DOMESTIC EXHIBITS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 404, 12 July 1928, Page 13 (Supplement)

DOMESTIC EXHIBITS

Furniture Displayed at Show Is Among the Best Ever SCIENCE AND THE KITCHEN TO the “Home Man” wandering through the exhibits at the Show in search of new ideas for the improvement of his refuge, nothing can be more attractive than the excellent furniture exhibits arranged by several of the city's leading firms.

Every piece displayed exemplifies the increased attention paid to furiture designs by the manufacturer who has had, perforce, to cater for improved public taste. All displays show how designers have “looked backward” for their latest styles, which seem to approach more nearly to the graceful “Gainsborough” than any other type. Cyma curves are apparent in the legs and graceful outlines are the rule. Walnut, mottled oak and other types of wood of a similar nature are in most general use and all are polished to dazzle the eye. Some of the more ambitious pieces are well-nigh perfect copies of the Louis Quinze period, even to inlaid variations of colour and mounts.

Upholstered furniture is plainly built with regard to luxurious comfort. Tapestries and rich brocades are the chief fabrics used and the temptation to sink into their inviting depths is a strong one. KITCHEN EVOLUTION Housewives are rapidly realising that the old “best parlour” fetish was something of a Moloch. A couple with small means, at one time, used to spend its substance on fiirnishing, too magnificently, a “show” room to be used on the Sabbath and when the baby was christened. As a result little money was left over for the rest of the house and the mistress who entered the parlour once a week, apart from dusting it, had to spend her life in depressing surroundings. Women in moderate circumstances spend most of their time in the kitchen. It is inevitable that they should do so and there is no remedy for it, so all that can be done is to make the kitchen as pleasant a place as possible; also by the use of applied science to obtain the most modern equipment to aid the workwoman in her domestic tasks. A special feature has therefore been made of kitchen equipment at the Show. Several types of refrigerators are particularly attractive with a prospect in view of sucli a summer as last. Made in white enamel the refrigerators look cool and are quite attractive pieces of furniture. White enamel is also the material used in finishing the neat, but effective stoves that are also featured. In fact, white is, as in the bathroom, the prevailing colour in kitchen finishing and furnishing White walls, white floors, a white stove, table, utensils, almost everything white, combine to make a clean, cool environment for the housewife who to-day is doubly blessed in her surroundings and her equipment.