But in these days of ours nothing in the way of amelioration is impossible; and, indeed, were I given _carte blanche_ I would undertake to make the most hideous, square, ‘impossible’ house a bower of beauty. That sounds very egotistical, but I really do not mean it to be so; I only should like to impress upon my readers that never before has so much attention been given to decoration of houses as is given now, and that by the aid of carefully planned woodwork and by using arches on the plan of the Moorish fretwork first introduced by Liberty, a square room can be made picturesque, and a long narrow passage pleasant to contemplate, by simply putting up a series of slight arches, or else by curtaining off portions of it by aid of simple wooden partitions, such as are illustrated on page 25. I am very proud indeed of this sketch, as it was made from a brilliant inspiration of mine for a house where the instant one opened the door leading into the street, one was confronted by the stairs on one hand, and a long uninteresting straight passage on the other; and I was indeed pleased when I suddenly saw that a couple of arches could be cut out from what might have been a partition placed along the foot of the stairs from one side of the hall to the other, and that the arch at the stair foot could be curtained by a double curtain or pair of curtains, which would fall together when anyone raised it to go upstairs; while the other arch could be draped either to the left or right with a heavy piece of material according to the position of the wall, or whether there is anything in the way of a cupboard or door to be concealed.
Treated in this way, the ordinary tiresome little hall of a London house is metamorphosed, at once, and, as the wooden framework can be so arranged that it can be screwed into the wall and so be made removable at will, I am quite sure this notion of mine will ‘catch on,’ as the Yankees say, more especially as Messrs. Wallace & Co., of Curtain Road, E.C., are willing to erect it ready painted and varnished at about 1_l._ a foot; that is to say, if the
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Hall Arrangement.]
passage were six feet wide the arches would cost about 6_l._, if twelve 12_l._, and so on. The arches could be enamelled to match the hall decorations, and the curtains could be of some heavy material like the ‘Elvira’ tapestry, or the beautiful jute velvet or Bokhara plush, which is undoubtedly _the_ material for draping, while even the humbler serge is not to be despised; but in this case the curtain in the stair arch should be made double and very full, a great deal of the appearance of this ‘notion’ depending on full graceful curtains and proper draperies.