Lucky indeed is that suburban householder who finds himself the proud possessor of one or more dressing-rooms beside the orthodox bathroom, which, thanks to the march of the ages, is now to be found in the quite small houses which are only meant for such a humble individual as the ordinary city clerk. As a rule, there will be a dressing-room leading out of the ‘best’ bedroom, and if this need not be used as described in the chapter on nurseries, it were well to contemplate it and consider carefully if it cannot serve the purpose of a small private retreat for the house-mistress, should the ‘third room’ have to be devoted to the maids, or to the master, or even to schoolroom purposes. For it is absolutely necessary that she should have such a retreat; and if the bathroom be available for the husband as indeed it should always be in a little house, where visitors are the exception and not the rule, there can be no reason why the dressing-room should not be so arranged that the wife could use it in the daytime, ay, and even see her more intimate friends there, if she cares to do so. I have twice had houses which have had fireless dressing-rooms, and these were, of course, very difficult to deal with, even when the rooms were used as dressing-rooms only, and I do not quite know what I should have done had I not had other rooms available for myself. Yet as both dressing-rooms were on the outside of the house, fire-places or stoves could have been placed there, and, of course, ought to have been erected at once. But the bathroom in each case was used for a dressing-room, and the hot water always kept at a proper state of warmth even in the coldest weather; though in both cases fire-places were available had it been necessary to have greater heat. But when frost appeared we were always ready for it; we kept gas and fires burning whenever pipes were likely to freeze, and as all the outside pipes were properly protected, I have never had a pipe burst myself and have never experienced in my own person the miseries I have had so graphically described to me by sufferers from this most disagreeable consequence of carelessness and the improper manner in which pipes are fixed and the supply pipes managed by the ordinary water company.

But first let us consider how the dressing-room can be arranged should it be necessary to use it during the day as a species of sitting-room or boudoir for the mistress of the house. Of course all dressing-rooms should be painted and decorated to match, or else to harmonise with the bedrooms to which they are attached, but I think a harmony rather than an exact copy should be the aim of whoever wishes to use this room as a boudoir for some hours at least during the day. Suppose, for example, we have a very sunny bedroom, and we have selected a soft green paper, such as Smee’s ‘green ash,’ and a rose-frieze for it, in that case we could have a pale pink paper in the dressing-room above a matting, or Japanese leather dado in green and gold, with all real ivory paint, and the furniture here could be in the stained green wood which I always admire so much, and of which it seems impossible to tire. We could have the green ‘Isis’ matting and rugs on the floor, and the curtains could be of sage-green serge; this would make a charming room, and while it would not slavishly copy, neither would it flatly contradict the scheme of colour in the bedroom.

In the same way a blue bedroom could have a yellow dressing-room attached, and this could be managed by selecting some real yellow paper, and placing it above either a gold-and-brown Japanese leather dado, or, yet again, above a matting dado, remembering that the matting used for this purpose must never under any circumstances have the smallest pattern on it; if it have, the look of the wall will be spoiled and the decorations will be anything but a real success. I am compelled to impress this fact upon my readers, because I have often seen a house spoiled simply because a matting dado to the room meant to the owner merely a dado made of matting; and she had not realised that chessboard patterns or large diamonds are entirely out of place in this situation. The only matting that should be used is the thin plain string-coloured kind made on purpose, and which is sold at Shoolbred’s, Oetzmann’s, and sometimes at Wallace’s for 10½d. a yard; sometimes Treloar sells it for something less in a roll of 42 yards, but this matting is essentially what the French call ‘a vende d’occasion,’ and has often to be really looked for until the right thing is found. If by the way a red and cream paper is put above a matting dado, and red paint is required to be used, a matting should be found which has a red thread running through it in an irregular way; it must not on any account have a set or formal pattern on it, or it will not be the success that it deserves to be.

Yet another hint, on no account should the dado or frieze rail be in the least degree heavy, the lighter it is the better, and I do not care for it to be more than an inch, or at most an inch and a half in depth. A wider rail always brings itself far too prominently before us, and attracts undue attention, while the lighter the rail is the cheaper will it be; and once more I say use ‘goehring,’ and then matters will not fail to be all that they ought to be. If the paper is yellow and the dado is brown and yellow, the paint can be brown also, while the curtains can be blue, as can the carpet, or else plain, patternless matting can be used, and the usual rugs.

