Old-time, common
sense ideas on how to create and furnish comfortable,
attractive, easy to maintain rooms in your country home.
How rarely does one
find really comfortable chairs anywhere? People seem to buy the
style of furniture in fashion at the time, and this is usually
made with a greater regard to show, than to comfort. In the
country, where hard working men and women need easy and restful
seats, there seems to be a great lack of them. The best room may
have some hair-covered or rep-covered rocking or lounging
chairs, but these are too good for daily use, by tired people in
their working clothes, and as for taking the best furniture out
of doors, that is not to be thought of. We Americans, especially
those of us who live in the country, make but very little use of
our spacious summer parlor -"all out doors" A wide
spreading tree, a vine covered arbor, a broad veranda or porch,
and awning like a huge umbrella, or a tent with no sides or even
an open shed is a much more comfortable place for sewing,
reading, and resting, than any place in-doors, and often comes
handy for ironing and other work. For the enjoyment of the open
air in any case, seats and chairs that are not too good for
rough usage or too rough for ease are needed. The good
old-fashioned framed chairs, with split-wood or flagged seats,
have long been discarded for the glued work of the modern
cabinet maker, but we are glad to see them coming into use
again; they were formerly the regular furniture of the farm
house; now they are offered as luxuries at the fashionable
furnishing stores, and are purchased by those city persons who
go into the country for the summer, and wish to take some strong
comfortable chairs with them.
