Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/20

 WOMAN'S HOME Before these details receive consideration, however, there are certain initial questions to be answered. PORCH Plan of a house with the two most important rooms facing south What can I afford to pay in rent, rates, and taxes ? What is the minimum accommodation that will satisfy my requirements ? Rules have been given for rent in terms of income, but experience shows that the question is largely dependent upon one's style of living. Possibly ten per cent, is a safe figure for a household conducted on commonsense principles. As regards accommodation, it is well to have at least one spare bedroom, and a second if the family is likely to have visitors. These two points settled, the search may be commenced. With freedom of choice as regards district, high ground on a gravelly soil is an ideal situation, provided it is not upon a wind- swept hill-top. Clay soil is cold, wet, and altogether undesirable. A chalky subsoil implies a hard water, unwelcome on hygienic grounds and wasteful of soap. When business or other considerations pre- clude the choice of district, the next point is to secure a good situation and pleasant surroundings. An all-important matter is aspect. The principal living-rooms should be on the sunny side of the house, the kitchen, pantry, and sanitary offices on the shady side. In these (lays of narrow frontages in crowded suburbs it is not easy to realise suth con- ditions, and one has to compromise. In that case by all means have one sitting- room — the room most constantly in use — with a south or approximately south aspect. Equally important is the outlook from the principal rooms. The near proximity of small, insanitary property, a laundry or factory, a public playground, or other eyesore is to be avoided. The presence of noise of any kind, regular or intermittent, in the immediate neighbour- hood should disqualify an otherwise desirable neighbourhood. Such familiar noises as railway and street traffic appear to cause little inconvenience to the majority of healthy people, but they may become very distressing to the invalid and jaded housewife. In nine cases out of ten, houses are taken through an agent, who is only too keen to rush the prospective tenant into signing an agreement for a term of years. The services of the agent are valuable to the extent of furnishing a list of houses in his district, and his guidance in taking you to and through them saves much wearisome inquiry ; but his advice and opinions on the merits of any particular house must be taken with reserve. It is his life-purpose to let houses. If you distrust your own ability to dis- criminate, by all means seek the advice of an independent person, preferably an expert. A small fee to a qualified surveyor is well spent if it ensures that you get a house free from any serious defect. At the same time it is well to exercise a little judgment on your own account. The sanitary condition of a house may be perfect ; it may be dry and above reproach in con- structive details ; but yet it may have dis- qualifications from your individual stand- point which would render it undesirable. Houses of the same approximate size and rental vary much in their internal arrange- ments. In looking over a number of such An example of bad planning. Space wasted in passage A better plan houses this fact becomes only too obvious. A well-planned house should have very little wasted space within its four walls. Some houses seem to be little more than a maze of passages, stairs, and odd corners. Again, the relative positions of the living- rooms and kitchen may involve inconveni- ence in the serving of meals, or the diffusion