Chapter IX: Part III: , pp. 75-98. United States Government Printing Office (5)

The hall table need not be of the conventional console type. When wall space permits, any long narrow table will serve, as will a round or square English card table, with the half-top either flat or raised against the wall. In the very small hall a large nest of tables can be used as a small console.

In many halls a lowboy or chest of drawers is decorative and useful. Other possible items include the decorative cabinet, small tables, flower stands, floor or banjo clock, screen, lamps, desk, love seat, radio, and cane or umbrella rack. Always check the possibilities of the hall in a house you furnish.

The general methods discussed in relation to piece and group sales of living room merchandise apply equally to the hall. In addition it should be noted that it is practically impossible to suggest the proper choice of hall furnishings in the absence of measured drawings, since both the number of pieces and their size are more definitely determined by floor and wall space than is the case in any other room. Every sale of hall furniture of any importance should be followed by a call at the house as soon after delivery as possible. If the new furniture does not fit the room, corrections may be made promptly, before any ill-will develops. Moreover, in many cases additional merchandise can be suggested and sold.

SECURING HOSPITABLE DINING ROOM ATMOSPHERE

The dining room should have an atmosphere of cheerfulness and hospitality both under natural and artificial lighting; and since it is occupied but three times a day at most, and for short periods only, its decorative treatment may have more "snap" than would be agreeable in the living room.

SECURING A HOSPITABLE ATMOSPHERE

To produce an atmosphere of cheerfulness and hospitality, emphasize:

Warm or light pastel colors particularly in the walls.

Ample light, properly controlled.

Curved lines, and curvilinear shapes to soften hard austere
outlines of case pieces and windows.

Gay, contrasting colors in ornamental details.

Variety and originality.

Cheerfulness and animation will be increased by increasing the diversity of the room treatment through contrasts in hue, tone, line, form, and texture, within the limits permitted by the requirement of unity and harmony. This consideration demands special care in the dining room, because the important pieces of furniture usually are matched, with a resulting loss in diversity which must be made up in the other elements of the room.

Here we have the chief single reason for the great number of monotonous, uninteresting dining rooms. To the skillful salesman this will suggest _(a)_ a sound reason for pushing sales of such accessories as mirrors and pictures, tier tables for plants and accessories, and for plant stands; _(b)_ an approach for the sale of broken suites and unmatched pieces. Many women feel that their dining rooms cannot possibly be correctly furnished unless they are equipped with a matched suite. This is not always true. Many distinctive dining rooms have been furnished with harmonious, unmatched pieces.

DINING ROOM WALLS

The same principles and processes discussed under living room wall treatments apply to the decoration of the dining room, subject to the qualification that for the reasons noted above, the dining room walls often may have more striking patterns and sharper contrasts.

Scenic landscape or other highly decorative papers may be effective in the dining room, although they would not serve as a living room background.

What was said concerning the living room will afford the basis for judging the proper relation of walls to the style of furniture. Highly figured walls do not require choice of plain dining furniture, or vice versa.

The general principles of harmony govern the proper relation of walls to floor covering. Polychromatic walls require that two or more of the colors be repeated (not necessarily accurately matched) on the floor. The floor covering should be somewhat lower in tone, and characterized neither by too little vigor or boldness of drawing to harmonize with the walls, nor too much. Choice among these would depend upon personal taste and the degree of sunniness and warmth required in the rug in order to bring the room total up to the level desired by the buyer.

DINING ROOM FLOOR COVERINGS

The dining room may be treated with a room-size floor covering matching or harmonizing with the living room rug or linoleum or with a single large rug. Some housewives prefer to leave the floor bare, except for two or three small rugs. With figured linoleum the practice is unobjectionable, except for the loss of the sense of physical comfort and hospitality created by pile carpets under foot. With hardwood floors it is open to the objections that it is inhospitable; that it is too weak in a decorative sense to support the weight of the relatively large and heavy furniture; and that it makes the room seem thin and poor, mars the harmony between walls and floor, and prevents a convincing and satisfying distribution of color.

As compared with the living room, the dining room is relatively small and its furniture relatively large, striking, and uniform. This means that the floor covering must be adapted in scale and emphasis of pattern and coloring to sustain the load of this heavy furniture, and thus to prevent an effect of stiffness and spottiness in the room; and that it must have plenty of pattern and color when the other elements of the room are deficient in variety.

