THE HOUSE
Essential Parts of a House--Double Use of Rooms--Utility of
Piazzas--Landscape Gardening--Water-supply--Water-power--Illumination
--Dangers from Gas--How to Read a Gas-meter--How to Test Kerosene
--Care of Lamps--Use of Candles--Making the Best of the Old House.
The parts that are desirable in a well-ordered house may be enumerated
as follows: Cellar, the kitchen, the storehouse, the pantry, the
laundry, the dining-room, the living or sitting-room, the lavatory,
the parlor, the hall, the library, the nursery, the sewing-room,
the bedrooms, including guest chamber, the attic, the piazzas.
Where economy of space must be practiced, storehouse and pantry may be
combined, and nursery and sewing-room; and one of the family bedrooms
may be devoted to the use of the occasional guest. The hall may be
thrown into the parlor. The parlor may be properly converted into a
library and music room, although when the father is of retiring literary
tastes, he should have a "den" of his own, where he may read and smoke
in peace.
The parlor is too often wasted space in a house. As the "best room,"
and very often the largest room, it is reserved for reception of guests,
weddings, and funerals, and at other times shut up in gloomy grandeur
from the family, except, perhaps, as the place of banishment for a
naughty child. Except when used as a library and music room, it should
be one of the smallest in the house, and may, indeed, be entirely
dispensed with. The family living-room is not an improper place in
which to receive a guest, especially one whom it is desired should
"feel at home."
Of the rooms for the family, the nursery is the best to dispense with,
the very young children being kept under the mother's oversight in her
sewing-room, or the attic, or a loft in an out-building being fitted up
for the elder ones as a play-room. In the case of the loft, it is well
to equip it as a simple gymnasium.
It is mistaken economy to use the living-room as a dining-room, since
this interferes with the orderly work of the house, no less than with
the comfort of the family. It may with propriety, however, be made also
the sewing-room, and, in general, the mother's managerial office. Here
she should keep her desk and her household account-books, and meet the
tradesmen and other business callers. It is also more suited than the
parlor for use as a family reading-room and working library. Disorder
that betokens use, such as magazines on the center-table, or of papers
on the desk, is here not inappropriate. Indeed, it gives a homelike
appearance even to the social guest.
China and glassware and silver arranged in proper array in wall closets,
cabinets, and sideboards are the most appropriate decorations of the
dining-room. It is not at all necessary that there should be pictures
on the wall of game, fruit and flowers, or "still life" studies of
vegetables and kitchen utensils. Indeed, these have become so expected
that a change is quite a relief to a guest, who would welcome even the
death's head that was the invariable ornament of the Egyptian feasts.
Any pictures which are lively and cheerful in suggestion are suitable.
Those that have a story to tell or a lesson to point are never out of
place in a room frequented by children.
For convenience the table-linen should be kept in drawers or lockers
built beneath the shelves containing the china. A butler's pantry is
not an essential when such arrangements as these are made.
The kitchen, pantry, storeroom, and laundry form, as it were, the
"factory" of the house, with the range as the central "engine."
Accordingly they should be planned with respect to each other to save
steps. Fortunately this means also saving expense in construction.
Architects have been most ingenious as well as practical in perfecting
these arrangements, and the housebuilder, therefore, needs no advice
from us.
It cannot be too much emphasized, however, that the cellar is, from the
standpoints of sanitation and comfort, the most important part of the
house. There should be no attempt to save expense by limiting its proper
size, materials for walls, windows for ventilation, drainage, etc.,
for money so saved will inevitably be paid out many times over in coal
bills, doctor's fees, and, perhaps, undertaker's bills. A dry cellar
must be secured at all costs, for the air from it permeates the whole
house. Where this is damp, it leads not alone to disease among the
inmates, but to the disintegration of the house itself, through what
is called "dry rot," but is paradoxically the result of dampness.
Edgar Allan Poe, in his weird story, "The Fall of the House of Usher,"
has given a mystical interpretation of the dissolution of an old homestead
which really has a scientific explanation that might be found in the
cellar.
The proper floor of a cellar is a layer of broken stones in which tile
drains are laid, having outlets into a common drain, and over which a
layer of concrete is placed, The walls, of plastered stone, brick,
or concrete, should rise above the ground far enough to permit small
windows, and prevent the admission of surface water from rain or snow.
These windows should open from within, upward, and there should be hooks
on the ceiling to keep them open for ventilation.
Where a house is heated by a furnace, the style of this should be
selected with great care, special regard being had to the economy of
fuel. The systems of steam-heating, hot-water heating, or hot-air
heating have each their merits, depending on the location of the house
and the climate of the region. The cellar can also be used as a
storeroom for those things not affected by the heat of the furnace,
such as perishable food requiring an ice-box or a cool place, vegetables,
especially those with a penetrating odor; apples, canned fruit and
goods, etc., should be kept here, and barrels of commodities, such as
vinegar, that are bought in large quantities. Shelves should be built on
the walls and hooks hung on the rafters to increase the facilities for
storage. Articles hung upon the hooks should be tied in paper bags.
