82 
House & Garden 
BEAUTY 
imperishable- 
MERICAN Mag- 
nestone Stucco opens 
(5 a new realm in distinctive 
building. This wonderful 
material offers untold varie¬ 
gation of artistic construc¬ 
tion combined with permanency and 
enduring beauty. 
Fire cannot harm it. Water cannot de¬ 
cay or cause disintegration. Unaffected 
by expansion or contraction. 
American Magnestone Stucco admits 
wonderful color combinations and effects 
both for old and new buildings. 
Consult your architect and building material 
dealer or write us about wide variety of American 
Magnestone Flooring , Plaster or Stucco finishes 
when planning your new home and estate. 
Furnishing Your Kitchen 
(Continued from page 78) 
coats of enamel baked on steel and are 
very durable, having the same qualities 
as the good table:—rigidity, non-ab- 
sorptiveness, and ease in cleaning. 
They are the parallel of the steel 
filing case in the office—and that is 
another sign that the kitchen is be¬ 
coming as systematic as the business 
sanctum. Just as soon as the home ap¬ 
proximates the efficiency and standard¬ 
ization of the office, just so soon will 
the servant problem cease to be. But 
we are not discussing the millennium 
in this article. 
The shelves can be made with or 
without doors. Of course doors are a 
little help in the fight against dust, yet 
even they are not infallible enemies of 
this household nuisance. 
Veiy often under the shelves the 
plate warmer and the refrigerator are 
placed. Their close proximity shows 
that the refrigerator is insulated against 
the heat and the plate warmer is in¬ 
sulated against the cold. This is really 
an object lesson in the possible self- 
identification of good apparatus. 
This arrangement will work well both 
in the pantry and in the kitchen. 
Wooden shelves are less expensive 
than the steel ones, but require careful 
attention, frequent cleaning, and new 
coverings at intervals. 
Plate Warmers 
In speaking about the above luxurious 
pastry and cook's tables, we touched on 
the matter of plate warmers. 
In small homes plate warming is ac¬ 
complished by ovens, oven tops, or 
warming plates arranged above the 
ovens or stove. In larger homes, how¬ 
ever, where guests are many and often 
and plates and dishes multitudinous, 
the electric plate warmer has come to 
do the work. 
It may be under a table, as we have 
seen above or it may be a separate 
entity. 
The doors of the plate warmer are 
generally of the sliding variety and 
are of a special make of iron, trimmed 
with steel or white metal. The in¬ 
terior of the warmer is perfectly in¬ 
sulated with asbestos and other ma¬ 
terials. It does not warm the kitchen 
This is proved by the possibility of its 
being placed next to a refrigerator with¬ 
out any bad results to the ice. 
There is a little ruby pilot light which 
tells you if the electricity is on or off, 
thus obviating the chance of unneces¬ 
sary heat getting out when one wishes 
to find out whether the warmer is func¬ 
tioning or not. 
The electric warmer usually stands a 
little higher than a table, but does not 
alter the size of the table when built 
underneath it. 
Chairs and Stools 
Since the kitchen is in no way a 
lounge, the chair in the kitchen is really 
only another tool to assist in the work 
or possibly to permit a few moments 
of relaxation. Of course, it is quite 
obvious that in some kitchens which 
are a combination sitting room, living 
room and dining room, the chair and 
even the couch are real comfort factors. 
However, this type of room is not be¬ 
ing considered here. 
In the kind of kitchen we are fur¬ 
nishing the ordinary modified Windsor 
chair is as good a model as any we 
know, and can and should be finished 
to match the rest of the kitchen. 
The stool is most convenient and 
should be about 24" in height, because 
a worker can work efficiently while 
sitting on this. 
The chair step-ladder is convenient 
in rooms that have had to build high 
shelves for sufficient storage room, lack 
of space being the only excuse for such 
unreachable shelves. 
There is, too, the ladder-stool, which 
serves the same purpose as this chair 
step-ladder combination. 
The little wooden step is a conveni¬ 
ence if perchance the kitchen maid is 
not an Amazon and needs a few more 
inches added to her, or if the cook hap¬ 
pens, too, not to be of heroic mould. 
In small kitchens the settle-table is 
a convenience. For when a bench is 
needed it can be used as a bench, and 
presto 1 when a table is needed, it is 
quickly changed into a table—the two 
things taking but the space of one. 
Mats 
Stone, composition, tile, and even 
wood floors are often very trying to 
the feet and back of the kitchen deni¬ 
zens. A strip or two of linoleum or 
cork is a great relief as it adds to the 
unrelenting floor a little elasticity and 
resiliency which takes the strain off the 
feet and makes for comfort and ease. 
These materials are the best, for they 
are washable and non-absorbent, and 
they add rather than detract from the 
beauty of the surroundings. If strips 
are not usable, mats can be bought or 
made for the space to be filled. 
Matching Up 
It is quite as possible to have uni¬ 
formity in your kitchen as well as in 
your other rooms. Even if the kitchen 
must be fixed up after the architect has 
done his worst, you can at least have 
the same color scheme throughout. 
There are on the market today kitchen 
furnishings to suit every pocket, so 
there is really little excuse for a kitchen 
to look heterogeneous and messy. Fur¬ 
nishing a kitchen is a most tempting 
problem, especially with not too full a 
purse. The trouble is mostly that peo¬ 
ple who know nothing about a kitchen 
always furnish it, because it is con¬ 
sidered easy. It isn’t easy. Even after 
the furnishings are bought if they are 
not placed right they are of as little 
value as if they did not exist. 
Little has been accomplished in these 
articles published every month by 
House & Garden if the reader has not 
learned from them that in getting 
household apparatus the first and great 
demand is: Know your manufacturer. 
And the second is as important: Buy 
the best you can afford after the most 
careful thought, and be very sure 
where it is going to be placed when 
you get it. 
AMERICAN 
MAGNESTONE 
American Magnestone Corporation 
SPRINGFIELD ILLINOIS 
A 
Growing Your Own Orchids 
(Continued from page 47) 
doors admit all the air necessary in the 
winter. But in larger houses, even ven¬ 
tilation must be provided for in the 
way of a small window in an unexposed 
section of the house which can be raised 
and lowered easily. When a sun parlor 
or conservatory, because of its exposed 
position in relation to the regular 
dwelling, cannot retain a night tempera¬ 
ture as high as 45°, an oil lamp can be 
used to bring up the temperature after 
sundown. During the day the sun itself 
will furnish the additional heat. 
The accommodation of the plants is 
the next important step, and means of 
hanging plants as near the surface of 
the glass as possible should be provided, 
as it is essential that they be given all 
the sunlight possible. In a standard hot- 
( Continued 1 on page 84) 
