In the kind of kitchen we are furnishing the ordinary modified Windsor chair is as good a model as any we know, and can and should be finished to match the rest of the kitchen. The stool is most convenient and should be about 24″ in height, because a worker can work efficiently while sitting on this. The chair step-ladder is convenient in rooms in which you have had to build high shelves for sufficient storage room, lack of space being the only excuse for such unreachable shelves. There is, too, the ladder-stool, which serves the same purpose as this chair step-ladder combination. The little wooden step is a convenience if perchance your kitchen maid is not an Amazon and needs a few more inches added to her, or if your cook happens, too, not to be of heroic mold. In small kitchens the settle-table is a convenience. For when a bench is needed it can be used as a bench, and presto! when a table is needed, it is quickly changed into a table--the two things taking but the space of one. MATS Stone, composition, tile, and even wood floors are often very trying to the feet and back of your kitchen denizen. A strip or two of linoleum or cork is a great relief as it adds to the unrelenting floor a little elasticity and resiliency which takes the strain off the feet and makes for comfort and ease. These materials are the best, for they are washable and non-absorbent, and they add rather than detract from the beauty of the surroundings. If the strips are not usable, mats can be bought or made for the space to be filled. MATCHING UP It is quite as possible to have uniformity in your kitchen as well as in your other rooms. Even if the kitchen must be fixed up after the architect has done his worst, you can at least have the same color scheme throughout. There are on the market to-day kitchen furnishings to suit every pocket, so there is really little excuse for a kitchen to look heterogeneous and messy. Furnishing a kitchen is a most tempting problem, especially with not too full a purse. The trouble is mostly that people who know nothing about a kitchen always furnish it, because it is considered easy. It isn’t easy. Even after furnishings are bought if they are not placed well they are of as little value as if they did not exist. In getting household apparatus the first and great demand is: Know your manufacturer. And the second is as important: Buy the best you can afford after the most careful thought, and be very sure where it is going to be placed when you get it. CHAPTER XXIII KITCHEN COSMETICS Like women, kitchens must be made up continuously to be kept up. Like women, the fairer and even blonder they are the more attractive they seem to be; but unlike women, they must never be applied with powder (as a beautifier) or with oils, varnishes and paints which for any reason disintegrate into powder.