J ami ar y, 1917 
27 
A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING 
The Multitude of Necessary Closets That 
Should Be Planned For The New House 
EMILY H. BUTTERFIELD 
A combined milk cabinet and cold closet is a boon to any house¬ 
hold. It can open on the kitchen or pantry loith the outside 
equipped with shutters or a screen to assure ventilation 
I T is an axiom with good 
housewives that everything 
be kept in its place, and of 
necessity this implies that a place 
for everything must .be provided. 
The more attention that is 
paid, while the house is under 
construction, to the provisions of 
these indispensable places, 
whether they be shelves, cup¬ 
boards or closets, the easier it 
will be to follow the old adage 
when the house is occupied. 
In view of the modern need of 
conserving every inch of space, 
and the necessity of economiz¬ 
ing every possible bit of material, 
the old method of providing in¬ 
numerable shelves and cupboards 
regardless of their particular use 
has disappeared. The present- 
day designer plans definite uses 
for each foot of shelf or cup¬ 
board space. Moreover, with 
the increasing belief in placing everything 
possible behind closed doors and out of 
dust’s way, and of decreasing the number 
of dust-collecting materials and objects, the 
modern house designer has evolved new 
methods of caring for various utensils and 
furnishings by means of built-in shelves, 
closets and cupboards. 
Service Conveniences 
The clothes chutes, dust chutes and flour 
bins, as well as broom closets and cupboards 
for table boards, the milk cabinets and the 
linen closets, have for a considerable time 
been considered more or less necessary 
requisites in any up-to-date house, but other 
arrangements are now reckoned quite as 
important. Here are some of them: 
The electric iron is indeed a blessing, and 
for it the perfect house will have a small 
iron cupboard well located with refei'ence 
to the most advantageous position for iron¬ 
ing. The cupboard will be lined with asbes¬ 
tos and then with metal. The push plate 
will be fitted with a one-candle-power red 
light to show when the electric 
current is turned on. 
The cold box for some time 
much in use in certain sections 
is now often considered a neces¬ 
sity. When combined with the 
milk cabinet it makes a good ar¬ 
rangement. The cold box opens 
on the kitchen or pantry side of 
the house. On the outside it is 
equipped with shutters or a fine 
screen. It may be made as large 
as desired, but 2 ^ 2 ' high, 1^' 
wide and 12" deep, with two 
shelves, is a practical arrange¬ 
ment that works well. 
All the books of a household 
are not used in the living-room 
or library. Many a housewife 
has a good kitchen library stored 
away in drawers or shelves. A 
small bookcase built in the kitch¬ 
en or pantry wall where these 
handbooks of domestic science 
may be well and conveniently kept is desir¬ 
able. Occasionally some woman who does 
most of her own housework has had a small 
desk-like arrangement included in her 
kitchen equipment where laundry lists and 
grocery bills, as well as memoranda pads 
and pencils, or possibly ready change, can 
be kept, if desirable, under lock and key. 
A clock and a calendar are two other im¬ 
portant details of a kitchen. A very shal¬ 
low cupboard with a clear glass door is one 
solution of the place for these two. The 
calendar and clock can be placed behind the 
door where they are in clear, plain sight 
of the housewife and where they will at 
the same time be free from steam or dust. 
Warming cupboards, while not common, 
are not infrequently found in houses, par¬ 
ticularly the larger sized homes. These are 
now manufactured complete and doubtless 
the practical exploiting of their merits will 
extend their use. 
Metal milk cabinets locking mechanically 
by various methods, and metal medicine 
cabinets for bathrooms, are both important 
items in household equipment. 
The mysterious charm of secret 
panels and doors and hidden 
cupboards in the houses of 
other days is lost in our modern 
dwellings, for fireproof and 
burglarproof safes, some only 
large enough to contain a very 
small amount of jewelry or 
cash, are on the market. These 
can be built flush into the wall 
and are not noticeable. 
Closets for Varied Uses 
On the second and third 
floors of a medium-sized house, 
a small cupboard or closet for 
broom, dust-pan, carpet sweep¬ 
er or vacuum cleaner is a simple 
time and step economizer rare¬ 
ly enjoyed. It might also have 
a shelf for an extra tack-ham¬ 
mer, screw-driver, a box of 
tacks, glue bottle and a nail or 
two, for most housekeepers have to use 
these implements not infrequently. 
The telephone has saved time and many 
journeys, but it has caused the woman in 
the house many useless steps. It is fre¬ 
quently possible in the compactly planned 
house of the present day to build a closet 
for the telephone, with a door to the kitchen 
as well as to the living-room, library or 
dining-room, as the case may be. This not 
only saves time for the workers in the 
kitchen, but enables the ’phone to be used 
with a greater degree of privacy if the occa¬ 
sion requires. There may be a china closet 
or cupboard both above and below, for the 
space actually required for the ’phone is 
slight. Again, it may be equipped with a 
writing shelf to pull out below the ’phone 
shelf proper, or it may be arranged so that 
a chair or stool can fit in the space below 
the ’phone, out of the way. 
The coat closet downstairs should be 
equipped with a pole for hangers and hooks. 
Suitable places for hats, broad shelves or 
some other arrangement, are desirable. 
Drawers near the floor for rub¬ 
bers are a convenience, and a 
similar place for gloves is a 
neat way to take care of the 
children’s mittens or gloves. A 
small sink placed in the floor 
and properly connected with 
the drains is a great solution of 
the wet umbrella problem. 
The individual tastes of the 
occupants will govern require¬ 
ments for shelves. Music lov¬ 
ers can have spacious shelves 
and cabinets built to accommo¬ 
date their books and sheet mu¬ 
sic. And the person who en¬ 
joys many magazines can have 
suitable cases built for them. 
Filling the woodbox is less 
of a problem today than it once 
was, for, in spite of ambition 
and strong desire, the wood fire 
is frequently a luxury. Where 
{Continued on page 54) 
Cupboards reduce kitchen work to a system—at least, that is 
their purpose. By the scheme above, the telephone, brooms and 
cups have handy space provided Jor them 
