Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/612

 WOMAN'S HOME f - — -x^ ^■.-.^ HOW TO CHOOSE A HOUSE Continued Jrom fa^e 46S, Fart 4 By W. S. ROGERS, C.E., Author of "Villa Gardens," etc. The Imcortanc2 of the Bu4er*s Pantry, a Good Linen Cupboard, and a Good Box^room— Window and Door Fastenings and Fittings— The Bath-room— Th* Water Supply the energetic bather is apt to receive un- AMOST useful adjunct to the kitchen, not so common in modern houses as one would wish, is the butler's pantry. There glass and china ware may be washed and put away in the cupboards without going through the Bath'room annexed to principal bed'room ordeal of association with the heavier delf, a fruitful cause of breakages. The sink should be lead -lined, but if it is enamelled, there should be a wooden grid at the bottom. These are precautions against breakage. One has only to experience the convenience of the butler's pantry to realise its value. Its presence or absence should be noted when weighing up the relative desirability of the several houses that may be under con- sideration. The Bath-room and Box-room A house without a bath-room is impossible to most people, yet even in London and other large cities one may meet with many such. The discriminating home-seeker will avoid not only the houses that fail in this detail, but also those in which the bath obviously has been squeezed into some inconvenient corner as an afterthought. The bath-room should be room.y, well- lighted, and well-ventilated. It should also be readily accessible to the occupants of all the bed rooms. In point of size the majority of bath-rooms £rr in the direction of smallness. A bath-room 6 feet by 4 feet, a not uncommon size in small villas, is ridiculously inadequate in cubic space. A hot bath taken in such a room with the usual inefficient ventilation, brings one near to asphyxiation. Moreover, looked for damage to his elbows in the towelling stage. A minimum size consistent with comfort is, say, 7 feet by 8 feet. In some houses the bath-room opens out of the principal bed-room, as shown in the accompanying diagram. This is very con- venient for the occupant of that bed room, but is not very desirable if there is only one bath-room in the house. There are things that one had rather keep out of sight — e.g., travelling trunks, the baby cawiage no longer required, spare items of furniture, and a dozen things the catalogue of which will vary with each household. These intermittently useful articles do not add to the comfort of the home, nor have they any decorative value when displayed to view in passages and bed-rooms. Therefore see that your choice falls upon a house with at least one spacious box-room The Linen Cupboard Again, the value of the linen cupboard should not be overlooked. It should be roomy, well provided with shelves of open rack-work, ventilated, and heated by a coil of piping connected with the hot water system. It is usual to find the quahty of the house fittings a close match to that of the house itself. The house of jerrydom is jerry-built all through. If the walls are damp, the floors, doors, and windows draughty, the roof leaky, and the ceilings cracked, it is more than probable that the door fastenings will be defective, the Water-taps leaky, the grates flimsy and badly set, and the cold and hot water svstems inefficient. The little screw that will diop out. An obsolete type of door knob The house-hunter must have a keen e3'e for the minor defects of the house, because many of the inconveniences that arise in the daily routine of the home have their origin in such defects.