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Page 21
"Perhaps Jack will remember," said Jill, as she prepared to explain her
plans, "that we examined not long ago a large number of somewhat
pretentious houses, but did not find one that was satisfactory, the
defects being usually in what I should call the working department of
the house. The large front rooms were often exceedingly charming,
elegantly furnished and well arranged."
"For which reason," said Jack, "the family seemed to be religiously
kept out of them unless they had on their company manners and their
Sunday clothes, or wished to make themselves particularly miserable by
having a wedding, a sewing society or an evening party."
"The rear boundary of the dining-room seemed like Mason and Dixon's
line in the old times; once beyond it, we entered a region 'without law
or ornament or order,' a realm of architectural incompetence, confusion
and evil work--if it is fair to call the arrangements of the domestic
part of a house an architectural matter."
"Certainly it is," Jack affirmed, "and it's my opinion that no
architect ought to receive his diploma until he has served one year in
a first-class family as cook, butler and maid-of-all-work."
[Illustration: THE OUTSIDE OF TED'S HOUSE.]
"One would almost be inclined to think that such an experience, with
another year at bridge building, had been with certain 'practical
architects and builders' the entire course of study."
"It was plain enough," Jill continued, "that these houses were planned
by _men_, who were not only ignorant of the details of housework but
who held them in low esteem, as of no special importance. They
evidently exhausted their room and their resources on what they are
pleased to call the 'main' part of the house, leaving the kitchen and
all its accessories to be fashioned out of the chips and fragments that
remained. It would be a similar thing if a man should build a factory,
fill it with machinery, furnish and equip the offices, warerooms and
shipping docks, but leave no room for the engine that is to drive the
whole or for the fuel that feeds the engine. When 'we women' practice
domestic architecture, as we surely ought and shall,--"
"When it's fashionable."
"--we shall change all that. If there can be but two good rooms in a
house it is better to have a kitchen and sitting-room than a
dining-room and parlor. I propose to begin at the other end of the
problem in planning our house. It may not suit anybody else, but if it
suits Jack and I it will be a model home."
"That sentiment is a solid foundation to build upon," said the
architect. "I wish it was more popular. Build to suit yourselves, not
your neighbors."
"And now if you will walk into my kitchen, which is _not_ up nor down a
winding stair? but on the same level with the dining-room, you shall
judge whether it can be made a stern reality or must always remain the
ghostly wing of a castle in the air. The approach from outside is
through the little entry at the farther corner, where 'the butcher, the
baker, and the candlestick maker,' the grocer, the fish-man, the
milk-man and the ice-man bring their offerings. The other entrance is
by way of the lobby adjoining the main staircase hall. This lobby or
'garden entrance' is a sort of Mugby Junction, where we can take the
cars for the cellar, for the second floor by the back stairs route, for
the dining-room or for out of doors, and where we find refreshment in
the way of a wash-basin and minor toilet conveniences. Under the main
staircase there is also a large closet opening into this same lobby. My
kitchen you see has windows at opposite sides, not only to admit plenty
of light, for cleanliness is a child of light--"
"That's true," said Jack. "In a dark room it's hard to tell a dried
blueberry from a dried--currant."
"Not only for light, but that the summer breezes may sweep through it
when the windows are open, and, as far as possible, keep a river of
fresh air rollings between the cooking range and the dining-room. It is
long and narrow, that it may have ample wall space and yet keep the
distance between the engine and machine shop, that is, the range with
its appurtenances, and the packing-room--I mean the butler's pantry--as
short as possible."
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