My Struggle 
for 
Compactness 
By FRED C. KELLY 
The Story 
of a 
Little Cabin 
E VERY time I go camping I am 
impressed with how comfortable 
one may be without much cum¬ 
bersome equipment. A good camper 
has only what he is likely to use. He 
finds that everything over and above 
his needs is not only unnecessary but 
a nuisance. Consequently I 
have often asked myself: 
Why shouldn’t a similar lack 
of unessentials be equally wise 
in a home? What is the ad¬ 
vantage of having a bigger 
house than one needs? 
A little while ago I had an 
occassion to make an' experi¬ 
ment in household simplifica¬ 
tion. I had a farm on which I 
was unable to stay for more 
than an occassional week at a 
time. Consequently I didn’t 
want a large house to bother 
with. Obviously, if it takes a week to 
open up a house and get it ready for 
a week’s stay, not much is gained. I 
wanted a house barely large enough 
to provide every reasonable comfort 
for a small group of people, and yet 
small enough to require no care—one 
that could be opened for use and closed 
again in a few minutes. The result, 
while not the ulti¬ 
mate in home- 
building, is at 
least compact. A 
small family could 
live there indefin¬ 
itely without feel¬ 
ing a lack of any 
modern conveni¬ 
ence. Yet the house 
consists of only 
one main room 
with sleeping bal¬ 
cony and a small 
kitchen which is 
also the dining¬ 
room and the bath¬ 
room. The bathtub 
when not in use is 
concealed under a 
small trap-door in the kitchen floor. 
This bathtub question is much more 
far-reaching than may appear at first 
thought. Anybody can build a simple 
little shack and live in it if he doesn’t 
mind confining his ablutionary arrange¬ 
ments to a tin wash-basin. But the 
moment you decide on a bathtub and 
running water you have problems 
where to get the water, where to dis¬ 
pose of it, how to pump it, how to heat 
it, where to put the tub, what kind of 
plumbing to have, and all the minor 
questions. I decided to have a bathtub 
partly because I felt that the experi¬ 
ment would be more interesting if the 
house not only was compact but con¬ 
tained all equipment within reason that 
a rational human could ask for. My 
friend DeWoody, who came out for the 
purpose of offering suggestions, was 
determined that I should have the 
bathtub under the floor directly in 
front of the fireplace in the 
living room. Then bath water 
could be heated in a large cop¬ 
per kettle hanging to the crane 
in the fireplace and one could 
be kept comfortable while 
seated in the tub by the warmth 
of the blazing logs. DeWoody 
pointed out that bathing under 
such circumstances would not 
be the cheerless routine chore 
that it too often is, performed 
in white - tiled isolation, but 
would be cozy and full of ro¬ 
mance, besides having great 
social possibilities. 
I reminded him that many persons 
might feel a certain diffidence about 
bathing if there is company present in 
the living room, and in an extreme 
case might even go without a bath 
rather then face the bantering com¬ 
ments of fashionable callers. 
DeWoody admitted that he had never 
thought of all this. 
But, he insisted, 
surely there could 
be no valid objec¬ 
tion to having a 
bathtub under a 
trap-door in the 
kitchen. When one 
is cooking it would 
be unhandy to take 
a bath at the same 
time, anyhow, and 
even to eat while 
bathing is more or 
less impractical. 
Hence the two pur¬ 
poses of the room 
would not conflict. 
This plan we 
adopted. There was 
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“If it takes a week to open up a house and 
get it ready for a week’s stay, not much is 
gained,” says Mr. Kelly. The means by 
which he gained compactness in a small 
woods cabin are here set down for the bene¬ 
fit of those who wish to do away with elabora¬ 
tion and keep to essentials in a woods home. 
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