I have constantly recommended the use of our native American woods for
panelings and wall furniture, because we have both the beautiful woods
of our new world and tried and proven furniture of the old world, and
what couldn't we achieve with such material available? Why do people
think of a built-in cupboard as being less important than a detached
piece of furniture? Isn't it a braggart pose, a desire to show the
number of things you can buy? Of course it is a very foolish pose, but
it is a popular one, this display of objects that are ear-marked
"expensive."
It is very easy to build cupboards on each side of a fireplace, for
instance, making the wall flush with the chimney-breast. This is always
good architectural form. One side could have a desk which opens beneath
the glass doors, and the other could have cupboards, both presenting
exactly the same appearance when closed. Fitted corner cupboards,
triangular or rounded, are also excellent in certain dining rooms.
Wall tables, or consoles, may be of the same wood as the woodwork or of
marble, or of some dark polished wood. There are no more useful pieces
of furniture than consoles, and yet we only see them in great houses.
Why? Because they are simple, and we haven't yet learned to demand the
simple. I have had many interesting old console-tables of wrought iron
support and marble tops copied, and I have designed others that were
mere semi-circles of white painted wood supported by four slender legs,
but whether they be marble or pine the effect is always simple.
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