The Necessity Of Plan

SUCCESSFUL homes are not produced in haphazard fashion, and those that are not satisfactory are usually so because of the lack of any well-realised idea of precisely the sort of home desired, its appropriateness to the characteristics and uses of the occupants, or the amount of money there is to spend. The simple abode may be beautiful, and may indeed have more charm and homelike feeling than many which are more ornate, but a happy result in either case is the result of thought and plan.

Too often, at present, furnishings are purchased at one time simply because they are "liked" and without regard to the scheme as a whole, and on subsequent occasions other objects are bought with the same lack of consideration: is it wonderful that the incongruous collection is soon utterly dissatisfying in its total effect? Such buying is a waste of money and therefore an extravagance.

Whether the home is to be newly furnished throughout, or whether improvement is gradually to be brought about in already existing conditions, it is evident that one must definitely know what he is about before a beginning is made.

Unless he expects to live in one room and close off the rest, it must be remembered that it is the house or apartment which is the unit, to be considered as a single item, and not each room by itself. If that unit is cut up with obtrusive and ill-assorted wall-treatments and filled with a mass of restless belongings it cannot be expected that the home will be a practical, peaceful or harmonious abode, no matter how beautiful each object in itself may happen to be.

The necessity of a definite plan is therefore obvious, and it is a pleasure to say that it may easily be arrived at. For, after all, household furnishing is largely a matter of common-sense, and if one faithfully uses the mother-wit that has been given him together with the information available he will not go far astray. Let us therefore look at the problem of furnishing small premises in this simple, common-sense manner and see if it does not take the bewildered householder well along on his way.