We are getting more sensible about our bedrooms.  There is no doubt about it.  For the last ten years there has been a dreadful epidemic of brass beds, a mistaken vogue that came as a reaction from the heavy walnut beds of the last generation.  White painted metal beds came first, and will last always, but they weren’t good enough for people of ostentatious tastes, and so the vulgar brass bed came to pass.  Why we should suffer brass beds in our rooms, I don’t know!  The plea is that they are more sanitary than wooden ones.  Hospitals must consider sanitation first, last, and always, and they use white iron beds.  And why shouldn’t white iron beds, which are modest and unassuming in appearance, serve for homes as well?  The truth is that the glitter of brass appeals to the untrained eye.  But that is passing.  Go into the better shops and you will see!  Recently there was a spasmodic outbreak of silver-plated beds, but I think there won’t be a vogue for this newest object of bad taste.  It is a little too much!

If your house is clean and you intend to keep it so, a wooden bed that has some relation to the rest of your furniture is the best bed possible.  Otherwise, a white painted metal one.  There is never an excuse for a brass one.  Indeed, I think the three most glaring errors we Americans make are rocking-chairs, lace curtains, and brass beds.

[Illustration:  MY OWN BEDROOM IS BUILT AROUND A BRETON BED]

XV

THE DRESSING-ROOM AND THE BATH

Dressing-rooms and closets should be necessities, not luxuries, but alas! our architects’ ideas of the importance of large bedrooms have made it almost impossible to incorporate the proper closets and dressing-places a woman really requires.

In the foregoing chapter on bedrooms I advised the division of a large bedroom into several smaller rooms:  ante-chamber, sitting-room, sleeping-room, dressing-room and bath.  The necessary closets may be built along the walls of all these little rooms, or, if there is sufficient space, one long, airy closet may serve for all one’s personal belongings.  Of course, such a suite of rooms is possible only in large houses.  But even in simple houses a small dressing-room can be built into the corner of an average-sized bedroom.

In France every woman dresses in her cabinet de toilette; it is one of the most important rooms in the house.  No self-respecting French woman would dream of dressing in her sleeping-room.  The little cabinet de toilette need not be much larger than a closet, if the closets are built ceiling high, and the doors are utilized for mirrors.  Such an arrangement makes for great comfort and privacy.  Here I find that most of my countrywomen dress in their bedrooms.  I infinitely prefer the separate dressing-room, which means a change of air, and which can be thoroughly ventilated.  If one sleeps with the bedroom windows wide open, it is a pleasure to have a warm dressing-room to step into.