Buildings and Yards. 507 



be large for a small kitchen. The height of the sink from the floor may 

 be almost anything the housekeeper wishes ; 30 inches is quite low, 32 

 inches is a popular height, while 34 inches is preferred by many, and the 

 writer has found at least one housewife who insisted upon having her 

 sink set 42 inches from the floor. The cry so often made that sinks should 

 not be pjaced on outside walls on account of freezing is mostly nonsense. 

 If the pipes are kept out in the open kitchen instead of being placed in 

 the walls, and are not run up in front of a window so as to be exposed 

 to direct drafts, there is something radically wrong either with the con- 

 struction or with the heating of the kitchen where pipes freeze. The sink 

 should be fitted with ample drain-boards, preferably one at each end. 

 The space under drain-boards and sink should not be enclosed, but should 

 be left open so that it may be kept clean and sweet at all times with the 

 least possible attention. 



An ordinary bath room would usually contain three fixtures, namely, 

 a bath tub, a lavatory, and a water-closet. There has been a great advance 

 within the past few years in all that pertains to the art of plumbing, and 

 in no branch of the work is this more apparent than in the fixtures them- 

 selves. The old tin-plated copper tub set in a wooden box is no longer 

 tolerated even in the very cheapest of work, but in its place we can put 

 a neat cast iron porcelain enameled tub at practically the same cost. This 

 tub, like the kitchen sink, should have a roll rim, and is made to be set 

 without any woodwork whatever either on top or arotmd it. The stand- 

 ard width of the modern bath tub is 30 inches, and the length may be 

 anywhere from 4 feet to 6 feet. 



The lavatory may be a porcelain or earthenw^are bowl with a marble 

 slab and back, or it too may be of cast iron enameled with white porcelain 

 and with no joints or separate parts making crevices to catch dirt and 

 breed bad odors. The iron enameled lavatory is smaller, more compact, 

 and in very many respects nicer than the marble lavatory and it ought to 

 cost less, but, unfortunately, it really does cost a bit more. 



The water-closet that is now used almost universally in both cheap 

 work and the most costly is of solid white earthenware and of the syphon 

 acting type. Enameled cast iron closets have been in use in cheaper form 

 for factories and institutions for a long time, but it is only within a few 

 years that these have been so improved as to indicate that they may in 

 time supersede the earthenware closet for some of the better work of 

 moderate cost. There are two kinds of syphon-acting closets in common 

 use, the syphon hopper and syphon jet. Of these two, the syphon jet is 

 clearly the better ; but it is also the more expensive, and for ordinary work 

 a good syphon hopper closet serves very satisfactorily. The difference 

 in the cost of plumbing fixtures, if we start with those here recommended, 