A single rug should be large enough to permit free movement of the chairs without letting the back legs touch the bare floor. In general, the rug should just clear the front legs of furniture placed against the wall. In small rooms, however, it is desirable to have the rug come to within 12 or 15 inches of the wall in order to increase the room's apparent size.

DINING ROOM WINDOW TREATMENTS

Window shades, Venetian blinds, glass curtains, and draperies are desirable in the dining room. Their selection is governed by the general considerations discussed under living room window treatments, page 182.

When a dining room has but one window or a single group of windows, there is some danger that the draperies may give the room an effect of spottiness and lack of balance unless care is taken to repeat the color of the draperies in some way on two or three of the other walls. With plain draperies, touches of the same hue should so appear, in pictures, wall panel, screen, sideboard decorations, or some similar device. With figured draperies containing several colors, at least one of the important colors should be thus repeated. (See fig. 29, page 130.)

DINING ROOM LIGHTING

The dining room should be lighted by direct light, released through a ceiling fixture. The light from this source can be turned off when candles are used; but the ceiling will be bare and unpleasing without this central point of interest, and most families prefer not to dine by candlelight alone.

The fixture should have sufficient height to keep the glare of light from the eyes of diners. The effect will be most agreeable if the light is released through several globes of low wattage, and if each of the globes is shaded in such a way as to keep the table in an arc of slightly higher illumination than the rest of the room.

Side lights are effective as auxiliaries, but not as the principal source of light.

Photograph by Grignon.

Figure 40.--Many features of this eighteenth century dining room grouping make it adaptable to contemporary homes. It is scaled to fit a small-size dining room; it is simple in design and it provides valuable storage space in its compact design. The pedestal legs on the table carry through the Duncan Phyfe theme of this suite. The corner cabinet is decorative and practical and the credenza-type buffet adds the necessary weight to the grouping.]

DINING ROOM FURNITURE

Usually the dining room adjoins the living room, and it may be assumed that the same style will be carried through, although not imperatively so. Any eighteenth century style--Hepplewhite, Sheraton, or Chippendale can be used with any eighteenth century style or with Colonial or Duncan Phyfe furniture, providing wood, textures, and fabrics have unity, similarity, color likenesses, or pleasing contrasts. (See fig. 40.) "Modern" in walnut living room pieces will look well with walnut dining room in contemporary design. Maple living room furnishings look well with Early American or French Provincial dining room furniture. It is easier to combine single styles than several styles harmoniously. Frequently, however, the most interesting arrangements are from several styles put together well.

Try out, on the floor, in idle moments, a Sheraton dining table with Chippendale or Duncan Phyfe chairs. The scale may be right or wrong--your judgment should tell you. Naturally, the store finds it easier to sell "sets," but should you run into difficult customers, this knowledge of interesting combinations may "save" a sale.

Courtesy American Walnut Manufacturers' Association.

Figure 41.--A living-dining room suite. Designed by Gilbert Rhode, New York, N. Y. Folding dinette table with one drop leaf. Photograph shows view open, table set for four, table moved away from wall.]

Tell customers that, although they may buy six chairs, it is not only good taste from a decorative standpoint but also from a practical point of view to have a host and hostess chair. These are upholstered chairs with tall backs and are used at the head and the foot of the table. The host chairs either should match the draperies or harmonize with the color scheme of the room. Many times host and hostess chairs upholstered in a print, matching the draperies are cheerful and decorative. Stripes are popular as upholstered seat covers on dining room chairs, but plain coverings in damask, leather, or tapestry are also in good taste. Small figured patterns are also used.

COMBINATION LIVING ROOM AND DINING ROOM

Many of the new homes are being built with living room and dining room combined into one unit or with a large living room and very small dining room. For the single-unit rooms, a happy choice is an extension or a gate-leg table and a low chest of drawers for linen which may be used either in the living room or in dining room. Small dining room tables which may be extended to seat six or eight may be arranged in front of a bay window or along the wall at one side of the room in keeping with the general room harmony. The dining chairs are placed near the table, when not in use, and may be used as bridge chairs or auxiliary seating equipment. (See fig. 41.)

