FURNISHING YOUR KITCHEN
Furnishing the kitchen sounds simple enough. But it is not. Everything
put into the kitchen must have not only beauty and uniformity, but also
utility, durability, tool shop convenience, and the maximum hygienic
attributes. In one word, the furnishings must have absolute
utensibility.
In the other rooms (save the bathroom) you can humorously tell your
decorator to do it in early Pullman or seriously in Louis Quinze--and
all will be well. Your furniture in these rooms must be passably
durable, consistent, and beautiful, but it need not be unstainable,
washable, non-absorbent, rigid, non-corrosive, etc., etc. Equipping a
kitchen is like equipping a medical laboratory--skill must be employed.
THE TABLE
Chief among the furnishings of the kitchen are the table and its
relatives. They have to be rigid, enduring, and must be the correct size
for the job and the correct kind for the work they are meant to do.
The table has been the storm center of discussion for years. The problem
is this:--to find a table top that is non-absorbent, easily cleaned (not
holding stains like an artist’s palette), not brittle, not cracking
under changes of temperature or when utensils are dropped upon it.
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of Duparquet, Huot & Moneuse_
SHOWING THE MEAT-CHOPPING TABLE, RANGE, TABLE ARRANGEMENT, RUBBER MATS,
SINK, AND POT SHELF ARRANGEMENT]
For if you are doing your own work, you do not want to be scraping and
cleaning all day, and if you have servitors you will want them for more
productive work.
This is a big order. Teachers, scientific experts, and manufacturers of
laboratory conveniences (they are never called kitchen conveniences in
these circles! Would this nomenclature help the servant problem?) have
massed their findings and the results of the world-wide demand for a
practical kitchen table top are the following:
_Enamel Tops._ These (and their confrères vitrolite, etc.) are excellent
if you know that the manufacturer is good. They do not crack or craze
(fall into multitudinous vein-like cracks) and break with ordinary
usage. The enamel is baked over steel or iron and should be at least
three coats thick.
_Glass Tops._ Not for general utility, but well adapted for the pastry
table since with this top no special pastry board is needed. Glass tops
are really very beautiful and have every qualification but
unbreakableness. Some new patents are less brittle than old makes.
_Marble Tops._ Excellent for the pastry table, and if one can afford
them, fine for most things. There is only the remotest chance that they
may break and only when they are less than 2″ thick.
_White Metal Tops._ Excellent, non-corrosive, flat coverings. They are
expensive but do not need any nursing to keep them in order.
_Zinc Tops._ Very much used, but these tops buckle and puff and are very
much affected by acids and alkalis.
_Wooden Tops._ Far better than zinc for the householder who cannot
afford the other tops. The wood can be treated with non-staining
varnish, or a varnish that can stand heat without being annihilated,
and you will have a fine table. If this is not possible, the ordinary
wooden table, fresh from the shop, if covered with linoleum or oil
cloth, is very useful and durable, especially since the linoleum can be
changed inexpensively and often. There may be a metal binder around the
wooden table top if desired.
_Composition Tops._ These need a guarantee as they are often of glass or
some mixture undefined.
_Tin Tops._ These are not used any more, as far as we know.
SPECIAL TABLES
The ordinary table length is from 3′ to 7′, depending upon the size of
the kitchen. There are usually from one to three tables in use,--more
often two. The ordinary heights are from 32″ to 28″. Get the height that
fits your workers. Be sure to find this out if possible; otherwise you
will have to make a later arrangement.
Maple is a satisfactory wood for strong tables; ash, and pine for the
cheaper kind of top.
The marble top table is the royal pastry table, which, of course, though
not a luxury, is an extra table. Fancy a seven foot marble slab 2¹⁄₂″
thick! Isn’t it like an Alma Tadema conception! The pastry table usually
has a rack of some sort beneath it, either slatted or solid. This rack
may be half shelf and half electric plate warmer. In smaller homes the
pastry table of 3′ length is the most convenient with a somewhat thinner
marble top or glass top.
The top of the cook’s table is sometimes divided into two parts, one
part made of marble or glass for pastry work and the other part of
polished wood for ordinary pursuits. This effects the saving of a table
if the cooks do not squabble or there is but one cook and little room!
The cook’s table is placed opposite the range and has a 7′ pot rack
attached.
The legs of most of these high-grade tables are tipped with metal to
keep them unspotted from the washings of the floor. The trimmings, too,
are of the same metal, formerly called German silver.
