Part 4 (2/2)
Or the old kitchen might be fitted up with racks for guns and fis.h.i.+ng-rods, and used as a smoking-room, when cosily papered, and carpeted with matting; and the back kitchen converted into a carpenter's shop with lathe and tool-chest.
But our kitchen, the pride of our house, will be level with the dining-room and front door. It is a foolish practice to have all vegetables, meat, coal, etc., taken downstairs for the purpose of bringing them all up again.
When it is impossible to spare two rooms on the ground floor for household use, let both kitchen and dining-room be upstairs, while the drawing-room might be on the ground floor. This would give no more work than does our present custom. But where it is possible, it is better, for obvious reasons, that the kitchen should be on a level with the street door.
When the room used as kitchen is large and has two windows, one side of it may be part.i.tioned off for a larder, or store closet; or if there is a small third room near, it may be used for these purposes. But much depends upon the aspect of the room and its means of ventilation. A town larder need not be large, as the butcher, fishmonger, etc., can keep the provisions far better than we can do in the best of larders. A pantry and scullery will be quite unnecessary in a house arranged in this way. Wine will be kept in the usual wine-cellar, but beer, in bottles or in a small cask, may be kept in the cupboard under the stairs which is so universal in town houses.
The kitchen floor should not be carpeted; but one or two undyed sheepskins make comfortable mats, and are easily cleaned.
The kitchen dresser may be made of the usual shape, though the cornice seems superfluous, as it is too high for anything but dust to rest upon it.
Where it is thought better to do so, the old kitchen dresser may be brought bodily upstairs. If it is varnished and its back painted red, and the edges of its shelves very dark brown, with bright bra.s.s hooks in them, it may have bright bra.s.s handles put on its drawers, and it will do very well; and white or blue-and-white ware will look extremely well upon it.
A kitchen may be very prettily fitted up in the Swiss style, with unpainted deal employed decoratively whenever there is a fit occasion for it. The back of the dresser may be made of narrow boards, each lath cut out uniformly in a pattern at the top, forming a band of ornament.
The shelves will look very nice with a border of fretwork, in sycamore, placed either above or below their edges. They are more easily cleaned if the ornamental border is fastened on like barge-boarding, but this plan is not so well adapted for hooks.
Mottoes in old English character, which is similar to the German Gothic type used in Switzerland, form an appropriate decoration to the cornice of the room.
The tables and chairs must be of unpainted wood, plain, but of good form. All hooks and bars, or whatever cannot conveniently be made of wood, should be of wrought iron. This gives a good opportunity for having window-bars and fastenings, or even a balcony, made in ornamental iron work. The window-curtains will be of Swiss muslin.
Oval wooden pails, with a board on one side left tall and cut out for a handle, made in various sizes for water, milk, etc., are as useful as they are suitable to the style adopted; and baskets may be made like those carried by the Swiss mountaineers at their backs. A cuckoo clock and a few hooks of chamois horn carry out the effect. Characteristic ornaments, such as paintings of Swiss scenery, and flowers in wooden frames, wood carvings on brackets, wooden bears as matchboxes, wooden screw nutcrackers, should be collected during visits to Switzerland; and a Swiss costume will be found as practically useful as any dress the young cook can wear, and will add a great charm and liveliness to the scene.
But be the style adopted what it may, and it is well to exercise individual tastes, it need not be made expensive, or not more so than an ugly kitchen. Thought and care should combine to make it cheerful and attractive, in order that the real work to be done in it may not have a depressing influence: that the lady, or her a.s.sistant, may not pine for the greater excitement of the Row or the rink. The kitchen window should be well furnished with scented plants; and in case of having no garden, pots of parsley, mint, and thyme may be grown successfully on a balcony. Every house might possess its sweet basil plant, and every Isabella might rear it in as elegant a pot as that in Holman Hunt's picture. Plentiful use should be made of it in cookery; it is one of the best of herbs. Indeed, we too much neglect all these aromatic plants, the hygienic value of their fragrance alone being very great. Some girls might save the small fortune they now spend in opopanax and patchouly, by cultivating lavender and thyme for their wardrobes; while balm and bergamot are sweet enough to make the kitchen smell like Araby the Blest.
