The Dining Room and Kitchen 



167 



the purposes of the dining room. Most of us are glad that animals have been 

 excluded from the dining room, but there are stiH a few who, with the still- 

 lingering tendencies of feudalism, continue the ancient practice from choice 

 rather than necessity. There is a time and a place for everything, but it 

 would seem as if that for dogs and cats were not at meal times and in the plate. 



It was not until about the beginning of the eighteenth century that a room 

 was set apart for the purpose of dining, and even then it was used for other things 

 as well. The English realised early the advantages of a separate room, and the 

 Elizabethan "dining parlour" became a feature of the sumptuous planning of the 

 times. The French, on the other hand, were slow to adopt this new feature, 

 and for a considerable period continued serving meals in rooms whose chief 

 purpose was something entirely different. 



The primitive Colonial ate in the kitchen, which was often of considerable 

 size; he also used it largely as a living room. Even within the writer's recollection 

 this common use of the kitchen was most forcibly exemplified in the paternal 

 grandfather, whose antipathy to the rest of the rooms in the house was most 

 marked. Born in 1800, in the stern wilderness of Maine, and living in the cold 

 reality of those practical times, he tolerated the dining room from necessity 

 only, and when dragged from his chosen retreat, the kitchen, to the family 

 "sitting room," evinced stormy symptoms of restlessness. In the Colonial house 

 of the more elabo- 

 rate sort the use of 

 the dining room as 

 a sitting room was 

 common. 



It will be clearly 

 seen from the fore- 

 going that the ex- 

 clusive dining room 

 is a comparatively 

 new thing. The de- 

 mand for a separate 

 room is due to differ- 

 ing conditions of liv- 

 ing and of social 

 intercourse. Largely 

 owing to the growth 

 and scope of modern 

 inventions there is 

 little that the past 

 can offer except in 

 the way of orna- 

 mental design, and perhaps a few scattered details. This is particularly true in 

 the case of the kitchen, which has been revolutionised to the point af almost 

 complete dissimilarity. 



Although the banquet hall is seldom used in the modern house, and then only 



A dining room at Montclair, N J. showing Colonial influence. The end of the room is 

 handled with skill. Frank E. Wallis, architect 



