Read Ebook: The Library of Work and Play: Home Decoration by Warner Charles Franklin

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Ebook has 330 lines and 72233 words, and 7 pages

FACING PAGE

All the Rough Carpentry was Assigned to the Boys of the Woodworking Sections of the Vocational School 22

The Boys of the Forging Classes of the Technical High School were not Overlooked in the Distribution of the Work on the House 24

A Table Runner of Russian Crash and Pillow Cover with Geometrical Design 96

Window Draperies with Stencilled Border 108

Crocheted Panels, a Linen Work Bag with Conventional Landscape in Darning Stitch, a Crash Table Mat Embroidered in Darning and Couching Stitch 118

Finishing a Library Table 212

Weaving a Rug 244

Hand Made Rugs, Hand Made Towels 252

An Alcove with Window Draperies, Pillow Covers, Window Seat and Moss Green Rug, All Hand Woven 262 Hand Woven Window Draperies, Couch Cover, Slumber Rug, and Pillow Covers 266

Girls at Work on Pottery 280

Bowls 294

Vases and Fern Dishes 312

Tiles 316

Pottery: Designed and Made by Schoolgirls 318

Decorative Forgings 364

HOME DECORATION

INTRODUCTORY

THE STORY OF A HOUSE

To design, plan, and build a house is a task that rarely falls to the lot of boys and girls. In fact, it is not the common experience of men and women to build houses without the aid of architects, masons, and carpenters. Such a task, however, was recently offered to certain classes in one of the public schools of a well-known New England city. It was, indeed, a school problem, and yet there was something about it that seemed to suggest larger and more interesting things than are ordinarily dealt with in the school-room. It did not seem at all like some school work. It was more like real life; for all boys and girls must some day have homes of their own, and here was a chance to learn how the house, which is an important part of every home, is planned and built. It is hardly necessary to say that this work--or play, if you like that word better--was undertaken with genuine enthusiasm. It was a task crammed full of the pleasure of interest and of accomplishment--full of the joy of doing something worth while--from the beginning to the end.

The boys and girls of this story would not have accepted a machine-made, standardized house if one had been offered them, ready for use. There was a special purpose for which their house was to be planned and built, as there generally is in the case of any real house. No style A, B, or C, chosen from any series of pattern-built or moulded houses, could fulfil such a purpose; and even if it could, would they willingly give up all the fun of planning and building and furnishing? Would they forego the lessons of experience to be learned from all this work? This is always a large part of the satisfaction which comes to any one who builds his own house. In the present instance it was the chief motive, since the boys and girls who were planning this house were not expecting to make their home there.

THE GENERAL DESIGN AND THE PLAN

In attacking the problem of design the method of approach was determined by the fact that school-girls and school-boys were to be the architects and builders. House planning, home decoration, and household management were important subjects of study on the part of the girls and various forms of drawing and constructive work were required of all the boys of this school; so they all felt that they had a right to contribute something out of their study and experience that might be of value in working out this problem. The design must therefore be a composite of the best features of many studies.

It will be noted as a possible fault in the plan that the range is very near the door into the passageway leading to the bedroom, the living room, and the hall. This point received due consideration; but in view of the compensating advantages the arrangement was thought allowable, inasmuch as the door into the passageway would be used only occasionally. There seemed to be no more convenient location for the passageway, which was designed to give privacy to bedroom and bath room and, in cases of sickness or any emergency requiring it, easy communication between the kitchen and the bedroom.

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN

THE COLOUR SCHEME

The colouring of the walls of the bedroom, bath room, and kitchen was not so important a question as the decoration of the three front rooms. Utility and sanitary conditions were important things to be considered. Light tints were decided upon, which in the bedroom might be relieved, in the finishing touches, by delicate stenciled figures in some warm tone.

ORGANIZING THE WORK OF CONSTRUCTION

As soon as the chief features of design were decided upon, preparations were made for carrying them out in the actual work of building; for the house was not to be a "castle in air." The first step was to put these ideas on paper and work out the details of construction in clearly executed and accurately dimensioned drawings. These included, as the first to be used, the working drawings for the framing and other rough woodwork, blue print copies of which were to be put into the hands of the boys of the elementary vocational school, who were to carry out this part of the building plans.

SOME DETAILS OF CONSTRUCTION

Referring to the accompanying sketch it will be noticed that the corner posts and centres were not mortised into the sills, but were simply butted on and heavily nailed or spiked. There was a time when carpenters would have regarded such a method as altogether wrong; but those were the days of great corner posts and heavy studding, placed two or three times as far apart as is the practice now. It was thought that placing the studs 16 inches on centres, which is the common practice in modern house framing, removed the necessity of mortising into the sill. Mortising is still recognized, however, as a good thing to do and is sometimes practised by first-rate carpenters. Plan A also shows how the outside walls were trussed over openings; and Plan B shows how the corners of the building were tied by the lapping of the double plate, and how the ceiling timbers and rafters were placed on the top of the plate.

