HOUSE AND GARDEN 
August, 
I9G 
brought down near it, with one opening—a little door swinging 
in on pivots—and in the bathroom, and another opening or 
separate chute by the sink for kitchen and table linen. The chute 
should empty the clothes into a wicker hamper or basket by the 
tubs, where they will have light and air and may be sorted on 
the clean, wooden platform. 
The laundry stove should be placed near the tubs. A two- 
burner gas stove is cleaner than a coal stove, more economical 
of time, labor and heat, and generally no more expensive in 
actual cost of fuel. It will serve also to heat the irons when 
ironing is done in the laundry. A good-sized cupboard should 
be built to hold all 
the laundry supplies, 
soap, blueing, starch, 
washboard, irons, 
ironing boards, etc. 
A toilet is often 
placed in the cellar 
for the use of any 
workmen about the 
place, or for the 
maids, if they have 
none above stairs. 
Where the soil is 
gravelly or the climate 
dry, a store-room in 
the cellar will be dry 
enough for trunks, 
furniture and such 
things, but in a damp air or soil it is not successful. This room 
should be guarded from coal dust, but need not have much day¬ 
light, as an electric bulb will serve its occasional needs, unless 
sun is wanted as a preventive of damp and moths. The entrance 
need not be so near the stairs, as it is not used so often as the 
furnace room and laundry. 
Garden tools, lawn mower, roller, sleds and other such things 
scarcely need a room, but may be kept in whatever space there 
is about the stairs or the outside entrance. They form another 
argument for the upright door at the ground level, as the fewer 
steps for such things to be carried up, the better. 
The whole matter of the entrance and of the size of windows 
depends, of course, on the height of one's foundation, and here 
it is hard to reconcile utility and beauty. The best modern taste 
prefers a house that looks 
long and low and has very 
little if any foundation show¬ 
ing. Undeniably, such houses 
have a charm lacking in a 
high-perched house. The low 
English house and the one 
built in our warmer states, 
needing no furnace and no 
plumbing pipes laid below a 
deep frost line, simply dis¬ 
pense with cellars and have 
their coal rooms, laundry 
and storerooms beyond the 
kitchen, adding to the long, 
low look of the whole. But 
conditions in the northern 
states are different. A cellar 
we must have, and a cellar 
wholesome with light and air. 
A wise compromise is a foun¬ 
dation two feet above the 
ground level, with many long, 
low windows partly hidden but not whollv darkened by shrub¬ 
bery. If the lot slopes away in the back, or even on one side, 
one may get higher windows and place the laundry there. Higher 
windows may also be secured by making little concrete areas 
across each one, but these fill with leaves and litter. Another 
device which can be used occasionally is to run a window up 
above the floor, boxing it in under a window seat or pantry shelf. 
Where the outside door is upright it may be half glazed and a 
window or two may be placed beside it. 
A good modern cellar usually has a concrete floor and the 
walls are covered with white cold-water paint, which is better 
than whitewash, be¬ 
cause it is not likely 
to rub off or peel. 
The white walls re¬ 
flect the light, so that 
fewer windows and 
electric lights are 
needed. One electric 
bulb at the bottom of 
the stairs, operated by 
a switch at the top, 
and one in each room, 
placed near the door 
or operated by a 
switch there, will be 
all that are needed. 
No fixtures are neces¬ 
sary beyond plain 
cord drops, bulbs and porcelain sockets. The money saved by 
using an 8-candlepower bulb instead of 16, if it gives enough 
light, will soon pay for the slight extra cost of putting in switches. 
The windows which are often opened should be screened and a 
heavy grating is sometimes needed for protection against burglars. 
The chief point in making a dry cellar is not to put in drains 
to take water out, but to prevent water from getting in. A 
gravelly soil naturally carries the water off. In a loam or clay 
soil it is harder to make a cellar dry, but it can be done if 
enough knowledge and money are used. The soil should be 
packed in closely and rammed hard against the walls so that it 
will be too dense to let water through. Sometimes water will 
penetrate at first, but the natural settling of the earth will prevent 
it after a time. The lawn should be graded so that it slopes well 
away from the house to carry 
off surface water. A house 
on a hillside should have a 
gutter along the higher side 
and down the slopes for the 
same purpose; and should 
have outside the bottom of 
the cellar wall a foot-drain of 
tile and broken stone graded 
to an outlet at a lower level. 
A cellar built in a ledge of 
rock is liable to get water 
from the seams in the ledge. 
It is sometimes necessary to 
drill holes in the ledge and 
put in a blast, in order to 
make new crevices deep 
enough to take the water off 
below the level of the cellar 
floor. 
With such precautions 
against local difficulties, the 
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