If a blue square carpet is preferred, and lucky is she whose house contains a dressing-room large enough for this, the ‘Dunelm’ carpet is the best to have. It is made in most excellent colourings, is all wool, and very thick, and, moreover, is very inexpensive considering its admirable qualities. But as a rule a dressing-room resembles a tube or part of a hall more than a room, and as such we must think about it. It is generally long and narrow, and has a window in the most awkward situation, with, maybe, the door opposite; while the fireplace, if fire-place there be, is about a foot to the left or right of the door, and admirably situated for anyone who may be on the look out for a cold. This absurd situation can often be successfully treated by making the door open into the room on the fire side, thus making the door itself act as a species of screen to whoever may be sitting in the room. This alteration gives at once a place for a box-ottoman or an arm-chair, or one of Hewetson’s admirable ‘courting settees,’ which can be placed with one end against the wall, standing straight out into the room. The high back of this settee shields anyone using it from draughts, and these are further to be combated by hanging portiÈres over the door, inside and out, which will complete the task, already satisfactorily commenced, by a judicious use of ‘Slater’s patent.’

Then we have to consider very seriously how to arrange for the raiment that all men collect in such astounding quantities, and from which it is so desperately hard to part them, try how one will to get possession of venerable garments, which are of no possible use to the owners, but which would be of immense service to many unfortunates who all too often have not only no decent clothes, but do not possess any at all. This is however a vice all men develop sooner or later, and as they are made absolutely miserable by casting from them the oldest rag they may have, it is best in extreme cases to let them have their foolish way, taking care the moth does not enter into possession, and at the same time ensuring that they have not over-much space in which to keep their miserly delights. In a ‘combination’ room all shirts and underclothes can be kept in a charming piece of furniture Liberty sells, and which looks like a cabinet mounted on a couple of good deep drawers. It is made in plain white wood, clamped and ornamented with beaten iron and is very inexpensive indeed. In the deep drawers can be kept shirts and trousers, while there are plenty of smaller drawers in the cabinet part for socks, ties, handkerchiefs and other garments; coats being kept in a second cabinet, or else in a box-ottoman, or hung up behind the curtains of Wallace’s ‘P. T. C.’ wardrobe, which can be erected in any corner of the room and has nothing at all of the bedroom about its appearance.

I have seen a most admirable piece of furniture at Oetzmann’s, which he calls a desk washing-stand, and which would really be invaluable for such a room as this. When closed it is exactly like a desk with a flat top, and could be used as such in the day time most conveniently, but the top must not be laden with odds-and-ends, books, paperboxes or similar encumbrances. These should all be in one of Shoolbred’s capital little cupboard tables; another of these, by the way, being procured for the boots and shoes in wear. These cupboards would hold three or four pairs of each, as they have a division-shelf inside, and though I know starvation is suggested to the ordinary male, to whom such small provision of foot-gear is indeed nothing short of pauperism, I venture to suggest that it is sufficient for every day, and that the rest of the stock can live in a proper boot cupboard in some other locality, which can easily be found if the house-mistress is clever and able to see at once the utmost capacity of the special rooms which are available for such a purpose. Indeed, a properly-made boot-cupboard can stand on one side of quite a narrow passage, and would never be noticed; for it could be either the proper one Wallace makes on purpose for boots, or else be formed merely

by placing three narrow shelves, one above the other, the top shelf enamelled the colour of the paint in that special passage, and the whole concealed from view by a double serge curtain, nailed along the top shelf with ornamental nails. This curtain must not be run on a rod, for it is no trouble to lift it; while if it be on a rod, it will be always out of place, and leave the boots and shoes on view in the most embarrassing manner. The contents of the shelves can be kept from dust by nailing Holland on the shelves of a sufficient width to fold over the boots, and so keep them quite safely from any undue accumulation of dust, while the top of the outside shelf can be used for ornaments. But the fewer of these there are in any passage the better, especially in a small house; one does not require more dust traps than one is absolutely obliged to have lest the place should appear barren and devoid of prettiness and attractive plenishings.

The over-mantel must serve as a toilet-glass, and this arrangement I personally prefer to any other, especially in the winter; but if the husband shaves—as it seems to me so many more men do nowadays than formerly—despite the hateful influenza, fogs and other trifles born of the end of the century, a regular shaving-glass can be set for him when the room is put ready for him at night; this can be removed to the bathroom during the day and the room need not give it a home then on any pretext whatever!

