Inside the House 
Timely Suggestions and 
Answers to Correspondents 
^ 
The Editor will gladly answer queries pertaining to individual problems of interior decoration and furnishing. 
please enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope. 
When an immediate reply is desired, 
New Curtains Made from Old Ones 
N these days when the high cost of liv¬ 
ing is bothering most of us, thrifty 
housewives are devising all sorts of 
schemes to stretch the income as far as 
possible. 
In a well-furnished home in New York 
City, a woman has found a means of mak¬ 
ing badly faded curtains look presentable, 
thereby deferring for another year or so 
the expenditure of an appreciable sum of 
money. The suggestion may help some 
one else to solve a similar problem. 
In the house in question, the window 
shades are dark blue. The dining-room 
windows, exposed to strong southern and 
western sunlight, were hung with dark 
blue embroidered scrim. After a year and 
a half of service, the lower half of each 
curtain, below the window shade was 
faded to an unsightly grayish blue, while 
the upper half retained its original color 
and beauty. 
The housewife took down the curtains, 
turned them upside down, and re-hung 
them. The dark blue shades now show 
through the faded portions of the curtains, 
which are now at the upper part of the 
window, making them the same color as 
the lower parts, which are fresh and un¬ 
faded. 
This idea could be carried out in any 
place where the shades and curtains are of 
a similar tone. 
A New Shoe-Blacking Outfit 
NE of the ingenious novelties in 
household furnishings is a chair 
that combines all of the good qualities of 
that article and a shoe-blacking outfit as 
well, without interfering with the useful¬ 
ness of either. The seat of the chair is 
hinged and lifts up, disclosing a box about 
four inches deep underneath it. In the box 
are the small brushes and cleaners, with 
boxes of blacking and polish, and other 
things necessary for keeping shoes in good 
condition. Fitted into wire frames at¬ 
tached to the under part of the seat are a 
large blacking brush and a lamb’s wool 
polisher, while a foot rest with corrugated 
rubber top is fastened with a hinge just 
below the brushes, and falls into place 
when the seat of the chair or rather the 
top of the box is lifted. With the top 
turned down the chair is quite like any 
prdinary chair in appearance. It may be 
had in dark oak, suitable for use in a hall 
or dressing-room, or finished in white 
enamel, making an attractive and useful 
addition to the furnishings of the bath¬ 
room. 
The Cellar Problem 
O keep a house in perfect sanitary 
condition does not mean that you 
must be sweeping, dusting and scrubbing 
from morning till night. Let the air and 
sunshine into every part of the house daily. 
Do not let any decaying matter stay in the 
cellar. See that the pipes and drains are 
free and frequently washed out with 
strong, hot soda water. Look carefully 
after the refrigerator and wash and dry 
all cleaning clothes tubs, pails, etc., as 
soon as you have finished using them. It 
is not so much the dust that is in sight as 
it is the uncleanliness, dampness and decay 
in dark, unnoticed places that makes a 
dwelling really unsanitary. 
The storeroom for food may be the tiny 
The combination chair and blacking- 
box is a convenient novelty 
closet of the flat dweller in a city or the 
cellar of the village or farmhouse. In the 
last case it often has a commercial as well 
as a household value, since it keeps fruits 
and vegetables in good condition until 
marketed, as well as until they are needed 
for the home table; but in any case it 
should be cool, dry, clean and regularly 
aired. 
It may be well to describe a cellar that 
is badly built and carelessly kept, in order 
to see what should be exactly opposite 
conditions. Such a cellar is often dug in 
wet ground, without sufficient drainage of 
the subsoil; it may even be in contact with 
open sewers or drains, which have been 
proved in certain cases to contain specific 
organisms capable of producing disease. 
In many cases the cellar built against an 
earth wall is not protected from dampness 
by a layer of moisture-proof cement, and 
the water may stand in drops on its 
surface. Again, it may be dug so deeply 
below the surface of the ground that the 
windows are wholty inadequate for light¬ 
ing and ventilation. 
It may have an earthen floor, or one of 
badly matched boards, impossible to keep 
clean. It will probably have a musty smell, 
proof positive that mold plants are there 
and ready to attack any fruit and vegeta¬ 
bles that are stored on its shelves or in its 
dirty bins. 
If, in addition to this faulty construc¬ 
tion, the cellar is badly kept and odds 
and ends of refuse are carelessly left 
about, not only will these conditions favor 
the spoiling of food, but they may prove 
injurious to the health of the family liv¬ 
ing above. 
A cellar that meets modern requirements 
must be dug in ground that is well drained, 
either naturally or by artificial means. It 
must be remembered that a cellar is not, 
first of all, a storeroom; it is an essential 
part of a well-planned house in helping to 
keep an equable temperature, and if its 
walls and floor are what they should be, 
it prevents dampness and ground air from 
rising into the house. 
If the house is set close to the ground, 
the cellar windows must be wide enough 
to compensate for their lack in height and 
must be set opposite each other to ensure 
a good draught and free circulation of air. 
( 300 ) 