Photograph by Grignon.

Figure 42.--A contemporary dining room grouping made of birch and finished in a light wheat tone. Simply carved with a modernized wheat motif, this grouping relies upon its simplicity for smartness and distinction. The chairs are upholstered in a rose-colored, leather-like fabric and trimmed with small bronze nail heads. The legs of the table and chairs taper gracefully and eliminate the box-like features usually associated with contemporary design. The credenza-type buffet and china have pulls of matching wood.]

Dinette furniture, especially made for the dinette, offers a variety of selection and need not necessarily be in keeping with the living room scheme. Light woods are popular for dinettes, maple, oak, birch, and pine being popular for this purpose. When the dinette is replaced by a larger dining room ensemble the dinette set may be used in the breakfast room or in the kitchen. Small size china cabinets and buffets accompany many of the dinette sets.

Junior dining room sets are small scale dining room ensembles and are usually shown in fine cabinet woods in styles found in large size dining room ensembles. The junior dining room sets differ from the dinette sets in that they are usually not as informal as the dinette and are designed for the small-size dining room rather than for the dinette.

ENSEMBLE SELLING

Sales of living room merchandise fall into two classes: _Piece sales_, involving the selection of one or more pieces for use in a room already partially furnished; and _ensemble sales_, involving the selection of most or all of the furnishings necessary to equip completely a room, or even a house.

These two types of sales present different problems and require the use of different methods. However, they are alike in two important respects. In all of them the self-interest of the buyer is the determining factor; and competition in one or more forms is inevitable.

THREE FORMS OF COMPETITION

The first and inescapable form of competition is a competition among conflicting desires in the mind of the average buyer. In order to buy one thing, she must give up something else. Furniture dealers and salesmen habitually assume that the woman who enters a furniture store and asks, for example, for an easy chair, has already decided to buy one. The fact is that the customer is often merely weighing the satisfactions likely to come to her through possession of a chair against those offered by other articles or services also under consideration. In this case you must lead her to desire a chair more than she desires anything else before you can sell any chair, however large your stock or low your prices.

Unhappily, much furniture advertising is calculated to give the reading public a false impression of the necessary price levels of good furniture. It may be that you can please your customer with a chair at the price she has tentatively decided to pay. If not, you must please her in a more costly piece. Here you run up against new competition; for however able your demonstration of quality may be, your customer is certain to weigh that additional item of cost against the additional articles that she must give up in order to buy the chair. Hence something more than a convincing demonstration of the intrinsic worthiness of the piece will be necessary to complete the sale.

Finally, there is a third form of competition--that among different furniture stores for the same sale. However well the customer may like your chair at the price asked, it is natural for her to try to find something just as good at a lower price, or more pleasing at the same price, since that is her habit in buying other commodities.

She knows that there are other good stores nearby, with scores of easy chairs to show her, and that they are advertising bargains and holding out inducements to get her trade. You cannot prove to her in advance that she will only waste her time by looking further, and any arguments, pleadings, or high-pressure methods designed to keep her from doing so are quite likely to have precisely the opposite effect.

WHAT SHOPPERS REALLY WANT

At this point a surprisingly large percentage of salesmen weaken. Knowing that it is impossible to oppose successfully the self-interest of the buyer, they can think of nothing else to do. In point of fact there is nothing else to do in a great many cases, _except to make every possible effort to create an impression sufficiently powerful to bring the buyer back after her shopping tour is over_. In many other cases, however, there is a way to meet competition, if you can develop the ability to use it.

The woman who wants an easy chair, a sofa, a rug, or a desk, also wants something else which is far more important to her, namely, a more satisfying room. She doesn't tell you about it, but she really hopes that the new piece under consideration will add more beauty, comfort, distinction, or impressiveness to her room.

Get her to thinking of her room as a whole, with the new article a part of that whole. Lead her to believe that the desirable qualities which she seeks will appear in it as a result of your help in selection and arrangement. In other words, appeal to her self-interest by offering her something highly important which she knows in advance cannot be found elsewhere.

