, the
selections are not the best or most suitable; and where so much is
required in a short space of time, it becomes impossible to devote a
sufficient sum of money to procure a really valuable specimen of the
kind desired; in its place an effective and low priced reproduction
of an old pattern (with all the faults inseparable from such
conditions) is added to the conglomeration of articles requiring
attention, and taking up space.
The limited accommodation of houses built on ground which is too
valuable to allow spacious halls and large apartments, makes this
want of discretion and judgment the more objectionable. There can be
no doubt that want of care and restraint in the selection of
furniture, by the purchasing public, affects its character, both as
to design and workmanship.
About the Author: D. Benjamin is the owner of
iapsales.com LLC - a family business specializing in HVAC products. We
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