THE MODERN KITCHEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 November 1938, Page 8

THE MODERN KITCHEN

MANY IMPROVEMENTS CHIEF FOCAL POINT OF DESIGNERS The kitchen has become one of the chief focal points of designers and manufacturers in their efforts to have a part in the hoped for building boom, says an American writer.

New kinds of equipment to make the housewife’s duties simpler, more improved cabinets, and extra gadgets for the old familiar stove and refrigerator, all contribute to the workability and embellishment of this work shop of the home. In fact, not since colour came into the drab off-room of the house, has there been so much attention given to improving the kitchen.

As some women want this room to look as complete and as tailored as the suit they wear, they have the problem of matching up the stove with the sink, and with the refrigerator. Ensemble buying, therefore, is gaining in popularity here as in other parts of the house. Manufacturers, more than ever before, are co-operating to see that the stove which one company puts out, will harmonise with the refrigerator which a firm in another section of the country is designing. Some companies are adding more equipment to their lines, so they can sell the “kitchen as a whole.” This provides for cases where the family chooses the kitchen sink first; then, perhaps, the refrigerator. One by one they add cabinets, all of the same make and the same colour, designed to fit together to form an attractive unit. “Mother of pearl” is one of the new finishes, one firm having produced such a refrigerator l and stove in enamel. Other ensembles achieve uniformity with the use of coloured trim on the white or cream surfaces. They have red lines around the cabinet doors, red on the stove knobs, around the contour of the refrigerator, and repeated in movable equipment like pots and pans. Manufacturers have gone to great lengths to study the needs of the woman in the kitchen and to produce articles which will add to her comfort and convenience. One of the newest is the stove-height cabinet, to be placed near the stove as a supplementary work table. The double-basin sink is replacing dish pans, dish-washing machines having helped to wean people away from the old way. Sink makers contrived the semi-dishwashing machinery by making a sink with two compartments, each with a strainer stopper. One is for washing while the deeper one is fitted out with wire rack where dishes are stacked for rinsing by means of a handy hose for spraying the hot water. In this type of sink, just below the porcelain basins in the cabinet is a Jong drawer which opens out like a “bin” and contains compartments for the various types of soap powders. By no means does everyone have an electric refrigerator, but white Equipment has set the style for other ice boxes. Therefore the old brown wooden ice box is gone and people who buy ice can have as beautiful a white shmy container as anyone. The new ice boxes have many improvements including shelves for both high and low dishes, a place for the tall milk bottle enclosed meat compartment directly below the ice. The washing machine has come up from the basement and is as welcome as any of the shiny equipment m the modern kitchen. It now has a agitator, a “safety” ‘ wringer, apd is insulted with fabric covered foil. New kerosene stoves are so different from the old black, dingy affair, they would hardly pass even as cousins. A table type has a creamy enamelled surface and all the burners enclosed, which makes it as smart looking mochas sixburners and compartments and draws for utensils.