THE KITCHEN, STOREROOM, AND PANTRY The kitchen, as the workshop of the house, is the room in which many housekeepers spend most of their waking hours. Hence it should be perhaps the lightest, airiest, and most cheerful room in the house. It is safe to say that much more attention might well be given to the matter of kitchen conveniences than they usu ally receive. There are very few housekeepers indeed who could not, by intelligent forethought in plan ning and arranging the contents of the kitchen, pantry, and storeroom, save themselves daily miles of useless traveling to and fro.
Color for Kitchen.—Try to make the kitchen a room in harmonizing tints by painting or tinting the walls in light greens and the floor in dark green. Or a clear, light yellow is a good color for the kitchen walls, with the floor in brown. Or, if the room has a southern or western exposure, gray walls, with the floor in drab or slate color, will give a cooler effect.
Kitchen Walls. — Kitchen walls should be covered with washable ma terials; hence ordinary wall paper and calcimine are less suitable in the kitchen than in other parts of the house. If the walls are new and smooth, tint them in waterproof ce ment or paint them with water colors and coat with soluble glass. Both these processes are inexpensive.
Or washable paper is excellent. It can be washed and kept perfectly clean, and does not absorb grease or moisture.
Or paint the walls with common oil paint of good quality and finish with a coat of enamel paint or soluble glass, so that they can be mopped the same as the floor. For this purpose fit a large sponge into a mop handle. But paint is not as easy to wash down as washable paper or oilcloth, hence, where the walls are in go'od condition, the latter is preferable.
Kitchen Floor. — A tight, smooth floor of unpainted wood, hard enough not to splinter and to admit of being scrubbed, is perhaps the best floor for a kitchen. But if the floor is of soft wood, or is uneven and has unsightly cracks in it, the cracks may be filled and the floor painted with oil paints, and varnish or " lac " paints contain ing varnish may be used.
Or the floor may be covered with linoleum, which is perhaps, all things considered, the most satisfactory floor covering. Before laying the linoleum
on a rough floor, cover the floor with a layer of sand, or sawdust, or old newspapers, to prevent its being worn by the cracks, and give the linoleum a coat of paint and varnish three or four times a year. When thus treated it is practically indestructible.
Or oilcloth may be substituted for linoleum and cared for in the same fashion. This is inexpensive, and with proper care will last a long time.
Kitchen Sinks.—The sink may be of iron or other metal, with or without enamel, or of stone, or even of wood lined with lead, tin, or zinc. But it should stand on four legs, and all the waste pipe should be exposed to sun and air. Take away all woodwork from about the sink, and paint the pipes and under part the same color as the walls and woodwork.
If the air is admitted freely to all parts, no moisture can accumulate to cause the decay of organic matter which produces diphtheria, typhoid and other fevers. Physicians say that when these diseases occur in any household, the first thing they look at is the sink and the arrangements for drainage about the kitchen door. Each day rinse the dishpan with boiling water in which dissolve a tablespoon-.
ful or more of washing soda or aqua ammonia, and pour it down the spout boiling hot. Once a week flush the pipes by filling the sink with boiling water, in which dissolve a teacupful of chloride of lime. Use a quantity of water great enough so that it will run through the pipes with force. This is the best disinfectant, is cheap, and just as good as any patent preparation.
Have the drainage carried to a suf ficient distance from the house into a covered cesspool, whence it will leach off into the soil, and see that it does not leach into the well. Never throw dishwater from the kitchen door. Have a receptacle for all garbage, and feed it regularly to the chickens, or, if no fowls are kept, see that it is burned, buried, or at least removed to a distance from the house. Scald the garbage receptacle with a solution of chloride of lime—half a teacupful to a quart of water—twice a week.