Blue and white for bedrooms are the popular furnishings this season for summer houses. The windows are draped with a pretty soft white Madras muslin, embroidered with blue dots about the size of a cent piece. This muslin is quite inexpensive, costing from eight to fifteen cents per yard, according to the quality.
For floor coverings there are ingrain art squares, in blue and white, to be used with a painted border, and squares of blue denim surrounded by a deep border, made by laying the other side over on it as a facing and stitching it in place.
Japanese jute rugs in the same coloring are quite inexpensive, but not as durable as the ingrain rug. There are also squares of matting in different sizes, that range from a dollar and a half to ten dollars.
Cheap matting is a most unsatisfactory investment, but good matting, carefully used, will last many years. Figured matting is more fashionable than the plain, and the cream and dark-blue combination is quite artistic.
White enamel furniture does not find the favor even for country houses that it formerly did. The enameled iron bedsteads are very desirable, but light woods in ash or curly maple are preferred for the bureau and dressing-table.
A quaint revival in chairs is a straight-back wooden combing-chair, to place before the dressing table.
By the bedstead is now seen a three-legged milking-stool, for holding a candle-stick and snuffer.
In place of the wooden commode an enamelled iron frame washstand is preferred. The slop-pail is designed to stand directly under it, and the wash-bowl is merely raised and tilted to empty the water into it.
One of the prettiest odd bits of furnishing for summer bedrooms are the chintz-covered screens, made to open and fold like a large fan. They are fitted on small stout brass frames at the bottom, and when the screen is not in use, it may be shut up into one single broad stick, and, as it is provided with castors, may be rolled into a corner out of the way. It opens like a big fan and stands about as high as the head.
The bent-wood sofa-bed is especially cool for summer bedchambers. Little foot-rests are very convenient, and wicker chairs with chintz-covered cushions are as desirable in the parlor as in the bedrooms.
Reference:
Butler, Helen A. (1896, June). For Summer Bedrooms. The Household, XXIX(6), 18. Retrieved from VictorianTimes.us http://victoriantimes.us/decorating/summer-bedrooms. ^
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