THE HOME BEAUTIFUL

Evening Star, Issue 19666, 20 September 1927, Page 2

THE HOME BEAUTIFUL

NOVEL IDEAS “An Amorican-stylo home” generally conjures up visions of built-in cupboards and other labor-saving ideas. But American home planners do not stop at cupboards; their attention is devoted just as much to improving the flower vase or the milk can.

In an unusually attractive little Sydney home there is a host of novel ideas seldom found in the Australian homo, says an Australian paper. Throughout the house panels hide cleverly builtin cupboards—at a touch even a writing desk slips out from the Jiving room wall; but that is only the beginning. Between dining room and kitchen is a servcrv, saving' untold time and labor. In the dining room its Jaco-bcan-finishod sideboard • appearance blends perfectly with the dark panelling and furniture; iij, the kitchen it appears as a white dresser. Tho cupboards open at both ends, and the drawer swings through from dining room to kitchen, while two sliding doors between the drawer and tho upper cabinet enable dislics to be quickly passed through. In the pantry arc four little compartments, each door about a foot square. They are marked “butcher,” “grocer,” “baker,” and “milkman.” Uadi cupboard also opens at tho other end, the doors being in the outside wall of the pantry. Let into each door is a slab of slate, and above it the butcher-grocer-baker-milkman marks. “ Two pints,” writes the housekeeperon the milkman’# slate, and “ one loaf ” on the baker’s. Then she shuts the door. Along come the milkman and baker. Each notes his order, opens the door, leaves the goods, then shuts the door again and departs. By a simple but ingenious catch no one can open the outer door once he has shut it, except from the inside. Thus tho household goods can be left by each tradesman quite safely in his own cupboard, away from dogs and cats and any uninvited visitors, and sheltered from sun and dust. _ Gone are the old-fashioned mantelpiece vases. Instead a little bracket is fitted on to tho side of a door here and there, with a trail of green or a glow of flowers bursting from it mtiliing a, rich patch of color against tho dark wood. Even a Jacobean table in tho hall has been improved. Instead of the bare four legs, a ledge has been fitted low down between the legs, and each narrow end, with cane work between the lodge and tho table snrfacc, to make a bookshelf and take tho bare appearance from tho table legs. The hall itself is the most cheerful and welcoming room one could walk into from the street. Opposite the two glass main doors is a wide inglonook, cpmfortable, cushioned scats built in on either side of tho big open fire, with bookshelves above. The walls of plain bluish-red bricks, unadorned, set off splendidly the rich dark oak beams, the beamed ceiling, the dark polished floor with its bright blue-toned rug. Boyond a glimpse of the lovely living room, with sunshine streaming through the lattice and French windows, makes one long to peep into tho next room, and tho next, and the next. And that’s how a homo should be!