II
A Labour-Saving Flat.
"I live by myself and have until lately kept two servants. In consequence, most of my income has been spent on housekeeping. I prefer many other things to food, soap, dusters, and servants, so now I have altered my arrangements.
"My flat consists of two sitting-rooms, kitchen, and three bedrooms. The block ought, of course, to have been supplied with a constant service of hot water for heating and cleaning, but we are behind the times in England in these matters. So now I have gas fires in all the rooms and a gas circulator and a gas cooker. Electric light everywhere. I have made the third room into a box-room, dress-room, etc., and have table, dress-stand, and machine, and a work-woman sews there one day a week and keeps me mended and tidy, and also makes covers and lampshades, and so on. Sometimes she comes two or even three days if I need her, and except for tailor-mades, hats, and a good dress now and again, she makes all I wear. I find this a great economy.
"All my floors are covered with linoleum. I have weeded out unnecessary furniture, only keeping really good pieces. I have muslin screens made to fit the windows, so dirt does not come in, and having no coal fires, the rooms keep extraordinarily clean. I have a fitted bathroom and no washstand work. My breakfast I have in bed as early as I please, and it consists of tea, a boiled egg, and jam or fruit and toast. It is all put ready on a covered tray and I have an electric arrangement for boiling water and making toast by my bedside. I turn on the gas circulator and my gas fire and go back to bed and have breakfast and read my papers and letters.
"By the time I want to get up my room is warm and the bath water hot. I generally breakfast at seven, as I like to read a good deal before getting up. My daily servant comes at eight and stays till after lunch. She is able to clean and cook and leave my simple dinner ready, sometimes in a hay box and sometimes put ready for me to heat. I am seldom in to tea, and if I am it is a simple matter to prepare that meal.
"I have no objection to answering my door, but if I wish to be 'Not at home' the hall indicator proclaims that fact. The porter takes in parcels if I ask him to do so, and cleans boots, carries luggage, and gets cabs, or in these days doesn't get them! I do various little jobs of polishing, cleaning, etc., because I like a very clean house. In the drawing-room I have an electric fire cleverly made to flicker like real flames. It is nice to sit with because it has the movement that one misses. Sometimes I have a friend to stay, and if I have friends to dine I engage a waitress and keep my out-worker all day. I often have friends to lunch, but more often entertain at my club. I am more comfortable than when I had two maids and my expenses are far less. I think my two young ladies must have been very hospitable, for my bills were decidedly high. Also they seemed to live on soap and dusters, and to consume incredible quantities of electric light and gas. Of course, if I had fires and coals and a kitchen range and crowded rooms, and wanted elaborate meals, I could not manage as I do; but as things are, I am both clean and comfortable."
PLATE XXV
AN ALL GAS KITCHEN IN A LARGE HOUSE
Three gas boilers are shewn, one or all of which can be in use as occasion demands. These supply the storage tanks and a continuous service of hot water to four bathrooms, wash-basins in lavatories and sinks. The hot closet is served by coils from hot water service so that dishes can be kept hot. There is a supplementary method of heating this closet by means of gas burners, which can be used when the large gas boilers are not required. Hot water for a bathroom is provided by a geyser when only one or two of the family are at home. A condensing stove heats the kitchen in winter.
This house is warmed throughout by hot water pipes heated by a coke boiler which is used during the winter months only and gas fires are fitted in each room for occasional use. The makers represented are:
Boilers: One John Wright Boiler: One Davis Boiler: One Potterton Boiler
Cooker: John Wright & Co.
Hot Cupboard fitted up by the Gas Company to special measurements
Condensing Stove: Richmond Gas Stove & Meter Co., Ltd.
Refuse Destructor: Davis Gas Stove Co., Ltd.
A Three Sitting-room, Hall, and Six Bedroom Suburban House.
"I call this house suburban because it is within 'daily bread' distance of London and therefore the neighbourhood is much built over. This enables us to have electric light and a telephone, and the London stores deliver three times a week. I was told that servants were simply appalling, so bad and so hard to find. So I thought we had better be as independent of them as possible. We had taken a small house and were rearranging it, so I decided to have a coke furnace for hot water and radiators and little electric fires in the drawing-room and smoking-rooms, for cold weather and for the cheering effect a fire gives. The gardener undertakes the furnace and stokes at seven, at midday, and when he leaves at night. The house is beautifully warm, and we have no trouble with radiators or hot water. I have no scullery, but cook by electricity, and have a sink in the kitchen, where there is an alcove with a table and armchairs for the maids, and they have their own little piece of garden to sit in. There is a pantry, and the house-parlourmaid can sit there if she wishes. There is a buttery hatch into the dining-room, and the cook has only to hand the dishes through it. I keep an oil stove in readiness should the electric cooker go wrong, but so far it has not. The cook's work is greatly lessened when cooking by electricity. We have three bathrooms and no washhandstand bedroom work. The house has polished wood floors, and rugs and linoleum. It is simply but well furnished, and I have glass over the mahogany toilet tables, sideboard, and side tables. Very little metal work, and the doors and woodwork are unpainted. This saves much labour. We have a polished dinner-table and save the cost of buying and washing tablecloths, side and toilet cloths. Unfortunately, I had knives of the old-fashioned kind, but use a knife machine, and long-handled mops, Bissel sweeper, etc. In normal times we entertained a good deal, and then had a woman to help wash up; but now, of course, there is practically no entertaining.
"I hate linoleum. I like nice, bright coal fires. I abhor sparsely furnished rooms. I think your ideas are detestable!!"
I knew you would say that. Most people are antagonistic to the ideas of other people until they have had time to become used to them and regard them as their own.
Still, the title of this book is not "The House of My Dreams," or "A Castle in Spain," but
"The Labour-Saving House."
PLATE XXVI
METER READING
In order to check expenditure on gas and to detect wastage, leakage, or faulty registration, the gas-meter ought to be read regularly, say once a week, and a record kept of the amount of gas consumed.
Meter reading is quite simple, and it should be no more difficult for an educated woman to learn to read her own gas-meter than a reasonably intelligent child to learn to tell the time by the clock.
The only thing to remember is that as meat is measured in "pounds" and calico in "yards," so gas is measured in "thousands" (of cubic feet). If, therefore, you have burned ten "thousands," and gas in your district is, say, half-a-crown a thousand, your bill will be ten half crowns. If gas is 3/- a thousand, then your bill will be ten times 3/-, and so on.
A copy of instructions mounted on a card can always be had from the local gas manager, and hung up in a convenient place near the gas meter until it is mastered by constant use.
The meter consists of five dials. Of these the top one should be neglected; then the figures indicated by the four lower ones should be written down from left to right, and 00 added to the end. If the hand is between two figures the lowest should always be written down, with the exception that when it is between 9 and 0, 9 must be recorded. That is all there is to do: and by this simple procedure it is possible to find out exactly how much gas has been used during the week, and whether it is more or less than the amount consumed during the preceding week. If it happens to be more, then the careful housewife will set about considering the circumstances and seeing in what points she has failed to practice the economies suggested to her.