It is well to have the cellar ceiled, to keep out the dust of the house
and reduce the risk of fire. Here, of course, is the natural place for
the coal-bin, and, when there are no out-buildings, the man's workshop.
The laundry may also be placed in the cellar, and, in stormy weather,
the clothes hung there to dry. In the country the cellar is a good place
in which to build an ice-vault.
The kitchen should, of course, be airy and sunny. The sink should be
placed near a south window, if possible, to prevent freezing of pipes.
An iron sink is more cleanly than a wooden one, and cheaper than
porcelain and copper. It should have a platform with room for two
dishpans, and a drying shelf, raised at one end to permit drainage.
Where economy of space is essential, this shelf may be removable,
permitting the use for other things of the table beneath.
Two other tables are necessary in a proper kitchen equipment, one
covered with zinc for a work-table, set near the range, and the other
a plain table set near the dining-room, for the prepared dishes. There
should be three lights, lamps in brackets, gas-jets, or electric bulbs,
near the sink, range and food-table respectively. The refrigerator
should be put outside the kitchen, in some such place as a sheltered
part of the back piazza. Commodities such as tea and coffee, not
requiring ice, should be kept in covered jars, preferably earthen,
on a dresser or shelf, where the bread-box may also stand. There should
be a kitchen closet for the flour-barrel and sugar-box, which should be
covered for further protection from dust, flies, dampness, etc., and for
the canned goods in immediate requisition.
The stove or range should be selected with reference on the one hand to
the amount of cooking to be done for the family, and on the other to the
saving of fuel. Where there is a water supply, of course there should be
a boiler connected with the range. This should be large enough to assure
a sufficient supply of hot water for the house. There should be a shelf
near the range for such articles as the pepper-box and salt-box which
are in constant use in cooking, and hooks should be near at hand for
hanging up the poker, lid-lifter, and a coarse towel for use in taking
pans from the oven. Other shelves and hooks, of course, should be put
in for the various utensils necessary in the kitchen.
The floor of the kitchen should be covered with a good quality of
linoleum. A perforated rubber mat may be placed at the sink, although
this is not necessary. In fact, it is a better plan for the woman in the
kitchen, as indeed elsewhere, to get rubber heels for her shoes. The
Arabs have a proverb that to him who is shod it is as if the whole world
were covered with leather, and rubber heels similarly cause every floor
in the house, whether bare or carpeted, to be equally easy to the feet
of the busy housewife.
The laundry should be supplied with two tubs, an ironing-table,
an ironing-board, and a stove for the boiler and the irons. The
ironing-board should be supported upon two "horses" of the height
of the table. The table should be supplied with an iron-rest.
In a well-planned house there should be separate bedrooms for every
inmate except the very small children. It is quite an economy in the
care of the house that each child, at as early an age as possible,
should have its own room and be taught to take care of it. Since the
room is designed primarily for sleeping, care should be taken that the
bed be placed in such a position that the light falls from behind the
sleeper's head. The dresser should be so placed that the light falls on
the face of the occupant of the room when he is looking into the mirror.
Even at the expense of space in the bedroom proper, there should be a
large closet in every sleeping-room. The deeper the closet the better,
for, by using rods attached to the back of the closet and projecting
through its width, whereon clothes-hangers may be strung, far more room
will be obtained for clothes than where hooks and nails are employed. By
the use of these clothes-hangers, too, suits and dresses may be kept in
much better order. The top of the closet may be occupied by one broad,
high shelf, whereon hats and bonnets may be kept in their proper
receptacles. Shoes should be kept in a drawer at the bottom of the
closet, rather than thrown on the floor beneath the dresser. It is a
mistake to substitute a curtain for the door of the closet, since it is
of the first importance to keep the clothing free from dust.
Shelves are better than closets for the keeping of the bed linen. It is
a handy thing to have a separate linen closet in the house, but this is
not essential. The sewing-room of the mother is a suitable place for
keeping the linen. Shelves are preferable to closets for this purpose.
There should also be a medicine closet or locker in the mother's room
which will be handy in case of sudden illness among the children.
In view of the importance of sanitation, more thought than is ordinarily
allotted to it should be given to the lavatory. Where there is room to
spare, it is best to have the bath separate from the toilet, in order to
prevent inconvenience in use. There should be a basin and toilet upon
the ground floor, and a bathroom and toilet upon the sleeping floor.
The walls of the lavatory should be tiled, or, if this is too expensive,
they should be covered with water-proof paper. All toilet arrangements
should be systematically kept clean, and the necessary supplies at all
times provided.
