HOUSE AND GARDEN 
106 
February, 
I 9 I 3 
point of view, is that the built-in product 
avoids the storing up of dust. Even with 
a vacuum cleaner, the wall behind a 
heavy piece and the floor beneath it are 
not properly cleaned unless the piece is 
moved, a process involving much labor, 
and possible damage to the piece at the 
hands of a careless maid. The built-in 
piece is itself the wall and cuts out a sec¬ 
tion of floor. Its moldings may be plain 
and the broad surfaces unornamented, 
their perfect smoothness making clean¬ 
ing or dusting an easy task. 
In that best of economies in house¬ 
building, the saving of space, built-in 
furniture helps astonishingly. A small 
house with built-in features often pos¬ 
sesses the amount of actual floor space 
available in a much larger one. Chests 
of drawers of varying depths, built into 
sloping roofs around dormers, are note¬ 
worthy examples of the utilization of 
waste space. Home-builders fitting up 
their first house find it pos¬ 
sible through the building 
of these chests, to dispense 
with dressers or chiffoniers. 
A cheval glass is often fitted 
into a door panel instead of 
occupying valuable floor 
space. 
Built-in wardrobes are the 
modern substitutes for clos¬ 
ets. The contrast is great 
between the wardrobe and 
the old-fashioned closet with 
its waste floor space, its 
darkness, limited supply of 
hooks, and floor cluttered 
with shoes. In the wardrobe 
paneled doors disclose, when 
open, well-lighted compart¬ 
ments of convenient height, 
fitted with poles for hang¬ 
ers or filled with movable 
trays of light wood used for 
holding shirts or waists. 
Smaller ventilated compart¬ 
ments at the wardrobe’s 
base hold boots and shoes, 
while separate doors at the 
top open into built-in hat 
boxes large enough to hold 
several hats. If a wardrobe 
is extensive, trays or draw¬ 
ers are numbered or lettered 
as an index to their contents. 
A child’s wardrobe fitted 
with trays is found espe¬ 
cially convenient, since small 
frocks may be kept at full 
length in them. 
A window seat under a 
dormer is often fitted with 
a long drawer beneath, and 
with built-in chests or ward¬ 
robes on each side, giving 
an attractive, white paneled effect to a 
sleeping-room wall. If the old variety 
of clothes closet is retained, it frequently 
has a window, while an inclined shoe 
ledge with heel rest projects from the 
baseboard. Linen closets are conven¬ 
ient features occupying an upper hall lo¬ 
cation. Sometimes a closet becomes a 
small room, with window as well as elec¬ 
tric light. Broad ledges give opportu¬ 
nity for the sorting of linen and the per¬ 
forming of small household tasks, a high 
stool furnishing a seat. Convenient com¬ 
partments are devised for blankets and 
sheets, and a shallow cabinet for med¬ 
icines may also be a feature of this 
housewife’s room. In a very small 
house a linen closet is compressed into 
a wardrobe, but is fitted with a good- 
sized compartment for quilts and with 
shelves and trays placed close together, 
for holding sheets and blankets. Hinged 
doors, one for each four or five shelves, 
opening downwards and 
supported by chains or 
props, form convenient 
shelves when assorting the 
linen. 
Nooks and corners in a 
cleverly designed house, the 
odds and ends 'necessarily 
left over in building, are util¬ 
ized for small fittings. A 
tiny music cabinet fills a liv¬ 
ing-room nook. A corner of 
the butler’s pantry, of pre¬ 
cisely the size to hold table 
leaves, is turned into a table 
leaf cupboard. A plate 
warmer is installed in an¬ 
other left o^er corner. Chim¬ 
ney space around flues, util¬ 
ized in charming fashion for 
cupboards above or at one 
side of old fireplaces — those 
delightful cupboards with 
white paneled doors, fast¬ 
ened by wooden buttons — is 
occasionally used in the 
same way in a newly built 
house. The old cupboards, 
their closed doors exciting 
curiosity as to their contents, 
and when opened giving out 
faint odors of Oriental 
sweetmeats or of bygone 
roses, represent the poetic 
side of the cupboard, too 
often neglected in our mod¬ 
ern quest for the practical. 
In built-in furniture de¬ 
vised by the architect, he is 
given an opportunity to 
carry further his scheme 
and to ensure its harmonious 
completion. Furniture as an 
architectural feature has ob- 
A good Colonial effect in keeping with the room 
is here secured by the built-in china closet 
Ugly and useless chimney space can be eliminated by a symmetrical 
arrangement of cupboards 
1 he built-in sideboard gives the desired space for silver and table linen, 
the long drawer affording room for table cloths 
