The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1913-01-27

apart one way and twenty feet the 9TH
er. was a mistake. II is the little
kitchen. with all its furnishings grouped
within A square yard. with its walls of
sanitary thing and its floor uncovered
with innocent, II germ-collecting lin
oleum, that has been demonstrated as
the sort of place that will solve the SER
want problem and make for household
efficiency
So, when the up-to-date woman de-
cides to put into practice all the knowl-
edge gained in home economies. she first
looks to the kitchen. She tries to make
over the old kitchen to fit the new meth
DDS. She huddles the furniture together
and gets rid of the linoleum. She con-
templates the thing of the walls. but dis
covers that the process of covering the
walls of room twenty by fifteen costs
a prohibitive price
In her last extremity she turns to the
kitchenette OF the apartment house. 1t
is just eight by ten and is as modern
as can be. II is not too spacious. No
extra steps are wasted in useless run
ming about. 1t appeals at once to the
woman who has become disconnected
with her old big kitchen. She is con-
verted to the fiat.
There is no gainsaying the fact that
the determining characteristic of the
apartment house which wins to its mar
row ways the woman who has been liv-
ing in the ordinary nine or ten-room
Washington house is the kitchen. But is
the kitchen compensation for all that
one gives up when she goes to join the
cliff-dweIlers? II there were not two
sides to the question all the fun in the
argument would be lost and-we would
have to talk about something else.
Is even the janitor compensation for
the lack of a pantry-the pantry was
a handy place for all things. storeroom
and cupboard in the plain and simple
house? There are apartments that have
closets and storeroom facilities large
enough to be noticed. but the average
apartment is, in its fearful and wonder
full conservation OF space and concentra-
ton of room, so nearly devoid of closets
that the presence of one is worthy of
special mention in describing such a liv-
ing place to ones friends
I'VE have four rooms aud a kitchen
cite and bath and two Closets an
nounces the fiat dwellcr with a ring
OF glee in her tones. The resident in
the average home takes no note even
OF the number of ciosts and similar
repositories in the house, but she is sure
there is at least one in each room, two
under the hall stairs and a lot of nice
little shelves at the turn OF the back
stairs.
So who shall decide which manner of
living offers advantages, pleasures and
privileges that shall overbalance the
other? Perhaps each in its place is best.
But the cliff dweller insists that she
would not live in a big house again with
perfect RATS of vacant rooms which
have always to be kept clean and gar
nished, but which are used only upon
very rare occasions-not for worlds
would she live there. But when it be-
comes necessary to store away the sum-
mer clothes of the children and nary
a closet in which to store them-then
her enthusiasm falters. She might sort
Of like to go back to the street-front
house manner of living of her childhood
after all.
And the woman who has all the closets
and other storage places that even a
miser could wish glories in her spacious
rooms and their homelke. airy atmos-
phere-until she comes to the kitchen.
Then she signs for a kftchenette and
begs for a chance to become a dweller
in the cliffs.