Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/317

 FIXTURES FOR COTTAGE DWELLINGS. 293 548 the walls or door of the room, or the wardrobe against which it is fixed. The use of the paint is not only to harmonise it with the rest of the apartment, but to preserve the wood from being first discoloured, and afterwards rotted, by the wet and damp of the towel. If it should be fixed against a papered wall, and near a wash-hand stand, a row of wooden pins or buttons, e, may be placed in the under side of the rail, on which may be hung a curtain of brown bolland linen, or of any other material, to prevent the w all from being splashed. 611. Hat and CloaJc Pins are sometimes formed of *ood, turned or plain, and let into a rail of the same material ; this rail being fixed to the wall, in the entrance lobby or passage, or sometimes in cottage bed-rooms. The more common pins for this purpose are made of cast iron ; and figs. 548 and 549 show two of the most useful shapes : the latter answers two purposes, as a cloak may be hung on rf, ar^d a hat on e. 612. All Iron Hand-miU, for grinding coffee, rice, barley, and groats, and another smaller one for pepper, &c., are most vahable articles in the better description of cottages ; because the cottager may not only roast and grind his own coffee, or any of the substitutes for it, but he may, at pleasure, fcitn rice flour from whole rice, for puddings, &c., for invalMs or children; barley flour from pearl barley, for fever drink ; or oatmeal from groats, for porridge or gruel. These mills are always easiest to work, and most effective, when fixed ; and for this purpose, if there be no styli of a door or quarter of a partition suflSciently strong, they must be bolted to the wall, unless provision was made in building it, by inserting a piece of strong timber, or a sto 'e to which the mill could be cramped with lead. 613. Fued Ironing- Boards and Flaps are useful both in kitchen and, on a smaller scale, in lobbies and passages, and even sometimes as brackets in sit ng-rooms. Fig. 550 550 is an ironing-board, or flap table, which, in a cottage, may seive for various u =eful purposes, and, where the living rooms are small, will be found a most valuable substitute