In the same series of cuts a detail of the base is shown which includes the framing, the base board, and the lath and plaster. It should be stated, however, that a substitute for lath and plaster was recommended to the student architects--a new product in paper board especially designed for walls and ceilings, which it was decided to use. The use of this material removed the necessity of the "grounds" shown in the drawings and always needed as a nailing base for the wood trim when the walls and ceilings are lathed and plastered. In the detail of the dado cap, which will be found on the page of construction drawings, the dotted lines show how the cap was to be expanded into a plate rail, requiring the addition of brackets with a bed moulding between, in the finishing of the walls of the dining-room. Among these drawings will also be found a detail showing a section of the beamed ceiling finish.

It will be readily understood that none of the finishing work called for in the detailed drawings was begun until the rough carpentry on the house was practically completed. All the rough work, which included framing, boarding, shingling, laying of the lining floors, and putting up partitions, was assigned to boys of the woodworking sections of the vocational school. This is an elementary industrial or trade school, admitting from the grades below the high school boys who have attained the age of fourteen years and wish to learn some mechanical trade. It represents a new and promising experiment in American education. The building of this house furnished an excellent opportunity for the boys of this school to show the honesty of their purpose in enrolling themselves to learn the fundamentals of a trade and thus prove their right to have the chance.

So the house was built by the combined efforts of the boys and girls of the public schools of this New England city, unassisted by professional architects or paid labourers. How they carried out with their own hands the designs for decorating and furnishing the house is told in the succeeding chapters of this book, which also suggests wider applications of the principles of household decoration as possible to be made in the homes of clever boys and girls throughout the country. To carry out these suggestions will mean work--but work of a kind that gives pleasure to the worker and to many others. It was work for the young designers and builders of whom this story tells, but they said it was "great fun," and there really is no pleasure quite equal to that found in doing with one's own hands an exceptionally good thing. The true craftsmen of all time have found it so. One of these master workmen, Stradivarius, the violin maker, so George Eliot tells us, made his confession thus:

" ... God be praised! Antonio Stradivari has an eye That winces at false work and loves the true, With hand and arm that play upon the tool, As willingly as any singing bird Sets him to sing his morning roundelay, Because he likes to sing and likes the song."

DECORATIONS AND FURNITURE

The decorating and furnishing of a house have their true beginning in good architectural design. It is a mistake to proceed upon the theory that decoration necessarily implies something added for its own sake--something beautiful in itself but selected and applied without regard to the lines, spaces, and colours of the room in which it is to be placed and without considering the relation of this room to neighbouring rooms and to more remote surroundings. The truth is, a decorative object may or may not be intrinsically beautiful; but however beautiful it may be in itself, it finds its truest beauty in an appropriate setting. And the decorator who is actuated by the true spirit looks to the architect for inspiration and finds his greatest successes in acknowledging that leadership. To attempt to lead when one should follow is neither good art nor good sense.

There is danger, perhaps, that this truth may be taken too seriously. It would also be a mistake to run to the other extreme and adopt at the outset a rigid plan of decoration and furnishing, specified like contract work to be carried out and completed on a certain date soon after the house is built. The problem is one of growing interest, especially as regards furniture, pictures, and the smaller objects of use or beauty, and for its best and happiest solution requires time and study. Only the broad and fundamental features can be settled in advance. The important thing is to have the main lines, dimensions, space relations, and colour schemes settled with due regard to utility and appropriateness and, as the work of construction proceeds, to keep all details in harmony with this general plan.

THE FLOORS, THE WALLS, AND THE CEILINGS

To take a step like this, somewhat out of line with accepted rules as strictly interpreted, is entirely safe if this step is dictated by good taste and does not lead the young decorator too far afield. Exceptional treatment of any kind should show proper restraint, and such restraint, when it is plainly indicated in any work of art, is in itself an attractive feature.

But such exceptional cases should not shake our confidence in the fundamental principles of decoration. It is true that these principles cannot be reduced to formulas to be applied invariably in all cases, and it is unreasonable to assume that any form of treatment is the only one possible in any given case. Modifications in the application of these principles are always possible, but the principles themselves are as unalterable as the Mosaic law. One is, indeed, tempted to summarize them thus as the

TEN COMMANDMENTS OF DECORATION

Thou shalt have no household gods except those that be beautiful or those that be useful.

Thou shalt not make unto thyself any likeness that is in the heaven above or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, that does not find an appropriate setting in thine house.

Thou shalt not look in vain upon the creations of the great masters of decorative art.

Remember the colour scheme and keep a good background.

Honour the original design, however old it may be, and make the most of it. Thou shalt not hesitate to correct the blunders of faulty design and bad architecture.

Thou shalt not kill thy neighbours or thy friends with over-decorated wall papers or oppressive decorations of any kind.

Thou shalt not bring together incongruous articles nor permit insane arrangements of anything that is thine.

Thou shalt not permit any false note to mar the harmony of thy decorations.

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