HOUSE AND GARDEN 
243 
the coal and is filled through an opening 
in the top. If there is a stout door be¬ 
tween the coal cellar and the general cel¬ 
lar, all the dust and dirt will be confined 
to the former, and not escape into the 
house. This plan has given the greatest 
satisfaction whenever tried and involves 
but little extra cost. 
It is feasible in most houses to construct 
a laundry chute from the bathroom or 
some other convenient place on the bed¬ 
room, floor to the basement. It is a great 
convenience to be able to dispose of the 
soiled linen in this way. 
A Fireplace Help 
F there is a large fireplace, much work 
may be saved by having an opening 
in the bottom with a chute leading to an 
ash pit in the basement. Then, bv merely 
pushing a slide aside, the debris may be 
whisked out of sight without effort or 
dust. It should be borne in mind, how¬ 
ever, that a bare hearth makes a poor fire 
and that ashes assist the draft and form 
a pleasing glow beneath the logs. It is 
now possible to purchase a kitchen range 
with a similar attachment, which saves 
much dirty work and all the carrying of 
ashes. In order to be satisfactory, the 
fireplace should have a damper so that the 
draft can be regulated at will. 
A Handy Ice-box 
COUNTRY house at New Canaan, 
Conn., designed by Frederick Mathe- 
sius, Jr., architect, has an ice box or built- 
in refrigerator with several unique fea¬ 
tures. It was arranged with doors at three 
points so that the ice man, the kitchen 
maid and the butler can have access to it 
without encroaching upon each other's pre¬ 
cincts and is really in three distinct divi¬ 
sions. One is the ice chamber proper which 
can be filled with a four days’ supply from 
the porch. It is placed for this purpose at 
one end of the rear porch in a corner be¬ 
tween the kitchen and the butler’s pantry. 
The kitchen end faces on the passageway 
from the kitchen to the butler’s pantry 
and at its right is the second story stair¬ 
way which breaks and turns to the left 
with a landing half way up. The butler’s 
section of the ice box is underneath this 
landing on the pantrv side and back of it, 
also under the landing, and adjoining the 
back of the kitchen portion, is the ice 
chamber. The kitchen portion is y / 2 and 
6 y 2 feet high, an altitude unattainable by 
the butler’s section and the ice chamber, 
because of their situation under the stair 
landing. Their height is four feet, the 
surface area of the butler’s section is two 
by three feet, and that of the ice chamber 
a trifle larger. There is a free passageway 
for the circulation of the cooled air direct 
from the ice chamber throughout the other 
two sections and the melted ice drains 
away from the bottom of the ice tank, al¬ 
lowing no opportunity for it to reach the 
food storage chambers or their contents. 
Nor is it possible for any of the contents 
of the food chambers to be reached from 
the ice chamber or taken out through it. 
In the top of the butler’s section is a 
drawer with its own ice supply and waste- 
pipe, designed to hold bottles of cool bev¬ 
erages where they can be reached con¬ 
veniently by the owner when the butler is 
off duty or busy elsewhere. This drawer 
is a pet contrivance of the owner who says 
that it enables him, whenever he pleases, 
to put his hands without assistance from 
a servant on a well cooled bottle “without 
exploring among the food supplies and 
without upsetting cream pitchers or rub¬ 
bing my sleeve through the butter.” 
All the interior portions of the ice box 
are lined with white clay tile, ideal for this 
purpose because of their cleanliness, their 
natural coolness, and their capacity for 
catching and radiating the light entering 
through the doors. 
While the convenient placing and de¬ 
sign of this ice box were made possible 
only by the location of the stairs to the 
second story between the kitchen on one 
side and the butler’s pantry and dining 
room on the other, it is seen that no dis¬ 
advantage arose from this planning, but 
that on the contrary several distinct ad¬ 
vantages were acquired. Nor has this par¬ 
ticular house any unusual characteristics 
essential to the introduction of the feature. 
On the contrary, the same thing could be 
planned for in any new country house. 
KiTcnr/d 
TILE. FtOOE. 
E WAIMSCOTt 
i' 
-PLAN- 
TAK.TLN AT .SECTION LIME. "B-B" 
-Accjion- 
TAK.ELN AT .SECTION LINE. "A-A. - . 
As shown in the plan, each department has its own entrance distinct from the others; thus 
the iceman cannot disturb either the food or the cold bottles 
