HOUSE AND GARDEN 
February, 
1913 
107 
vious reasons for existence. The beau¬ 
tiful shell buffet of our Colonial period 
was designed in connection with cornices 
and fireplaces. It formed an essential 
part of a perfect whole. The modern 
movable china closet, standing out as an 
excrescence and inevitably ugly and in 
the way, is happily being replaced by the 
built-in china cupboard. In the modern 
Colonial house antique designs are copied 
as faithfully as the difference between 
old and present-day craftsmanship per¬ 
mits. In the house of modern trim, 
where flat surfaces, stained, are obtained 
in the woods used, the cupboards are un¬ 
obtrusive but pleasing in effect. To cut 
•off two corners of a room with built-in 
china cabinets is a device often used, 
giving adequate storing places for glass 
and porcelain. While the upper half of 
these cabinets is usually glazed, the lower 
is given up to cupboards with paneled 
•doors, or even more conveniently is fitted 
with drawers of varying 
size. 
The use of the bay for 
built-in furniture is a fre¬ 
quent architectural device 
giving a point of interest to 
•an interior. A long window 
seat, either a box opening in 
sections, or fitted with draw¬ 
ers, or without any storing 
space beneath, is an effective 
use of the bay. In a coun¬ 
try cottage or bungalow, a 
sideboard is frequently built 
in a bay with window above. 
In the built-in sideboard, 
precisely the desired accom¬ 
modation for silver or table 
linen is secured, and there 
are long drawers for table 
cloths. 
For a large piece of furni¬ 
ture of exceptional value, it 
is often possible to build a 
wall niche, enshrining and 
making it an integral fea¬ 
ture. A sideboard, a family 
heirloom or the work of a 
modern craftsman, given a 
special niche with small 
built-in china cupboard 
above, is enhanced in impor¬ 
tance and makes a spot of 
special interest in the room. 
An old desk may in the same 
way be installed in the liv¬ 
ing-room. In the sleeping- 
room a chest of oak or ma¬ 
hogany may have a niche 
contrived for it in a sloping 
roof, with a little space left 
above so that the top may be 
usable. 
The craftsman who con¬ 
structs furniture around the walls of his 
house, or who personally directs a car¬ 
penter’s work, makes out as a prelim¬ 
inary an inventory of household goods 
and chattels. The library is measured, 
and the amount of space to be given to 
books is calculated, with allowance for 
increase, or with space left for future 
shelving. In planning cases, shelves are 
made of varying heights to accommo¬ 
date books of different size, a method 
that saves room and gives opportunity 
for interesting space divisions. The in¬ 
ventory made of china and linen ensures 
sufficient accommodation while it guards 
against the building of too many cup¬ 
boards. Unoccupied storage room is a 
bad investment. In planning dish cup¬ 
boards, shelves close together are de¬ 
signed for low, flat dishes. Little half¬ 
way shelves prove feasible for small 
dishes. If the location of each set of 
porcelain is carefully planned, space is 
utilized to its fullest extent. 
The designing of furniture 
that is comfortable and usa¬ 
ble and of fittings adapted to 
their purposes, is a task in¬ 
dulged in and enjoyed by 
many home-builders of han¬ 
dicraft tastes. 
From what has been said 
above, it is evident that the 
appropriate use of built-in 
furniture is not of necessity 
confined to the house of 
craftsman design and simplic¬ 
ity of detail. Reference to 
the illustrations clearly dem¬ 
onstrates that there is excel¬ 
lent precedent for built-in 
work, not only in houses of 
modern Colonial design, but 
also in their prototypes of an 
earlier day. One caution 
should be heeded, however, 
in designing built-in work in 
any of the period designs: be 
very sure that it harmonizes 
perfectly with the rest of the 
house. 
Designed by an architect, 
or planned and executed by a 
craftsman owner, built-in fur¬ 
niture in the successful house 
fills its own place and fills it 
unobtrusively. It does not 
strive to supplant the neces¬ 
sary and often beautiful mov¬ 
ables or even to compete with 
them. It is merely, so far as 
the eye is concerned, part of 
a wall, forming a well-spaced, 
agreeable background for the 
people who occupy a house. 
Simplicity is its most valuable 
characteristic. 
In a room pressed for space the corner china 
closet may be a very desirable feature 
Chests of drawers built into sloping roofs around dormers utilize waste 
space and remove the unsightly slope of the eaves 
The effectiveness of this buffet was attained by the planning of an exact 
space for it by the architect 