It would not be a bad idea to have a metallic tip of some sort put on
the legs of the less expensive tables, to keep them from wearing and to
maintain a rigidity well beloved in tables. For there is no happiness in
table tipping outside of the spiritual seance!
KITCHEN CABINETS
A kitchen cabinet (see also Chapter XXVII, Kitchen Cabinets) is a thing
of duty and joy forever. It is the first cousin to the table and really
is but the table extended and expanded into drawers and shelves and
closets. It signifies the demand of the modern housewife for a shipshape
tool chest with all the materials ready to her hand so that there may be
no reaching, stretching, or relay races around the kitchen in the
preparation of the recurring daily meals.
For the most part these cabinets are moveable. That is, they are not
built into the walls of the room. At present, however, architects are
planning for them as stationary and essential parts of the kitchen
equipment.
MATERIALS
Steel and wood are the materials out of which the cabinet is made. The
steel ones are better in many ways than the wooden types because they
are easier to clean and are more protected against vermin. However, the
wooden cabinets which are built with rounded corners are a close second
to the steel cabinet, since these corners cannot become a receptacle
for food waste and are practically vermin proof. Wooden cabinets are
finished in a hard enamel paint and can be washed with impunity.
Some kitchen cabinets are equipped with a rolling door which folds
upwards; others have swinging doors. The swinging door, although it
extends into the room a few inches, has the convenience of being able to
hold extra little racks for extra little things, such as small bottles,
market lists, and the like.
Never fill your cabinet too full of things, as they are prone to fall
down and jangle the nerves of the worker, thus really defeating the
purpose for which the cabinet is built, which is maximum convenience.
Besides the table top, which is used as a molding board, there are
places for the flour bin, sugar container, bread, cake, pots, pans,
rolling pin, cutlery, jars, dishes, marketing slips, and even the
favorite cook book.
The kitchen cabinet is a boon to the small housekeeper and is becoming
so appreciated for its concentration of work and saving of steps that
even the owners of large homes insist on installing it. That is why
architects are including the kitchen cabinet in their plans. It means a
saving of 75% of toil and thus becomes a factor in making servants
willing to stay with you.
Where there are no servants employed you, Mrs. Wife, get the benefit!
There are many smaller cabinets on the market. The sink closet, which
contains all the sink soap, swabs and brushes, a real convenience
indeed, as is the long and narrow broom closet, for brooms and cleaning
materials. Until you have your brooms properly garaged your nerves never
will be entirely rested.
Dealers and manufacturers are ready, in fact, to make any sort of a
cabinet for you if they are not in stock. Don’t be bashful, get what
you need for your kitchen--but never get more than you can use.
Small neat white cabinets are made, to fit corners as well as flat
spaces, and give the kitchen the efficient, clean look of the
laboratory.
SHELVING UNITS
Steel shelving and built-in kitchen cabinets are growing more and more
popular. Stationary shelves, built once and for all, can be installed,
or you can begin with a few units and as you require more they can be
bolted on to what you have, just like sectional bookcases.
These shelves are covered with three coats of enamel baked on steel and
very durable, having the same qualities as the good table:--rigidity,
non-absorption, 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 becoming as systematic as the
business sanctum. Just as soon as the home approximates the efficiency
and standardization of the office, just so soon will the servant problem
cease to be. But we are not discussing the millennium in this chapter.
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.
Very 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 insulated 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 glass shelves are being used of late.
PLATE WARMER
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 accomplished by ovens, oven tops, or
warming plates arranged above the ovens or stove. In larger homes,
however, 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 you 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
interior of the warmer is perfectly insulated with asbestos and other
materials. It does not warm the kitchen. This is proved by the
possibility of its being placed next to a refrigerator without 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 unnecessary heat getting out
when you wish to find out whether the warmer is functioning 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 being considered here.
In the kind of kitchen we are furnishing 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 in which you 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 convenience if perchance your kitchen maid
is not an Amazon and needs a few more inches added to her, or if your
cook happens, too, not to be of heroic mold.
In small kitchens the settle-table is a convenience. For when a bench is
needed it can be used as a bench, and presto! 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 your kitchen denizen. 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 the 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 uniformity 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 to-day kitchen furnishings to suit every pocket,
so there is really little excuse for a kitchen to look heterogeneous and
messy. Furnishing a kitchen is a most tempting problem, especially with
not too full a purse. The trouble is mostly that people who know nothing
about a kitchen always furnish it, because it is considered easy. It
isn’t easy. Even after furnishings are bought if they are not placed
well they are of as little value as if they did not exist.
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.