NOVEL IDEAS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 167, 5 October 1927, Page 7

NOVEL IDEAS

IN COLONIAL HOME. SAVING TIME AND LABOUR. “An American-style home” generally eonjures up visions of built-in cupboards and other labour-saving ideas. But American home-planners do not stop at cupboards—their attention iai devoted just as much to improving th« 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 home, says an Australian paper. Throughout the house, panels hide cleverly built-in cupboards—at a touch, even a writing desk slips out from the living room wall; hut that is only the beginning. Between dining-room and kitchen is ,a servery, saving untold time and labour. In the dining-room, its Jacobeanfinislied sideboard appearance blends perfectly with the dark panelling and furniture; in the kitchen, it appears as a white dresser. The cupboards open at both ends, a.id the drawer swings through from dining-room to kitchen, while two sliding doors between the drawer and the upper cabinet enable dishes to be quickly passed through. In the pantry are four little compartments, each door about a foot square. They are marked “Butcher,” “grocer,” “baker,” and “milkman.” Each cupboard also opens at the 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-milkrnan marks. “Two pints,” writes the housekeeper on the milkman’s 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 the household good’s can be left by each tradesman quite safelv 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 the side of a door here and there, with a trail of green or a glow of flowers bursting from it making a rich patch of colour against the dark wood. Even a Jacobean table in the hall has been improved. Instead of tlie bare four legs, a ledge has been fitted low down between the legs and each narrow end. with cane work between the ledge and the table surface, to make a bookshelf and take the “bare” appearance from the 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 inglenook, comfortable, cushioned se*‘.s built in on either side of the big open fire, with book shelves above The walls of plain bluish-red bricks.' unadorned, set off splendidly the rich dark oak beams, the beamed ceiling, tlie dark polished floor with its bright blue-toned rug. a glimpse of the lovely living room, with sunshine streaming in through the lattice and French windows, makes one long to peep into the next room, and the next, and the next. And that’s how a home shflfdd be f