Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/853

Rh some equally non-absorbent material, for, unless this done, they soon become stuffy and unpleasant.

The drawing rooms of the house should naturally be made as cheerful as possible, and doors arranged so as to allow for the proper circulation of your guests when the rooms are crowded.

The arrangement of windows and fireplaces should be carefully studied, so as to allow of sufficient wall-space for furniture, and in these rooms bay and recessed windows and cozy nooks will help to make them more liveable and comfortable, whether for the ordinary occupants, or on occasions when you receive your friends.

As a rule, I think two fireplaces are a mistake, unless the rooms be absolutely divided by doors or portières, as, when only one fire is alight, there is a tendency for it to act as a pump, and to draw down smoke through the other.

If the room be very long, a small coil of pipes, taken off the hotwater service, may generally be arranged under the back window, over which fresh air may enter for ventilation.

Street houses are more or less, by the limited nature of the ground on which they stand, bound to be very similar in plan; but they can all be materially improved by a careful study of the wants and requirements of the ordinary householder, and by a proper regard and attention to all the smaller conveniences which practically render the house comfortable or the reverse.

As a general rule, bedrooms are often very badly arranged; either the wall-space is planned so that the bed must be placed immediately opposite the light, or in a thorough draught between the door and fireplace. I am inclined to think that the modern system of arrangement in French bedrooms might with advantage be more frequently carried out in town-houses, and that the rooms might be made suitable for the double purpose of private sitting as well as bedrooms. In a house in which there are several grown-up sons and daughters, it will be evident that some such arrangement will commend itself, so that each may have a private working-room, for writing or studying, apart from the general living-rooms of the house. The bedroom may often, therefore, be divided up so as to form at one end—that farthest from the window—recesses for bed and washing-closet, which can be screened off in the daytime by a curtain, and the rest of the room fitted up as a sitting-room, wherein the occupant may receive his or her own more intimate friends if need be.

The dressing-rooms are often made much too small. They should be of sufficient size to hold a bed if requisite, so that it may be used on occasions when, let us say, the master of the house comes home late, and does not want to disturb the wife of his bosom in the small hours of the morning; or when sickness is in the house, the room can be used for a nurse; or if the master of the house be a professional man, afflicted occasionally with sleeplessness, he would often like to