CHAPTER XI

TREATMENT OF FIREPLACES

Nothing is ever more attractive than the big open fireplace, piled with blazing logs, and with fire-dogs or andirons of brass or black iron, as may accord with the character of your room.  If yours is a period room it is possible to get andirons to match, veritable old ones, by paying for them.  The attractiveness of a fireplace depends largely upon its proportions.  To look well it should always be wider than high, and deep enough to insure that the smoke goes up the chimney, and not out into your room.  If your fireplace smokes you may need a special flue, leading from fireplace to proper chimney top, or a brass hood put on front of the fireplace.

Many otherwise attractive fireplaces are spoiled by using the wrong kind of tiles to frame them.  Shiny, enamelled tiles in any colour, are bad, and pressed red brick of the usual sort equally bad, so if you are planning the fireplace of an informal room, choose tiles with a dull finish or brick with a simple rough finish.  In period rooms often beautiful light or heavy mouldings entirely frame the three sides of the fireplace when it is of wood. Well designed marble mantels are always desirable.  This feature of decoration is distinctly within the province of your architect, one reason more why he and the interior decorator, whether professional or amateur, should continually confer while building or rebuilding a house.

For coal fires we have a variety of low, broad grates; as well as reproductions of Colonial grates, which are small and swung high between brass uprights, framing the fireplace, with an ash drawer, the front of which is brass.  If you prefer the old, one can find this variety of grate in antique shops as well as “Franklin stoves” (portable open fireplaces).

If your rooms are heated with steam, cover the radiators with wooden frames in line with the period of your room cut in open designs to allow heat to come through, and painted to match the woodwork of the room.  See Plate XIX.

Let the fireplace be the centre of attraction in your room and draw about it comfortable chairs, sofas and settles,—­make it easy to enjoy its hospitable blaze.

CHAPTER XII

TREATMENT OF BATHROOMS

Sumptuous bathrooms are not modern inventions, on the contrary the bath was a religion with the ancient Greeks, and a luxury to the early Italians.  What we have to say here is in regard to the bath as a necessity for all classes.

The treatment of bathrooms has become an interesting branch of interior decoration, whereas once it was left entirely to the architect and plumber.

First, one has to decide whether the bathroom is to be finished in conventional white enamel, which cannot be surpassed for dainty appearance and sanitary cleanliness.  Equally dainty to look at and offering the same degree of sanitary cleanliness, is a bathroom enamelled in some delicate tone to accord in colour with the bedroom with which it connects.