Piazzas may be made to add no less to the utility than to the beauty and
comfort of the house. A lower back piazza, covered with vines, is the
ideal place in summer for eating and such heating labors as ironing.
When thoroughly secured from intrusion, an upper balcony furnishes the
best of sleeping quarters for one wise and brave enough to scout the
superstition of the bad effects of night air. Many persons of delicate
health, even consumptives, have been restored to vigorous strength by
sleeping in such a place, not only in summer but throughout the winter,
save in beating storms.
Closely conjoined with forethought for utility in the planning of
a house is forethought for beauty. It is well to have an artistic
imagination in visualizing, as it were, the "hominess" of the house
as it will appear after its rawness has been mellowed by time, and its
forms have been endeared by association. This imagination is specially
essential in the planting of trees, arrangement of flower gardens,
the choice of the kind of enclosure, whether hedge or fence, and,
in general, all that is known under the name of landscape gardening.
The housekeeper's work is greatly dependent upon the kind of water
supply available for the house. In cities and towns the kind of supply
is fixed for her, but in the country she is afforded her freedom of
choice. She has a choice of water from wells or springs, which is more
or less "hard," that is, impregnated with lime, and water collected from
rain or melting snow. For household purposes rainwater is the more
desirable, and, when properly filtered and kept in clean cisterns
protected from the larvae of mosquitoes and other disease-bearing
insects, it is also the best for drinking purposes. To one accustomed
to drinking hard water from a well or spring, rain water is a little
unpalatable, but after he is accustomed to its use he will prefer it.
It is always wise to secure an analysis of the drinking water of the
house, since water reputed pure because of its clearness and coldness
is as apt as any other to be contaminated. Where soft water is not
available for household use, hard water may be softened by the addition
to it of pearline or soda, or by boiling, in the latter case the lime
in it being precipitated to the bottom of the kettle or boiler.
When well water is used for drinking some knowledge of the geology of
the home grounds is essential. Thus, because the top of a well is on
higher ground than the cess-pool is no reason for assuming that the
contents of the latter may not seep into the water, for the inclination
of the strata of the rocks may be in a contrary direction to that of
the surface of the ground.
When filters and strainers are used they should be carefully cleaned at
regular intervals, since if they are permitted to accumulate impurities
they become a source of contamination instead of its remedy. Every once
in a while the housekeeper should take off the strainers from the
faucets and boil them.
There are many excellent systems for obtaining water power for the house
in the country, each of which has its special advantages. The pumping of
water to a tank at the top of the house by a windmill is that most
commonly used. This is the cheapest method, but the most unsightly.
Small kerosene or hot-air engines may be employed for the power at very
slight cost, and will prove useful for other purposes, such as sawing
wood or even operating the sewing-machines. Owing to the many inventions
for isolated lighting plants by acetylene and other kinds of gas,
dwellers in the country have virtually as free a choice of illumination
as the people in towns and cities.
Great caution is necessary in the use of any form of illuminating gas,
since all produce asphyxiation. Accordingly, all gas fixtures of the
house should be regularly inspected to see that there is no escape of
the subtile, destructive fluid. The odor of escaping gas which is so
unpleasant is really a blessing, in that it informs the householder of
his danger. A cock that turns completely around and, after extinguishing
the light, permits the escape of the gas, is more dangerous than a
poisonous serpent. Yet there may be nothing radically wrong with this
fixture, and the use of the screwdriver may make it as good as new.
Gas should never be turned low when there is a draught in the room,
nor allowed to burn near hanging draperies. Care should always be taken
in turning out a gas-stove or a drop-light to do so at the fixture and
not at the burner. This is not alone safer, but it keeps the rubber tube
from acquiring a disagreeable odor from the gas that has been left in it.
Great economy in the consumption of gas may be secured by the use of
Welsbach and other incandescent burners. Where these are not employed,
care should be taken to select the most economical kind of gas tips,
and to see that when these become impaired by use they are replaced.
In the large cities there is constant complaint of defective gas-meters,
so much so that inspectors have been appointed to correct this abuse.
It has been found, however, that many complaints have been unfounded
because the housewives were not able properly to read the meter.
Directions how to do this will therefore be found useful. A gas-meter
has three dials marking tip to 100,000 feet, 10,000 feet, and 1,000 feet
respectively. The figures on the second dial are arranged in opposite
order from those on the first and third dials, and this often leads to
an error in reckoning. However, there should be no trouble in setting
down the figures indicated by the pointer on each dial. We first set
down the figure indicated upon the first dial in the units place of a
period of three places, then that indicated upon the second dial in the
tens place, and then that indicated upon the third dial in the hundreds
place. To these we add two ciphers, to obtain the number of feet of gas
that has been burned since the meter was set at zero on the three dials.