THE "ROOM PICTURE" METHOD

To overcome the inevitable competition of opposing desires, and to reduce or eliminate shopping for variety of selection or price, make your customer see the piece under consideration not as an individual unit, but as an integral part of her room. As long as she is permitted to think that she is buying a chair and nothing but a chair, she will be concerned with a multitude of details, most of which are of no real importance,[27] and will be strongly disposed to keep on looking until she has exhausted every possibility of finding something completely satisfactory in all of these details.

Transfer her interest to her room as a whole, with your chair as a part of it, and you immediately rob most of these details of their earlier importance in her mind. Paint a sufficiently attractive mental picture of her room as it will become with your chair in it, and she may buy the picture, and the chair as an essential element of it. She will not care to shop further for a better looking or cheaper chair, in the fear that even if one could be found the picture would be spoiled.

THE SHIFT FROM UNIT TO ENTIRE ROOM

Possibly you have had the experience of losing important sales to men working in stores far smaller than your own or to decorators with no more physical equipment than could be condensed into a small office or studio. Why should you have lost such sales when you enjoy the great advantages of ample stocks, lower prices, better terms, and the prestige of a well-known and financially solid house? Obviously, because the other man had the skill and the power to _shift your customer's interest and desire from merchandise, as such to what merchandise will do_.

In order to make a normal sale by means of this "room-picture" method, you will require:

1. Full knowledge of your own merchandise from the technical and
artistic aspects.

2. Considerable knowledge of the customer's room and its important
elements.

3. Adequate knowledge of decorative principles, including the
emotional values of light, color, texture, line, and proportion.

4. A little knowledge of the decorative accessories--pictures,
potteries, glass, embroideries, and the many small things
necessary to save a room from bareness, and to give it color,
snap, and intimacy.

It is desirable but by no means necessary that you have these accessories for sale; however, you must know how to talk about them, because it is impossible to make a living room genuinely attractive and satisfying without them.

WHY CUSTOMERS ARE DISAPPOINTED

Few furniture men appreciate the extent to which sales volume is restricted by insistence upon selling parts instead of finished products. Not only is furniture displayed as a pharmacist displays drugs in the rows of bottles on his shelves; but also customers are asked to do their own compounding and to accept full responsibility for the results.

Many salesmen habitually assure the buyer that her room will be comfortable and beautiful after they have placed in it a sofa, two chairs, an end table, one floor lamp, and a radio. Of course it isn't, and disappointment results. She sees her room as bare, thin, spotty, unhomelike, and unlovely. She knows something is wrong, but she is without knowledge to correct it.

Ensemble selling and complete room settings are the home-furnishings industry's modern answer. Unless she is able to arrange the major pieces of her furniture in a manner that will show them to the best advantage, unless she has at least the requisites in the smaller pieces, lamps, and other accessories, she may never get the full satisfaction that she should for the money she has spent in the furniture store. It is the salesperson's duty to fit his customer's purchases into a complete room or home.

NATURALNESS ESSENTIAL IN ENSEMBLE SELLING

In ensemble selling, don't lecture, talk about yourself, or appear in any way to be airing your knowledge. Simply talk in an off-hand manner, as if you were dealing in commonplaces as familiar to your customer as to yourself. The important matter is to learn promptly enough about her room to enable you to link some of its characteristics with the characteristics of your merchandise, so that as you point out the many desirable features of her room, and the perfect way in which your furniture harmonizes with and emphasizes these features, she is brought to the conviction that she should have the room just as you have pictured it, and therefore must have your furniture, without regard to what other stores may have to offer.

This method is not too easy when one first begins to employ it, nor should it be used with every customer. It will interest a surprisingly large percentage of customers, and it often will result in a sale in situations where all other methods fail. It is planned selling, which, based on the enlightened self-interest of the buyer, helps her to buy, and so smoothes the path before her that she may purchase her needs room by room.

SELLING THE COMPLETE ROOM OR COMPLETE HOUSE ENSEMBLE

Many important sales will involve the complete room ensemble or the complete house ensemble both of which are used to the great advantage of the store and of the public. Usually such sales are in sight long enough in advance to permit you to study and measure the rooms. In important sales of this kind, try to get the head of the house in for the first showing. You will probably be unable to close the sale without him, and he will be likely to save your time as well as to increase the amount of the sale. Do not overlook the fact that it is important to see the house after the sale is made, preferably when the goods are being installed. In this way you guard against possible disappointment, ensure good will, and often find room for more merchandise.