It is an excellent thing to have instead of either the ottoman or the courting settee a sofa-bed which resembles a couch by day, and can be turned into a regular bed at night, for often such a bed can be most useful. I like the ‘grasshopper’ couch, which I have only seen at Hamilton’s, at Ship Street in Brighton, but this has no provision for the bed-clothes. These could be placed quite well in a drawer made under the couch; or Shoolbred has a species of convertible box-ottoman which would perhaps be best, as the bed-clothes could be quite well placed there during the day. Yet another cheaper method would be to purchase one of the folding beds with wire mattresses complete, sold by Story & Triggs for about 18s. 6d. These could have the extra mattress and pillows put into frilled cretonne covers all day, the bed-clothes being folded and put under the mattress comfortably during the same period.

Of course, a deep cretonne flounce should be placed round the frame of the bed, which under these circumstances would look like an ordinary low broad sofa. The bed should be pushed against the wall, against which pillows and cushions should be placed, and this would make a species of back, against which it would be possible to lean most comfortably. Given this, the desk washing-stand, and two or three low and comfortable chairs, and I think little else is necessary.

If much sewing has to be done, a little work-table can always be brought here from any other larger room, for there are plenty to be had now which hold a great deal of work, and yet can be carried by one hand. I have seen one specially good table the top of which is deep and is fitted for all kinds of sewing, while the under tray has a bag-like top of sateen or tapestry drawn together by strings, and this, I am assured, is invaluable for holding socks and other garments which require mending and overhauling by materfamilias herself. I am no ‘stitchist,’ and I do not think I ever possessed a thimble since my very earliest schoolroom days, and even then it was more often lost than available for its purpose, and I can most certainly say that I never had the smallest desire to know how to sew, but there are heaps of women who love to work, and of course there are more still who are obliged to do it and take it as a matter of course. And if the special mistress who may want to use the dressing room during the day is in any way devoted to her needle, she must have a good work-basket which she can remove when not in use, and which can stand in the bedroom or sitting-room when she does not require it. If the dressing-room is thus arranged I am sure it will add immensely to her comfort, for here she will have a refuge from everyone, and be able to be alone for some hours during the day, in a room where she will not be easily accessible and which will have nothing of the bedroom about it. That, by the way, is a great consideration; for let no one, not even in the smallest house, fall into the desperate error of sitting in the room in which she sleeps. I have twice had similar rooms where, of course, the bedroom portion has been carefully screened or curtained off, but unless one is a chronic invalid, such an arrangement is no good at all, and even if one is ill, and yet is able to get up, it is far better to go into a second room on the same floor, for no screen or curtain can give one any sense of real seclusion, and no one can have a room properly aired or cleaned unless it is left when one rises and not entered, save perhaps for dressing purposes, for the rest of the day. Therefore resist the temptation of the idea of a combined bed and sitting-room, unless you are reduced to one room only for all purposes, or are not a householder, or are a ‘paying guest’ (polite language for ‘lodger’) in someone else’s abode. Under these circumstances, Wallace’s ‘worker’s room’ must be sought after and found, and its arrangements of course, make any room habitable at once. If the dressing-room is used, as suggested, for a retreat, the bathroom must be arranged in such a way that the master of the house can dress there with comfort; but no garments of any sort must be kept there, neither must the linen closet be on any account near the hot-water apparatus which dominates the bathroom. If it is, the linen will become yellow and rotten, and in a small house it is much better to apportion the linen into so many special amounts for each room, and keep these portions in the rooms for which they are intended. An extra cupboard being put up somewhere: perhaps in the maids’ sitting-room, in which all table-linen can be kept. Great attention must be paid to the linen closet, and something should be bought for it every year without fail. As a rule I am no friend to ‘sales,’ and believe not one jot in the ‘ruinous sacrifices’ and ‘vast reductions’ which characterise them, but linen can often be purchased most wonderfully reduced in price at such times, more especially at Walpole Brothers in New Bond Street, and the house-mistress should always avail herself of these opportunities to keep up her stock, not laying in vast quantities, but keeping it up to its full strength. Unless this is done it is wonderful how soon a small stock of linen wears out and disappears, and one has the vexatious and expensive task of renewing the whole at once, which no one should ever be called upon for one moment to do.

