The legs are two inches square and twenty-four inches long, and at the bottom they are slightly tapered with a draw-knife and plane.
They are fastened to the inner side of the tray at the corners with long, slender screws driven down through the bottom of the tray and into the top of the legs.
Bracket-braces are let into the legs in lap-cuts made with saw and chisel, as shown at Fig. 19, and at the ends rails are let in between the legs to hold them rigidly.
The screws attaching these joints may be covered with mock nail-heads. The ornament at the side of the tray is cut from sheet-lead with a stout pair of shears, painted black, and applied to the wood with flat-headed tacks or gimp-nails.
An Indispensable Clothes-press
The available room in any clothes-closet can be more than doubled by adopting clothes-hangers and a rod. Fig. 20 shows the plan of a closet seen from above.
The projections around the outer edge represent hooks, while the bar through the middle and the cross-sticks represent the space gained.
Fig. 21 shows the usual rail and shelf, but under them are the bar and hangers that represent the new feature. This is a great improvement upon the ordinary closet, even when drop-hooks are used under the shelves for the support of hangers carrying clothes. The work necessary for this arrangement is very simple.
Obtain two sockets and a small curtain-rod, and fit the rod into the sockets screwed to the wall under the hook-rail, taking care to drive long, slender screws through the plaster. From a hardware or house-furnishing store obtain a number of coat-hangers composed of a wood bar and iron hook. These can be had at all prices from two for five cents to twenty-five cents each, or if it is impossible to purchase them they can be sawed out of wood by any boy and provided with iron-wire hooks. The bars are eighteen inches across and slightly curved at the top, like one’s shoulders. Underneath the bars, near the ends, small hooks may be screwed into place, on which trousers may be hung by using clamps (Fig. 22). In this manner from four to six suits can be hung to every running foot of the pole.
This method will keep the coat or trousers in shape. If loops are sewn fast to the skirt-band, the skirt will hang on the two lower hooks much better than on a single hook, when this system is applied to mother’s or sister’s closets.