July, 1917 
25 
window seat with the drop front may be 
used to advantage both for the tucking away 
of games underneath, as well as the play^ 
ing of them on top. 
In any half-finished room or semi-attic 
where low space under the eaves is avail¬ 
able for the storage of odds and ends, an 
excellent scheme is to block this section oft 
with a removable partition of thin tongue 
and groove boards or of wallboard. The 
whole space may be opened up to light and 
view by the removal of separate pieces that 
are only held together by little turn bolts. 
Even trunks and furniture may be piled in 
there, thus covered from dust and observa¬ 
tion so that the rest of the space may be 
utilized as an extra room. 
There is hardly anything in the house¬ 
keeper’s life more satisfactory than plenty 
of storage place, unless it be the elimina¬ 
tion of the odds and ends that need storing. 
Since many of us have not yet departed 
from the habits of thrift that our grand- 
sires and grand-dames handed down to us, 
we still go on accumulating things that have 
associations, or may at some far-off time 
become useful to us. 
Places Indispensable 
Order is the nursery's first law. Closets under the eaves and beneath window seats will 
help to enforce it. They give the child a place within his reach to keep his toys. Then, 
too, they make valuable use of waste space 
We are not all able to send off our winter 
garments to cold storage, and the endless 
bundles that have to be taken care of dur¬ 
ing the warm months need space. Then 
extra closet room is a requirement in these 
days of motoring, when it is necessary for 
the average country householder not only 
to keep in constant action some three layers 
of outer garments for each member of his 
family, but also to have on hand sufficient 
extra wrappings to cover the week-end 
guests who arrive in their city clothes. 
What harassed housewife, beset by bulging 
closets, crammed with motoring togs and 
her husband’s old clothes that are kept from 
month to month for that mythical fishing 
trip, or for the gardening work that there 
never is time to do, has not wished that her 
house were either all closets or else that 
the habit of clothes had never been adopted 
by the human race! 
Still we go on wearing things and acquir¬ 
ing things, and it is rarely that our homes 
grow larger to meet the demand. Since 
the simplification of life is not an American 
trait, it is well to anticipate future needs. 
The joy of unlimited closet room is hard¬ 
ly ever realized. When the architect has 
so decidedly to curtail his delightful scheme 
of things as they should be, the better to 
suit your wildest stretching of the house¬ 
building appropriation, closets suffer along 
with the rest of the plan. Since your fine 
large living room must be five feet nar¬ 
rower and at least ten feet shorter, your 
despair is so deep that it does not take into 
account at all the fact that this closet must 
go or that one lose its depth. There are so 
many things to think about at this trying 
time that it is only an extreme detailist who 
can keep his mind focused on closet room. 
But beware of sidetracking this matter 
altogether, and when weightier questions 
are settled bring up the discussion again. 
Consider them, review them, hunt them out 
and utilize them, these corners that you 
may come to value greatly, in order that 
your family may rise up and bless you. 
It is singular the satisfaction we take in 
closets. No matter how well convinced we 
may be of the utter fruitlessness of accumu¬ 
lating belongings or how reduced to an 
adequate minimum our wardrobes are, in 
the course of a few years of living things 
will pile up distressingly and we have to 
take care of them somehow. How better 
than in this self-same repository for goods 
and chattels? In with them, then, and shut 
the door! Ah, the skeletons the closet 
hides, the treasure it conceals, the bits of 
human character it contains! Surely some¬ 
one has written an essay on this subject; 
someone has sung the praise of closet space. 
The average attic storeroom is the bane of the 
housewife’s life. The cast-off and unused things 
of the household are stacked there, irrespective 
of their purposes or call to service. Moreover , the 
room generally presents such chaos as to prevent 
its being used for any other purpose than a 
“glory hole.” One method of handling the situ¬ 
ation is to partition off a corner under the eaves 
with tongued boards that can be readily lifted 
aside. The trunks can go in one section, the hat 
boxes in another, and the old china can have a 
safe corner to itself 
