October, 
1917 
49 
CONVENIENT DEVICES for THE HOUSE 
Here are eight of them, and next month there will be eight more if space 
permits. Architects furnish some of these ideas, and readers the others. 
The editor is always glad to receive suggestions for this page, and he 
values an idea at one dollar, which is paid to the contributor when this page 
goes to press. 
T HE ways 
of boxing 
in the radiator 
are legion. Some 
are very artistic 
and very costly. 
And others can 
be made by the 
carpenter for a 
reasonable sum. 
The amount 
spent for this 
radiator grill 
will depend en¬ 
tirely upon what 
treatment the 
architecture of 
the room de¬ 
mands. It may be a bronze grill, or it may be 
just a shuttered and slatted window seat as 
shown in the illustration. 
The architecture of this room was Colonial, 
but there are dozens of types of rooms in which 
this treatment could be applied. The use of 
the box on the window seat, is, of course, the 
usual scheme. It might have made this device 
still more practical had the slats been arranged 
so that they could be closed, thus regulating the 
amount of heat sent into the room without 
altering the general effect. 
URING the planning 
of the house it is 
often desirable to make 
provision for that furni¬ 
ture which one already has 
on hand. When the time 
comes for its arrangement 
in the new horn e, the 
scheme of the room is 
easily accomplished. 
In the accompanying il¬ 
lustration provision had to 
be made for both a built-in 
china closet and a Shera¬ 
ton sideboard. A china 
closet extending into the 
room would have been an 
annoying obstruction. 
Hence, this placing of it in the jog of the wall 
above the sideboard. 
A treatment such as this is suitable to some 
types of Colonial dining rooms where intimacy 
and simplicity are required. The dining room 
is in the residence of Alexander Moffett, Esq., 
of which William Emerson was the architect. 
T HERE are many homes that cannot afford 
the space for a separate playroom or in 
which it is more convenient that the children 
play under the direct eye of the mother. In 
such cases the toy closet in the living room or 
library will be found a useful device. The 
shelves should be so arranged that the child 
can reach them, and the habit of putting toys 
back in place after playing will both help the 
training of the child and keep the room in 
order. Glass doors allow the entire contents 
to be seen at a glance. 
I T is undeni¬ 
ably true that 
the dry heat 
which we use in 
our American 
homes is ruinous 
to furniture, 
books and pic¬ 
tures. This, of 
course, can be 
avoided by forc¬ 
ing damp air into 
• the room or by 
using pans of 
water concealed 
on the radiator. 
But no matter 
how dampened, a 
direct draft of heat will play havoc with fur¬ 
nishings and the housebuilder should avoid it. 
The library grouping above shows one 
method of directing the force of the heat away 
from shelves of books. A shelf is built out over 
the top of the radiator. The radiator itself is 
concealed behind a bronze grill. Instead of 
the heat forcing its way up through the shelves 
and causing the bindings of the books to crack, 
it is directed out into the room, where it will 
bring about a more even temperature distribu¬ 
tion besides saving the books. 
W HEN there is not 
sufficient provision 
made for direct light in an 
upstairs hall it can be 
brought in by the use of 
glassed doors. But since 
most of the rooms opening 
on an upper hall demand 
a degree of privacy, it is 
not practical to use the 
French door. In that case 
the glass must be limited 
to the upper half of the 
door and a curtain used 
behind it in the case of 
bedrooms. 
Harvey O'Higgins, the 
author, hit upon a scheme 
for furnishing hall light by letting in an ordi¬ 
nary sash into each door. This gave sufficient 
light and afforded a pleasing uniformity up¬ 
stairs. For a more pretentious house there 
toujd be made decorative iron grills that would 
.^give.tliejiallway unique interest without in any 
( y‘ay.’ cutting down the light or lessening the 
‘effectiveness of t,hg scheme. 
• • •*•• 
T HE usual p^aqtiep of nailing the valance 
to the valance .Boasd is gradually being 
.•supplanted by the use.of dress clasps. The 
.•po'dapts. for the clasps are sewed on to a strong 
* tape *Yv’lii<jlj *, i\ .'nailed to the board. When the 
board is oh. place if requires no time to snap 
on the valance. ‘This affords just as firm an 
anchorage as nails and is twice as convenient. 
It also adds to the life of the fabric and makes 
spring cleaning and fall renovation much 
easier undertakings. 
A MOVABLE shelf that requires only a nail 
to hang it on and a moment for hanging 
should appeal to the owner of the country cot¬ 
tage. It has a multitude of uses and could be 
used in almost any room to hold flowers or 
books or an ornament. A cover will sufficiently 
mask its mechanism. It costs 50 cents and is 
available in any finish. 
T HE bother of hauling out ashes can be 
greatly reduced by using a mechanism 
for hoisting up the ashes from the cellar to the 
level of the street. In the illustration below is 
shown a new device whereby the ashes are 
loaded into a little car, run on an elevator, and 
raised up to the win¬ 
dow. A worm gear on 
the crank reduces the 
labor of hoisting to a 
minimum. The height 
is adjustable from 5 y 2 
to 8 feet. 
