Parlors were
used for eating and sitting only, but not for sleeping. Closets
were rooms off bedrooms in which one could read and write on a
writing table, and store one's books, papers, maps, calendar,
medals, collections, rarities, and oddities. Sometimes there was a
study room or breakfast room as well. A gentleman used his study
not only to read and to write, but to hold collections of early
chronicles, charters, deeds, copied manuscripts, and coins that
reflected the budding interest in antiquarianism; and to study his
family genealogy, for which he had hired someone to make an
elaborate diagram. He was inclined to have a few classical,
religious, medical, legal, and political books there. Rooms were
more spacious than before and contained oak furniture such as
enclosed cupboards, cabinets, buffets from which food could be
served, tables, chairs and benches with backs and cushions,
sometimes with arms, lidded chests for storing clothes and linens,
and occasionally chests of drawers or wardrobes, either hanging or
with shelves, for clothes. Chests of drawers developed from a
drawer at the bottom of a wardrobe. Carpeting covered tables,
chests, and beds. Family portraits decorated some walls, usually
in the dining room. Great houses had a wardrobe chamber with a
fireplace in front of which the yeoman of the wardrobe and his
assistants could repair clothes and hangings.
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