A table or two for books, papers, magazines, &c., should be provided in the cooling room. The provision of lounges, &c., must depend upon the design of the room, and whether nooks or angles are available for their accommodation. Little wooden or metal tripod tables must be placed by the heads of the couches (Fig. 21, B).
Section of Benches in Hot Rooms and in Cooling Room Divans.]
The chairs in the hot rooms must be designed upon some such lines as at C and D, whereat are shown an iron, and a wooden, framed chair. Beechen frames are best, and the seat formed of rather closely-woven canvas fixed at top and bottom and hanging in a curve. A few of these seats should always be provided in the hot rooms. Movable wooden _benches_ are constructed of beech, oak, or well-seasoned yellow deal, as at E. The head end is best raised as shown. Very carefully-seasoned wood should be employed, for all joinery purposes, in the hot rooms.
In the boot room, the pigeon-holes must not be forgotten, and a cushioned seat, perhaps, for taking off boots and shoes. A shelf or shelves for linen checks is useful in this position.
Sometimes the floor of the calidarium is carpeted all over, but _strips_ of matting or carpet are better. The hot laconicum is best carpeted throughout. The tepidarium should have strips of carpet where the bathers must necessarily tread. In some baths it is the custom to provide, instead of carpet, felt sandals for use in the hot rooms. For similar reasons to the carpeting--the non-conduction of heat--fine white felting is sometimes placed in strips along the marble benches, as at Fig. 20. Of the Indian matting for a portion of the walls above the benches, I have already spoken.
In the shampooing rooms, little blocks of wood shaped as at E, Fig. 5, are required as head-rests. They should be about 12 by 5 by 4 in., and hollowed to fit the head.
[Footnote 3: I do not know of any building--bath or otherwise, civil or domestic--in this country where the true spirit of Oriental colour decoration has been grasped. One of the chief principles which seems to have been missed is that in real Saracenic art the colours are employed in very small portions only, and no colour becomes insubordinate to the general effect.]