HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE 



The farm house was picturesquely located, but not easily altered, 

 though we spent upward of five thousand dollars in the attempt, only 

 to find that the old house was an old house still. 



For instance, when the wind blew, windows rattled distractingly 

 until a wiseacre visitor suggested wooden wedges at the end of short 

 chains fastened to the trim of each window. 



Remodeling the Farm House. 



Living in an old or remodeled house gives an opportunity 

 for thinking up makeshifts and utilizing space. More room for 

 books in the narrow library was obtained by extending bookshelves 

 over the window tops, also into a chimney jog. Finding the old 

 house difficult to heat, we discovered that a hinged wooden cover, 

 tightly padded with felt at all edges, and balanced by window weights, 

 closing-in the attic stairway, prevented heat from escaping to that 

 unused quarter of the house an unrailed attic stair opening, a lighted 

 kerosene lamp, a heedless step, once presaged dire calamity. In a 

 corner of the sitting room closet a trap door and ladder steps made a 

 short cut to the furnace and cellar wood pile. Perhaps some of the 

 devices were "skimble scamble," but they made for comfort. 



Kitchen and Pantries. 



The preference was for a small kitchen and large pantries, so 

 we galleyed the range end of the big farm house kitchen and lessened 

 the tramp across it to the dining room by building a ceiled-in butler's 

 pantry which also aided in confining kitchen odors and clatter to 

 that part of the house. In one corner of the room was hinged a 

 drop shelf, and another along one side wall, while a cooking table 

 fitted with convenient under shelf journeyed easily across the room 

 on ball-bearing casters. Many a step to the housekeeping pantry 

 was saved by a cupboard of translucent glass in the lower sash of 

 a north window. Two windows placed on opposite sides of the 

 food storage pantry quickly forced through it the ordinarily stagnant 

 air of midsummer. That extra window owed us nothing, as it 

 cheated the sour microbe out of many a meal. Shelves in this pantry 

 were of slate.* Both pantry and kitchen sinks were broad and fairly 

 deep, lessening breakage, and set five inches higher than usual, 

 with draining boards extra wide and long. One defaced copper sink 

 we put in fine condition, even for hot water use, by a coat of prepared 

 aluminum paint. Walls and floor shone with linoleum in one pattern 

 of light shade. 



The range was inset with a metal flap twelve inches wide 

 that crossed its upper front close to ceiling line and formed a hood 

 and started heat and odors chimneyward. A fireless cooker was 

 a helpful cog in the kitchen machinery. 



#A domesticated toad for two years lived in a dark corner of ihe cellar pantry and made 

 a "clean sweep" of roach, water bug, and fly and beat pussy at driving away the elusive mouse. 



