Arts & Crafts  / Craftsman

Interiors

Inside the Craftsman Home

In a complete departure from Victorian interior decoration, Arts and Crafts advocates frowned on the display of wealth and costly collectibles. Rather than buying objects of obvious or ascribed value, the homeowner was told to look for simplicity and craftsmanship: “A luxury of taste substituting for a luxury of cost.”

Walls were often wood-paneled to chair-rail or plate-rail height. Burlap in soft earth tones was suggested for the wall area above, or used in wood-battened panels where paneling was absent. Landscape friezes and abstract stenciling above a plate rail were often pictured. Dulled, greyed shades and earth tones, even pastels, were preferred to strong colors. Plaster with sand in the finish coast was suggested. Woodwork could be golden oak or oak brown-stained to simulate old English woodwork, or stained dull black or bronze green. Painted softwood was also becoming popular, especially for bedrooms.

Today, the abstracted pattern of William Morris wallpapers and textiles are used frequently in American Craftsman houses—and they do look very good with dark woodwork, their swirling designs providing a lovely complement to rectilinear rooms and woodwork. At the time, however, Morris designs were more likely to be used in Colonial Revival interiors. Walls in Craftsman Homes were more likely sand-finished, troweled, or stenciled, and textiles were plain, stenciled, or home-embroidered. During today’s revival, geometric and highly stylized designs are most popular: Native American motifs, gingko leaves. Leafing through old copies of The Craftsman magazine, though, you’ll see floral patterns. The original interiors were much more eclectic than those of the revival, which are quite beautiful and tasteful.

Built-ins and custom touches were prevalent, from ironing-board cupboards to phone niches, breakfast nooks and window seats to sideboards and fireplaces with artistic tile or copper accents. Writers advocated the “harmonious use” of furnishings. Oak woodwork demanded oak furniture, supplemented with reed, rattan, wicker, or willow in natural, grey, or pastels. Mahogany pieces were thought best against a backdrop of woodwork painted white. (Bright white was used most often for bathroom trim; “white” could also signify cream, yellow, ivory, or pale grey.) A large table with a reading lamp was the centerpiece of the living room in these days before TV.

Restraint was the universal cry of good taste. Clutter was out—“clutter” being a relative term. Pottery, Indian baskets, Chinese and Japanese wares, vases, and Arts and Crafts hangings were suggested to satisfy the collector instinct. More affluent households might display Rookwood pottery, small Tiffany pieces, hammered copper bowls, and decorative items from Liberty and Co. A watercolor landscape or two, executed by the amateur painter of the family, was the ultimate Arts and Crafts expression for the home.