So many people possess what is called a ‘hot closet’ in or near the bathroom, that these words of advice are not so out of place as they appear to be at first sight when writing about this special chamber; but the charms of this said ‘hot closet’ must be resisted if the linen is meant to wear, while great care must be taken to see that every single thing sent home from the laundress is properly aired, not only before it is put away, but also before it is taken into use. Damp clothes may kill or maim a person for life, and clothes may quite well become damp again after the first airing, more especially if they are kept in the ordinary cupboard of the very ordinary suburban residence.

Now if the bathroom should have to be used as a dressing-room, it must not have more furniture in it on that account than would be placed there under ordinary circumstances, but it should be papered with a really good tiled and varnished paper, and the wood-work should be enamelled ‘real ivory.’ I think Godfrey Giles’s ‘Mexican Tile’ paper simply perfect, but this is a little expensive; still, if it cannot be afforded, it will serve as a hint to go upon, and Mr Giles must be asked for something in the same admirable colouring, but in a less expensive make. At the same time a cheap paper will not do in a bathroom; if we use one, the steam from the hot water will soon destroy it and make it flabby and untidy; and we shall either have the expense of re-papering or have to endure the sight of a torn and spoiled wall, which will make us unhappy every time we enter the place. The ceiling in the bathroom should always be colour washed the same pale cream colour which is used for the cornice, and the floor should be entirely covered with cork carpet. If the window is overlooked at all, it should be filled in with cathedral glass in leaded squares, or else should be stippled all over; we should then have serge curtains to draw easily over the glass, but we should never put muslin here: it rots at once, and is always flabby and disagreeable to look at and touch, and no decorative considerations should allow us to put it where it must be so singularly out of place.

In writing of the bedrooms, I quite forgot to urge upon my readers the fact that they should never under any circumstances allow themselves to be talked into buying the detestable regulation towel-horse, which is always in the way, and can never under any circumstances be necessary, while no skill can make it anything save an eyesore. Its place can usually be taken by putting a brass rod on very small brackets at each end of the ordinary washing-stand, or on the wall itself should the washing-stand be a round or a corner one, while a good brass rod must be put on the bathroom wall for the same purpose, sufficiently out from the wall so that the wet towels do not touch the paper. Moreover in well-regulated houses, the bath towels should be dried by the housemaid at the fire, and each person should bring his or her towels into the bathroom when he or she is about to use it, and take them away again when the bathing is finished, the brass rod being used merely to hang up the bath blankets, though they also must be duly dried by the fire, and not be laid down on the floor except the bath be in the process of being used.

These bath blankets can be purchased ready embroidered of Mrs Hanbury-Jephson, Towcester, and, like every other thing, should be bought to harmonise with the colours already used in the decorations of the room. If we have some good brass hooks on the door on which to hang the raiment we either take off or are about to put on, and have also one good strong kitchen or Windsor chair, and a proper lavatory glass with a shelf to hold brushes and combs, we shall not require any more furniture here, for remember steam and heat spoil anything in the way of good wood or manufacture; but I do plead very hard for a lavatory basin, with hot and cold water laid on and a self-emptying basin. It does not seem very much to ask for, but I wonder how often such a contrivance is to be found in the orthodox small house? Yet it is in just such a residence that these necessities should be found, for if hot and cold water be easily get-at-able, what an amount of servants’ work is saved! No one minds washing his or her hands in the bathroom, while if there is no such convenience, the maids have continually to be placing hot water in the bedrooms and emptying basins, to say nothing of the fact that heavy jugs have to be lifted and replaced every time the bedroom washing-stand is used. This is a thing which is bad even for a strong servant and hurts a delicate woman in a serious way, therefore let us hope that lavatory basins will soon be found in all houses, small and big, and that the labour-making washing-stand may soon be numbered among the dead-and-gone mistakes of an ignorant past.

Another thing that no one seems able to rise above is the usual mahogany margin to any fixed bath, which always become disgracefully untidy, and makes the bathroom look squalid before it has scarcely been used. If the house belongs to the tenant, I should advise him ruthlessly to paint the mahogany with Aspinall’s bath enamel, which does not mark with water; if he is only a tenant, the margin should be covered at once with the American leather which has a woolly back, cut out and fixed to the shape. If this is not done, the expensive process of French polishing will have to be resorted to when the house is left; besides there is the fact to consider that the margin will always be an eyesore, because of the manner in which people will either rest the soap on it or put one foot up on it, or even sit on it, while they are drying themselves after their bath.

