Becoming A City: Interiors

For those just managing to survive, it was enough to have the basic comforts and a few - if any - decorative elements.  For those with the means, home decoration books, magazines, newspaper columns, and shop window displays provided inspiration for the interior designs of the day.  

In contrast to the darker and heavily cluttered Victorian look, with the new century, and new nation, came well-lit interiors, painted in fresher, lighter hues, including woodwork.  Large windows were dressed with muslin or lace curtains, which replaced the heavier fabric of the Victorian era.  

The availability of Wunderlich pressed-metal panels and trimmings meant more homes could feature decorative elements that were previously achieved with plasterwork and featured in the best rooms of the best houses.  Whilst ceilings were painted white or cream, pressed-metal elements could have part of their embossed patterns highlighted, for instance flowers and foliage painted in soft, naturalistic colours. 

Bright, patterned wallpapers, or stencilling on painted surfaces could provide harmonious or bold colour and design to a room.  Sitting room walls might be painted in a single colour, with a paper or stencilled frieze just below the ceiling. 

The dado was losing favour in more fashionable circles, but was still common in many hallways, parlours, sitting and dining rooms.  Dados were either achieved with a dado paper or stenciled above a darker section of wall paint.  Another alternative, still popular at the time, was lining boards around 1.2. metres high with a dado moulding running along the top and often above that the wall was finished with hessian and paper on backing boards.

Bedrooms were painted in plain colours.  A light, fresh wallpaper could also be chosen.  If they were lined in board, they might receive a coat of colour wash, but were often left to darken as they aged.

Favoured paint colours, for all rooms during this period, included dusty-pink, buttercup, slate-blue, china-blue, old rose, eau-de-Nil, old gold, ivory, white, off-white, and all shades of cream.

Walls would still be decorated with mirrors, photographs, craft works and specimen shelves.