9 



THE HOUSE AND ITS EQUIPMENT. 



its journey, then it can be safely predicted that the domestic machinery will work smoothly. In any case, 

 it is clearly impossible within the space of these notes to do more than indicate the various types. It 

 may be taken as a rule, though, that the larger the house the easier it is in one way to plan it. Space 

 can be afforded for each of the departments. Laundries will be separate buildings, with their own staff 

 of maids, and one has not to provide offices for composite purposes. 



In smaller houses, where only one class of servant will be kept, it seems a good plan to adopt the 

 North Country practice and dispense with the scullery, and have, instead, a living and working kitchen. 

 The latter contains the range and sink for preparing vegetables and washing-up purposes ; the floor and 

 walls are tiled where all the necessary part of the work is done. The floor has rounded angles where it 



joins the wall, and the whole idea is 

 that the place should be cool and 

 clean. The living kitchen is for the 

 maids to have their meals and see 

 their friends in. Their photographs 

 can here be displayed and the ameni- 

 ties of existence enjoved. Such 

 arrangement is very suitable for a 

 house run with a cook-general, house- 

 parlourmaid, and nurse for the children. 

 Unless the cook has a kitchen-maid it 

 is difficult to see the use of a scullery. 

 It is dreadfully easy to plan a house 

 with the range at one end of the 

 kitchen and the sink at the other end 

 of the scullery ; assuming the kitchen 

 be eighteen feet long and the scullery 

 twelve feet, the cook will have to walk 

 sixty feet even time she leaves the 

 range to go to the sink and come 

 back again, which conjures up horrid 

 visions of hot cooks walking unnecessary 

 miles in the course of a week. It i&amp;gt; 

 eminently desirable that the 1wo 

 fittings should be in close relation, but 

 if it: is desired to banish the sink 

 from the kitchen, it can be placed 



in a recess with a screen in front. It is, perhaps, safer to keep to the common-sense principles 

 which should guide in the planning of kitchens, rather than give lengthy descriptions of details 

 which must vary considerably to suit the varied needs of different households. Too intricate 

 a specialisation of the fittings should be avoided. Cooks are a conservative race, and a place 

 for everything, and everything in its place, is a rule more honoured in the breach than the observance. 

 As a race, they are prone to untidiness in their work, with a grand clear up at its conclusion, and much 

 time and money is often expended in providing separate little compartments for each thing, with a result 

 that they are never used for such purpose at all. The simpler the arrangements can be the better. 

 Some illustrations are given of ranges, and these have their racks for plate-warming. Dressers should 

 be provided of ample size with good drawers and pot-board accommodation. There should, as well, be 

 cupboards. Sinks must be of good size, and preferably white coralled porcelain. Draining-boards 

 should be of a hard wood like teak, and the secure fixing of taps is worth consideration. If these are 

 fitted with gun-metal pad plate bosses, screwed to plugs in the wall, it will be found much better than tin- 

 usual method of clips, which verv shortly become loose. 



Aspect should be considered. It is a very usual practice to place kitchens to the north of the 

 house when they are not put in a basement, an arrangement which the Palladian architects found so 

 useful in getting them out of a difficult} . There can be no doubt that this northern aspect for a kitchen 

 constitutes real cruelty to cooks and deserves the attention of the Humanitarian League. To be con 

 demned to labour in a room into which no gleam of sun shall ever find its way is awful. So then the 

 kitchen should be planned that some early morning sun can find its way in and give the day s work a 

 cheerful start. Needless to say, the full blaze of the south or the level glare of the west would constitute 

 an inferno. If, though, one has a large north window and a small eastern one, this is avoided ; further 

 more, the two windows give a chance of cross ventilation and help to keep the kitchen cool. Ventilation 

 should be also provided by means of a flue in the chimney-stack. The range should be so placed that 

 it is lighted from the left-hand side. It seems hardly necessary to mention such details, yet the common 



I -V,. ROASTING KANGK, WITH JACK 