We should likewise always have plain, unpainted deal shelves put up for the hot-water cans in the bathroom; and if, as is the unsavoury case in many bathrooms, there is a housemaid’s sink there, the shelves should be put just over it, and should have gimlet holes in them for drainage; this will keep them from rotting, as no housemaid I ever met could be persuaded to dry a can before she put it down, and months of wet cans are guaranteed to spoil and rot the stoutest undrained shelf which I ever came across. Oh! if only every single person would know and learn each separate detail which goes to make up the perfect house and housekeeping, life would not be half as expensive, half as ‘sketchy’ and untidy as it now is in the vast majority of households, where people are content to jog along comfortably if things are just bearable, and where no preaching will, I fear, induce them to cultivate the twin talents of observation and regularity, which alone suffice to keep any house going in the way it most undoubtedly should go.

When the bathroom has been used it should be properly aired, and the moment it is quitted the housemaid should go in, throw up the window, top and bottom, and take away and dry the towels. If the weather is cold, the fire or gas must be kept going night and day to keep out the frost, and always the floor must be wiped over and the bath blankets hung up until they can be properly dried, then will the room remain nice much longer than it otherwise would. The mistress of the house herself must see that the bath is properly dried after use, and that the basin and housemaid’s sink are duly cleaned and disinfected. For even soapy water decays and smells, and drains that are used for nothing else can be as offensive, even if they are more innocent than others, about which lurk absolute and imperative danger. It is well to cover all outlets for water with very fine hair or wire netting. I personally prefer hair, as that is much finer than anything else. Then there is no chance of any drain being stopped up as nothing save water can pass through it. The sink basket sold by most ironmongers is a very good possession, and acts in much the same way, but the netting does just as well, and should be nailed across the housemaid’s sink about an inch above the bottom, and be erected just above the plug-hole in a lavatory basin, thus saving endless heartburnings, and endless sending for that fearsome creature, the regulation British plumber. There should be no portiÈre inside the bathroom door, but most certainly there should be one outside. It prevents sudden surprises, and, furthermore, conceals the room from passers by, should the door be left open, as is all too often the case, by either a careless maid, or a yet more careless user of the room!

There is one more aspect of the suburban villa to consider, I am sorry to say, and that is the one where there is neither a bathroom nor a room which can be adapted for the purpose, and where all baths have to be taken in the different rooms themselves. In such a house as this there must be large squares of American leather ready for use, to be covered in their turn by bath blankets, on which the bath itself can be placed. These would be for use in the bedrooms, and then the dressing-rooms must be used as dressing-rooms, and will allow of no compromise or other use at all. In this case, I very strongly advise a high dado of plain brown patternless linoleum or oil-cloth, having the paint the exact shade of the dado, above which can be either a good blue or yellow sanitary or tiled paper, while the floor must be covered entirely with plain brown cork carpet, on which one or two rugs can be placed, the inevitable bath-blanket being put under the bath itself, and the rugs put out of harm’s way for the time. These precautions will allow of the wondrous amount of splashing which invariably marks the progress of a man’s bath, while the furniture for such a room should be regular dressing-room furniture, removed as far as possible from the spot sacred to the bath. A good housemaid will carefully look over the furniture when she ‘does’ the room, and will rub off at once any marks of soapy water she may come across. But such excellent and conscientious maids are few and far between, except in the ‘highest circles,’ and they don’t inhabit Suburbia; therefore should every mistress cast an eye over every room once a day, and see for herself that the depredations of her husband, and all too often those of her visitors too, are carefully eliminated.

It used to be difficult, nay well nigh impossible, to buy really good and suitable dressing-room furniture, and I have had many a painful hunt after wardrobes which were not evidently meant for the raiment of females alone; but now all is altered; and should we be able to afford it, we can buy an admirable wardrobe at Wallace’s which has a place for everything a man can possibly require, and this with a boot-cupboard, an ingenious combination toilet-table and washing-stand, a couple of chairs, and a comfortable basket chair, form the most perfect equipment a man can want, whether he reside in the suburbs or in any other part of the civilised globe. But he must have no room for unending hoarding, else will the heart of the house-mistress fail her by reason of the fearful amount of rubbish he will accumulate, and from which nothing will induce him to part!