When the room used as kitchen is large and has two windows, one side of
it may be partitioned 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 brass hooks
in them, it may have bright brass 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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