It was very common in times past to use a slide connecting kitchen and dining-room. A passage is much better. The slide is worse than a door in communicating sounds and odors. In some of the plans in this book, doors are shown opening directly into the kitchen. This is done under protest; the owner of the house would have it so. The sideboard may be built as a part of the house. This is well enough when the question of cost is not important.
From the dining-room we will pass to the kitchen.
CHAPTER VI.
KITCHENS.—THE KITCHEN A WORKSHOP.—WORK TO BE DONE IN A KITCHEN.—A PLAN.—FITTINGS.—DISH-WASHING CONVENIENCES.—SINK AND TABLES.—CHINA-CLOSET.—PANTRY.—COMBINATION PANTRY.—PANTRY FITTINGS.—WORK IN A PANTRY.—A DOUGH-BOARD.—FLOUR-BIN.—PANTRY STORES.—CUPBOARD.—REFRIGERATOR ARRANGEMENTS.—PANTRY UTENSILS.—A DRY-BOX.—SOAP-BOX.—VENTILATION OF KITCHEN.—GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF KITCHEN PLANNING.
The kitchen existed in its state of greatest cleanliness and order a good many years ago in New England, where it was largely used as a sitting and dining room. As people became more prosperous, they moved out of the kitchen; they had a separate sitting-room. It was then that the kitchen began to decline. After this it was often literally as well as figuratively separated from the living part of the house.
The public has not suffered through lack of information on cookery and general housekeeping topics. Little has been said, however, about the house itself, with regard to its arrangements for facilitating the manifold operations of housekeeping. The subject is a broad one, and may be treated with some respect to detail. As the heart of the house, the kitchen may be given serious consideration.
In the modern house the kitchen is merely the place where the food is prepared for the table. The controlling idea and its arrangements should be to afford facilities for doing the work with as little labor as possible.
The kitchen is the workshop of the house. It should be arranged and planned according to the same general principles as any other workshop. A manufacturer arranges his foundry, his mill, or his printing-house, with reference to the saving of labor, for the purpose of saving money. When we save labor in a kitchen, we save the energy of the housekeeper, and, possibly, money.