52 
House & Garden 
THE UNFINISHED ROOMS 
Having Created Better Bathrooms, Kitchens and Laundries, The Householder Can Now 
Turn Her Attention to The Cellar and The Attic 
T HE improvement of the home during the 
past ten years has been an amazing evolu¬ 
tion. Both its beauty and its utility have ex¬ 
perienced a growth that is a fine tribute to the 
discernment of American women and the 
cleverness of American manufacturers. Chaos 
has been replaced by order, time and labor 
saved by good equipment and the general 
scheme of furnishing and work reduced to 
simple livableness. 
The first activity of this crusade was directed 
against the clutter and ugliness of rooms as 
they existed fifteen years ago. Too many 
pieces of furniture were used, the windows were 
swathed in too many hangings, and the colors 
were not studied with a view to pleasing 
harmony. 
A knowledge of furniture styles and interior 
decoration generally was considered the talent 
of the cultivated and rich. Today no woman 
can claim to be mistress of her house unless 
she knows something about these subjects and 
can approach the problem of decoration in¬ 
telligently. 
Taste in our homes has steadily im¬ 
proved. There is still vast improve¬ 
ment to be made, but the desire is 
aroused and with the desire has come a 
vital interest in what good taste means. 
The difference between good decora¬ 
tion and bad is the difference between 
essentials and non-essentials, between 
the things that clutter, offend the eye 
and annoy the personality and those 
that make for comfort, that delight the 
eye and give the owner an enhancing 
environment. 
I F the improvement had stopped short 
at decoration, however, our homes 
would still be in a bad way. Even 
today there are unfinished rooms to 
which we can turn our attention. To 
make the house complete, to make it 
pay for the investment in livable pos¬ 
sibilities, we have to tame these wilder¬ 
ness sides of the menage. 
The first improvement began with the 
bathroom. That was about ten years 
ago. We found that closed plumbing 
was unsanitary, that dark painted wood 
could never be made to look clean, and 
that bathrooms needed lots of sunlight. 
So open plumbing was substituted, 
porcelain fixtures installed, the walls 
tiled and the bathroom made to look 
clean. 
The second step in this modern evo¬ 
lution of the house was the kitchen. 
Here again the movement was directed 
against clutter and darkness. It was 
first found that our kitchens were much 
too large and that by making them smaller 
we saved steps. Then the shortage of servants 
was the necessity that created labor-saving de¬ 
vices. We laid aside the picturesque, hand¬ 
work of a generation ago and availed our¬ 
selves of the labor-saving devices that manu¬ 
facturers created to meet the situation. This 
development of the kitchen is only in its in¬ 
fancy. We have still to gain a genuine under¬ 
standing and appreciation of electricity in the 
kitchen. 
r I ^ODAY we are beginning to turn our at- 
X tention to a third part of the house—the 
cellar. 
Since Prohibition came the cellar has sprung 
into popularity. We ought to have valued it 
long before Prohibition drove us there. But, 
as hospitality now begins in the cellar, we 
might make it at least a little less unpleasant 
a place than it is. The only place for cobwebs 
in the cellar now is on the necks of bottles. 
Visualize the average cellar. Off in one 
corner is the coal bin. The heater dominates 
the place. Beside this, ashes. Wood may be 
stacked in another corner. In a third is the 
preserve room. Scattered about are the flot¬ 
sam and jetsam of the household. Putting 
“it” down the cellar is the average solution for 
broken equipment, boxes and what not. 
Now it is conceivable that a coat of white¬ 
wash, a monthly regulating and an occasional 
good sweeping will keep the average cellar in 
shape, but it will still be an ugly place. 
The first cause of most cellar ugliness and 
dirt is the heater. Heretofore the manufac¬ 
turers of heaters and boilers have been satis¬ 
fied with producing a strict utility. Today 
there is a strong movement to give these neces¬ 
sary pieces of equipment good lines and a dis¬ 
tinguished air. Boilers with steel sides and 
nickel fittings may be a little more expensive, 
but they do help the appearance of the cellar. 
The problem of ashes can also be solved by 
modem equipment. There are patent revolv¬ 
ing ash pits on the market that require only 
occasional emptying. If one does not care for 
them, the handling of ash cans can be made 
easy by attaching a trolley along the ceiling 
l>eams from the heater to the door. Cans 
hooked on to this will be pushed out to the 
open with a minimum of effort. 
If there is no preserve room in the cellar, it 
is advisable to make one. Select a comer that 
is not too sunny. Should the floor be damp, 
give it a boarding. The walls can be made of 
wall board or finished with this new laminated 
wood tile now on the market. See that the 
door has a strong lock and key. In such a 
room the preserves and extra supplies can be 
kept without fear of their contamination by 
dirt. 
This tiled wall board can also be used for 
finishing the entire cellar, if one wants to go 
to that expense. However, in most cases, white¬ 
wash will give a sufficiently clean appearance. 
A monthly visit with the vacuum cleaner would 
not be a bad idea. We have improved the bath¬ 
room and kitchen, now it is the cellar’s turn. 
ANOTHER part of the house that 
lends itself to improvement is the 
attic. Housewives appreciate attics as 
store rooms, but do they appreciate 
them as available for development into 
other types of chambers? 
In creating a third story room it is 
often sufficient to make the partitions 
of wall board. Nail it on the studs 
with plenty of nails, and cover the 
cracks with narrow wooden strips or 
flat moldings, thus giving a paneled 
effect. Paint or paper—and the room 
is ready for furniture. 
Not until one has an attic study or 
bedroom can she really appreciate the 
joy of living at the top of the house. 
It is so entirely different from living on 
any other floor. Here is quiet and 
privacy, here is a view across the roofs 
and through the trees to the horizon. 
S TILL another problem that con¬ 
fronts householders is the question 
of closets. The house with plenty of 
closet room is always held at a premium 
by discerning women. Where only a 
few closets are found, every available 
corner and crannie is made over into 
cupboards. 
This may seem the sensible solution, 
and yet it has been found that the 
trouble with many closets is not that 
they are too small, but that they are too 
large. They take too much space from 
the room. This is due to the way the 
clothes are hung. With the newest sys¬ 
tem of hanging the clothes on a trolley 
attached to the top of the closet—a trolley that 
pulls out—half the ordinary space is required. 
A trolley for shoes is now being manufactured, 
following the idea suggested in a House & 
Garden article called “Commodious Closets”. 
With this it will be a simple matter to put 
away or select such boots and slippers as one 
desires. Whether it is the cellar or the attic 
that is to be developed, we can rely on the 
intelligent work of our manufacturers to ac¬ 
complish it successfully. 
Even busy professional women find time to make their 
kitchens pleasant places. Here is Ruth Shepley’s kitchen in 
her bungalow on top of a New York skyscraper 
