[Illustration: CABIN CONVENIENCES]
Make your vacation home as comfortable as you can for the amount of
money you have to spend. Remember that the four major comforts in any
house are light, heat, water, and cooking facilities.
Proper lighting is one of the most important comforts. You can get water
from a stream and boil it, if you have to; you can cook and warm
yourself with a fireplace, but you will find it harmful to your eyes to
depend entirely upon candles or ordinary kerosene lamps for light. If
you are building within range of power lines, by all means install
electric lights, even if it costs a little more than you had planned to
spend. If you want primitive effects, you can get them very effectively
by a proper choice of fixtures without sacrificing good lighting.
Next best to public utility power is your own private electric plant,
operated by a gasoline engine. Such an installation, consisting of
engine, generator and storage battery, may be had for as little as
$75.00, not including wiring the cabin itself. This minimum-priced
outfit will light a small cabin and operate an electric iron and
toaster. You can go as much higher as you want up to a $1500
installation, which will supply almost enough power for a small summer
resort.
If you must get along without electricity, the best portable devices are
gasoline lamps and lanterns. You should have several of them. They burn
with a mantle like old-fashioned gas but give an intense white light and
use ordinary gasoline. Be sure, though, not to use gasoline treated with
tetra-ethyl lead. These lights are satisfactory for reading, and you can
take a gasoline lantern out in a storm without danger of its blowing
out.
In most cases, if you use your cabin only in summer, the fireplace will
provide sufficient heat, especially if you have the air circulating kind
so located that the warm air can be utilized in adjoining rooms. If more
heat is required, and it will be if you use the cabin in winter,
investigate the oil-burning heaters that combine directed heat with heat
circulation and heat radiation. Portable oil or electric heaters are
also handy at any time of the year. Central heating is generally not
necessary unless your cabin is to be used as a year-round home.
[Illustration: Even though your cabin is beyond reach of gas and
electricity, you need not be without modern kitchen conveniences.
Oil burning ranges and refrigerators provide the same service as
found in a modern city home.]
If you are going in for real cabin comfort, you will naturally have
running water in the kitchen and bath. The next step in comfort is an
adequate supply of hot water. Electric, gas- or oil-burning equipment
will give you all the hot water you want.
With an insulated storage tank you can have automatic hot water with an
electric heater. The cost will depend on your power rate and you must
decide if it fits your purse. If you have one of the so-called “bottled
gas” installations, you can use this fuel for your hot water. An oil
burning water heater will provide an adequate supply of hot water at
reasonable cost.
Water-heating coils in the back of the fireplace or in a wood burning
stove provide inexpensive hot water, but not always timely or in
adequate amounts. It is possible to connect these coils with a storage
tank that is also heated by oil or gas appliances, so that you only use
this fuel when the fireplace or stove does not supply enough hot water.
Probably one of the most neglected comforts in the average cabin is the
kitchen in general and the cook stove in particular. If the cook is to
have as good a time as the rest of the family, the cabin kitchen should
be modern and conveniently arranged. A wood burning cook stove does not
add to the pleasures of feeding the family and guests. But a possible
point to consider: a kitchen range is an excellent added heater in a
cabin that is to be used in cold weather.
Today’s cabinet type oil range, with burners and fuel reservoir
concealed, is as attractive in appearance as the modern gas or electric
range. Burners are quick in performance and adjustable to any degree of
heat desired. “Bottled gas” installations are also practical if your
cabin is located where it can be serviced by the sales representative.
The gas, compressed to liquid form in a steel cylinder, is piped to your
stove like ordinary city gas. However, burners must be especially
adjusted for it, or if you are buying a new stove, get one made for this
fuel.
Refrigeration adds to the comforts of cabin life as much as to city
life. If you have electricity, you can use the conventional electric
refrigerator. Also available are mechanical refrigerators that use gas.
Modern oil burning refrigerators also give effective performance and are
usable anywhere, requiring no outside connections. There are two
types—one having a continuous flame and the other requiring the burners
to be lit about two hours a day, the burners going out automatically
when the required quantity of oil has been consumed.
While the space may of necessity be smaller, the kitchen of the vacation
home deserves as much thought in planning as that in the city house.
Apply the same principles of convenience and workable arrangement and
provide plenty of storage space, for the family on vacation does not
ordinarily go food shopping every day. On the following pages you will
find a number of kitchen conveniences that with a little planning can be
incorporated into your cabin kitchen.
[Illustration: This diagram shows how the hot water tank can be
connected with heating coils in the back of the fireplace or in the
firebox of a wood-burning stove. A stand-by gas or oil heater
supplies additional hot water when needed.]
TO FAUCET
KITCHEN STOVE
TANK
HEATER
FIREPLACE
INTAKE