From this number we subtract the total of feet burned at the time when
the preceding gas bill was rendered. This is generally called on the
bill "present state of meter." The result of the subtraction will be
the amount of gas that has been burned since the last bill was rendered.
For example:
95,300, amount indicated on dial.
82,700, amount marked "present state of meter" on preceding gas bill.
------
12,600, amount of gas for which current bill is rendered.
Equal care must be exercised when kerosene is used for illumination,
since, while it is not so dangerous directly to life, it is the chief
source of the destruction of property. Accordingly the nature of
kerosene and the way it illuminates is a profitable subject of study if
we would prevent destructive fires. Really, we do not burn the oil, but
the gas that arises from the oil when liberated by the burning wick and
becomes incandescent when fed by the oxygen of the air. While kerosene
requires a high temperature for combustion, it is closely related to
other products of coal oil, such as naphtha and gasoline, which become
inflammable at a low heat and are therefore very dangerous. Since the
cheap grades of kerosene approach these products in quality, care should
be taken to see that it is of high "proof" in order to prevent
explosions. The proof required of kerosene differs in various States;
that in some is as low as 100 degrees Fahrenheit, that is, the
temperature at which the oil will give off vapors that will ignite.
This is too low a proof, for such a degree of temperature is quite common
in the household. It is safe only to use that kerosene which is at least
140 degrees proof, for then, even though the oil is spilled, there is
little danger that it will ignite except in the immediate presence of
flame. There is no danger at all in soaking wood with this kind of oil
in a stove or grate wherein the fire has gone out.
To test kerosene, put a thermometer into a cup partially filled with
cold water, and add boiling water until the mercury stands at 130
degrees Fahrenheit. Then take out the thermometer and pour two
teaspoonfuls of kerosene into the cup and pass over it the flame of
a candle. If the oil ignites, it is unsafe.
In order to prevent the flame from running down into the lamp and
causing an explosion, the wick should be soft, filling the burner
completely. The highest efficiency in the form of illumination is
obtained by round burners, especially those in lamps which admit air
to the inside of the wick and so induce the largest possible amount
of combustion. Such a lamp produces quite a high degree of heat, and
will answer the purpose of an oil-stove in a small room.
Contrary to the popular idea, wicks should be carefully trimmed with
scissors rather than with a match or other instrument. In extinguishing
a lamp one should first turn down the wick and blow across the chimney,
never down the chimney.
Owing to the fact that the wick is constantly bringing up oil by
capillary attraction, whether it is lighted or unlighted, lamps in which
the wicks have not been cared are kept continually greasy. In fact,
a lamp that is greasy or that gives out a bad odor is one that has not
been properly cared. With due attention, lamps are as clean and handy
a means of illumination as any other form.
Candles, that are now used chiefly for decorative purposes, may still be
practically employed for carrying light about the house. The danger from
a falling candle carried by a child up to bed is not nearly so great as
that which may result from either spilt oil from a broken lamp or the
cutting glass of its chimney.
To those who live in an old house, all the foregoing advice should prove
a source of helpfulness in making the best of the old home, rather than
of dissatisfaction with its seeming shortcomings. There are many simple,
inexpensive ways of making it conform to the model house. Expense need
only be incurred in sanitary improvement, such as the better drainage of
the cellar, enabling it to be utilized for purposes which now crowd the
"work-rooms" of the home, and the alterations of the windows to permit
better lighting and ventilation. Very often a room can be made to
exchange purposes by a simple transference of furniture, thus saving the
housekeeper steps. A woodhouse can be converted into a summer kitchen,
and the old one, during this season, used as a dining-room, though it
may be found even pleasanter to eat out of doors under an arbor or on
a wide piazza. A porch may be partitioned off into a laundry, and the
attic ceiled and partitioned for use as a bedroom. Very often an old
boxed-off stairway, built in the days when it was thought unseemly to
show a connection with the upper bedrooms, can be relieved of its door
and walls, to the increase of space in the lower room, and of the beauty
of its appearance. Indeed, as a rule, there are too many doors in an old
house. Some of these can be altered into open arched entrances, making
one large commodious room out of two little inconvenient ones. Unused
out-buildings can be turned into playrooms for the children, and even
sleeping quarters. All these are changes that make for the beauty no
less than the utility of home, as proved by the fact that many artists,
especially those who have studied abroad where old country houses are
more or less of this unconventional character, go into the country and
alter in this fashion old and even abandoned houses into houses admired
for their charming individuality. Illustrations of such "hermitages"
frequently appear in the magazines, and may be studied for suggestions.
Sometimes the alteration is of the exterior only. The repainting in a
proper color, or the simple creosote staining of a weather-beaten house,
with the addition of a rustic porch or the breaking of a corner bedroom
into a balcony, will sometimes so transform an old house that it looks
as if it were a new creation.