Dining Room Console Part 3
A Console Is Decorative
THE dining room should not serve, as it so often does, as a show room for cut glass, china, curios and souvenirs. This is one of the reasons why the console or the pair of consoles, when space permits, and a quaint old lowboy to hold the linen have a better place in the decorative plan of the dining room than the buffet or sideboard. The objects placed on the console should be few in number, and the temptation to overcrowd it is less than it would be with the more spacious and clumpsy sideboard.
Whatever is hung above the console should be carefully selected with respect to shape and proportion. If a mirror is chosen it must be hung vertically instead of horizontally. If the console is a long and narrow one, a decorative grouping of objects that will be found attractive would be a pair of candle-sticks, with very tall candles on either end, a silver cup or dish of fruit in the center, and on the wall above a glass framed mirror of correct proportions. To make the grouping still more symmetrical simple side brackets for the lights may be placed on each side of the mirror.
However, much we try to avoid pairs in all the other rooms of the house, the dining room is one place where paired chairs, consoles or mirrors give a feeling of satisfaction and a note of balance and dignity that is needed. Not only does the paired arrangement of consoles serve admirably as a decorative grouping, but it provides the additional space needed for serving without encroaching to any degree upon the floor space. A well balanced grouping is formed with a Queen Anne serving table, rush-bottomed fiddle back chairs on either side and on the wall above a mirror with a carved broken pediment. The only objects on the serving table to complete the balanced effect are two well proportioned candelabra.
A painted console, with painted chairs to match on either side, may be appropriately combined with a flower painting to form an attractive group and besides being simple and in good taste is very decorative.
In a house where the woodwork of the dining room is stained brown a set of furniture of brown stained oak following the Jacobean design would be charming. Cane panels introduced in the sideboard and chairs will give marked individuality to the various pieces. Rough walls and printed linen or cretonne for the hangings would be a suitable background for this set.
Part 3 of a 1924 magazine article on choosing Dining Room Furniture
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