China ginger-jars will be found good for preserving dried herbs for winter use.
The sink is a very important part of the kitchen furniture. This, in our model kitchen, should be a shallow bath of Marezzo marble, which is a strong, durable composition, finely coloured. We should select it of a colour harmonizing with the general style of the kitchen. The sink must rest upon two columns, or short shafts, of the Marezzo marble, hollowed down the centre, to allow of the water running freely away at both ends of the sink, each tube being stopped by a bell-trap. It must stand on one side of the kitchen fire-place, so that a pipe and tap may readily communicate with the self-supplying boiler. There must also be the usual pipe to conduct cold water from the cistern.
The best possible sink would be of real marble, highly polished; but the cost of this would preclude its use in our economical household.
Enamelled slate would be cheaper and very good, and it would retain its polish better than the Marezzo marble, or j.a.panned metal might answer the purpose pretty well. But doubtless a demand for such articles would cause Messrs. Minton's factory to produce a sink in strong glazed earthenware which should be finely coloured as well as elegant in form, making, indeed, an object as beautiful as a Roman porphyry bath. Many of the public was.h.i.+ng fountains in Italy, or the south of France, would serve as models for this purpose. One of the most important points to be attended to is that it should be highly polished, as grease would be more easily removed from it, and it would be cleaner.
Beneath the sink is the pot for sc.r.a.ps and refuse, of which a small quant.i.ty is inevitable, unless there is a garden, or poultry are kept; in which cases all rubbish may be turned to account, the only exception being fish-bones and sc.r.a.ps, which, under all circ.u.mstances, must be burned.
The refuse dish should be of earthenware to match the sink, or of terra-cotta, glazed inside. It must be made in two compartments, one for usable sc.r.a.ps and one for waste. Each division should have a cover with a small air-hole in it, both covers made sufficiently heavy not to be upset or opened by the cat; and there must be a handle to lift it out once a week, or oftener, when its contents are disposed of, either as gift, or to some person calling for it regularly. In all economical families the dripping is consumed either for frying, or else clarified for cakes, etc. Cinders, of course, are to be sifted in the covered cinder-sieve, and the ashes only allowed in the dust-bin. By care on this point, seven-tenths of all fevers might be prevented.
By the side of the sink should stand a neat towel-horse for drying the damp cloths; and a pretty dish made in two divisions, with a strainer for soap and soda, should be hung in a convenient place. This dish would be best made in earthenware, but it might be of carved wood in a kitchen fitted up in the Swiss style.
A plate-rack must be above the sink, and here is great scope for tasteful decoration without interfering with its lightness or strength.
A rack like those in general use would, however, be perfectly inoffensive, and so would our ordinary buckets and dish-tubs; but souvenirs of travel, such as the quaint wooden pails seen at Antwerp, or the bra.s.s fryingpan-shaped candlesticks at Ghent, should be eagerly sought, as they add much to the picturesqueness and piquant liveliness which are so desirable.
A round towel, on a roller with nicely carved brackets, is indispensable. This should be of finer holland than it is generally made of, being for ladies' use; or it might preferably be of soft Turkish towelling, with coloured stripes and a fringed end, and so be pleasanter to the eye and touch than the ordinary jack-towel.
The dresser-drawers must have their piles of kitchen cloths neatly folded, and separated for their different services. These should be the pride of the young housewife's heart, all of them having their ends tastefully ornamented, either ravelled out or knotted into fringe for the commonest, or open worked, or edged with Greek lace and _guipure-d'art_, according to their quality; the dusters only being plain, and these of two sorts, one stout for furniture, and the other kind of soft muslin for ornaments. Housemaid's gloves, wash-leather, and any favourite cleaning materials, should be kept in a drawer by themselves; but in my experience I have found very few of these things necessary. As is the case with all the arts, the more complete the paraphernalia, the less is the work done. It takes so long to set in order one's apparatus, and to play with it a little, that as soon as something is begun to be done, it is time to put all away again. How often we see this with amateur painters; they set out too heavily equipped.
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