There are three general methods for dealing with these room sales. The choice between them will depend upon your judgment as to the probable reactions of the customer.

Setting Up a Complete Room in Advance.

Measure the room accurately, locating doors and windows; study the room, and so far as possible the disposition, tastes, and means of the buyers; select harmonious furnishings for the entire room, usually with one or more substitutes for the most important pieces; lay out the room with chalk, or with a chalk line or string tacked to the floor, with recesses for the windows and openings for the doors in their exact locations; set up the room with the merchandise selected, keeping the substitutes at one side for emergency use; arrange to have the customers call by appointment; and show the whole setting, making your talk while they examine it.

If you know the people, and feel sure that the total cost of the room is not far above what they expect to spend, this is a good method. Otherwise there is some danger that they will dislike one or more single elements of the room, and without giving you the opportunity to correct them, reject the whole setting; and also that they may ask for the total price before a real desire for the setting has been aroused, find it unexpectedly high, and refuse to pay it.

Building Up Room With Customers.

Proceed as above to the point where the room is laid out; but instead of actually placing the furniture keep it at one side; explain to the buyers the lay-out of the room, locating the doors and windows; have the furnishings brought in and placed by porters one piece at a time, starting with the floor covering. This will give you the chance to prepare their minds for each piece, and to sell your picture as they see it grow before their eyes; to make immediate substitutions in case one of your selections fails to please; and to reduce the price hazard.

For example, they may ask the price of some important piece such as the rug or sofa, or you may quote it in the course of your talk. If there is a quick objection, you will be able to reassure them by a statement that something of similar appearance but lower price can be substituted later without marring the total effect.

Laying Out Room to Scale.

Proceed at the outset as in above; but instead of laying out the actual room, prepare a scale drawing on a regular floor plan, to the scale of a ¼ inch to 1 foot, or a large drawing to the scale of 1 inch, to 1 foot. Make drawings or symbols of the furniture to be used to the same scale, cut them out, and fix them to the floor plan by means of thumb tacks. This will permit shifting them about in case of question as to the arrangement of the room. Have the furnishings assembled, and brought in by porters as needed and arranged in small intimate groups, if space permits. Otherwise carry the drawing board with you as you take your customers through the stock from one of the proposed pieces to the next.

This method is necessary in small stores where it is practically impossible to spare floor space for a display lasting several hours. It can be made somewhat more effective by drawing in the four-wall elevations and indicating the space relationships of furniture and walls.

In the ordinary ensemble sale where no advance preparation is possible, quick thinking and smooth action are essential. Such a sale may start anywhere, but ordinarily you will start it where your stock is most complete, or where for any other reason you expect to encounter minimum resistance. Many stores have a series of model rooms, or several series furnished completely at different price levels. A visit to these rooms will give the salesman a fair idea, of what his customers consider necessary, what they are prepared to pay, and where to start the sale.

QUESTIONS

_1. What methods do you follow in reducing to a minimum the kinds of competition a salesman must meet in selling furniture for the living room? dining room?_

_2. A salesman asks his customer: "Just what kind of studio couch do you have in mind?" Why is this bad practice?_

_3. Why do you use a floor-plan idea for getting a picture of the background which has brought a customer to your store?_

_4. Suppose a customer seems determined to purchase a piece of furniture which you know is not suited for her use. Do you discourage her at the risk of losing the sale?_

_5. Suggest three or four good ways to interest your customer in rugs for the living room._

_6. Few customers are able to afford use of the most costly furnishings. How do you proceed to convince the average woman that certain essential harmonies actually cost nothing whatever in money?_

_7. Suppose you are consulted by a young couple soon to be married. They ask you for suggestions for furnishing their five-room apartment. How do you proceed?_

_8. How does customer age present a problem in selling house furnishings?_

_9. Why is it not good practice to ask your customer the style of her living room?_

_10. Work out a plan for furnishing an unattractive hall in the home of a well-to-do couple, and outline steps you would take to call your ideas to their attention?_

SUGGESTED READING LIST

BURROWS, THELMA M. _Successful Home Furnishing._ Manual Arts Press,
Peoria, Ill. 1938.