Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/370

 34'G COTTAGK, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. occupier, or accord with the other furniture of the room. When the carpet is thus pre- pared, and quite dry, it should receive two coats of glue, or size made from the shreds of skins, such as is used by carvers and gilders. Tliis size should be put on as warm as possible, and care should be taken that no part of the carpet be left untouched by it ; otherwise the varnish to be afterwards laid on will sink into the paper, and spoil it. When the size is perfectly dry, the carpet should have one or more coats of boiled oil ; and when that is dry, a coat of copal or any other varnish. The varnish is not absolutely essential, as boiled oil has been found to answer very well without it ; but where oil only is used, it requires several more coats to be applied, and takes a much longer time to dry. These carpets are portable, and will roll up with about the same ease as oilcloth. They are very durable, are easily cleaned ; and, if made of well-chosen patterns, have a very handsome appearance. Where labour is cheap, the cost will be very trifling ; the materials being of little value, and the expense consisting chiefly in the time requisite to put them together. Where cloth cannot be easily procured, the carpet may be made by pasting paper to painted boards; when, by repeated coats of paper, it is become strong and firm, it will separate from the paint, and will be as durable as if mounted on any kind of cloth. For earth, brick, or stone floors, in order to render them impervious to damp, these carpets may be made with two faces, by pasting paper to both sides of the cloth which forms their basis, and well oiling or varnishing them on the under as well as upper surface ; they may also be bound with leather or any strong substance, to prevent moisture from penetrating to the paste. The paste used in the preparation of these carpets ought to be very strong, and is best when beer or sweet wort is substituted for common water. It must be kept free from lumps, and, when taken from the fire, stirred till cold. Papers used for carpets should have sufficient gum or size employed in the printing of them, to enable them to withstand the effects of the washing over with warm ^ize. If printed in oil, a strong coat of size should be given to the back to prevent the oil from penetrating through the paper, otherwise it can- not be pasted to linen, cotton, or any thing else. Papers printed in oil will not require any size before they receive the finishing coats of boiled oil and varnish. When varnished on one side only, they ought to be rolled up with that side outwards, to pre- vent its cracking. (London Jour, oj" Arts and Sciences.) Paper carpets would perhaps be better for geographical subjects, than carpets formed of any material produced by the loom. We have before suggested the idea of geographical, natural history, and other scientific papers, for the walls of apartments ; and, if these were once made, they might be transferred to paper carpets at pleasure. 686. Hearth Rugs are of various patterns and prices. Their use is obvious, in saving the carpets from becoming worn by the constant inovement of persons near the fire. When economy is an object, a piece of carpeting the same as that of the room, and the width of the liearth, may be employed, and this may be either hemmed at the ends, or sur- rounded by a deep fringe of black or very dark brown worsted, which the mistress of the cottage may net herself, and sew on. A cheap rug may also be formed of a piece of drab drugget bound with black, or any other colour to suit the paper and cm-tains, and fringed ; either with or without a strip of cloth, of the same colour as the binding, laid on about two inches from the margin. This kind of rug does very well without the fringe. Another kind of cheap hearth rug may be made by the cottager's wife, of remnants of cloth cut into narrow strips about half an inch broad, and three or four inches long ; -these strips are doubled, and sewed at the bend, in rows, to a strong piece of cloth, or knitted into a framework of packthread. In either case the colours are disposed so as to form some kind of pattern ; and, the ends being left loose, and cut even when the work is finished, with a large pair of scissors or shears, the whole presents a remarkably rich, warm, and massive appearance. 687. Painted Floorcloths may sometimes be used in the lobbies and passages of cot- tages ; but they are not economical articles, where there is much going out and coming in of persons generally employed in the open air, and of course wearing strong shoes, probably with nails in the soles. When they are used in cottages, the most appropriate patterns arc imitations of some materials usually employed for floors, such as tessellated pavement, different-coloured stones, wainscot, &c. ; but, for the better description of dwellings, where oilcloths are considered chiefly as ornamental coverings, there seems to be no reason why their patterns should not be as various as those of carpets. 688. Matting of different sorts may ha etesQy xiseA in cottages. There are some kinds, which the cottager might make for himself in the winter's evening ; and there are others that he may purchase cheap. Matting is manufactured, in many different manners, out of the straw of corn, ruslies, or other long, narrow, grassy or sedgy leaves. Among the uses to which a cottager might apply mats of this sort, which he could make himself, are, seats for chairs, stools, and benches ; foot mats for outside doors ; and screens, than which there is not a more usefid article for the cottage kitchen. In Monmouthshire,