CHAPTER XXII

FURNISHING YOUR KITCHEN

Furnishing the kitchen sounds simple enough. But it is not. Everything put into the kitchen must have not only beauty and uniformity, but also utility, durability, tool shop convenience, and the maximum hygienic attributes. In one word, the furnishings must have absolute utensibility.

In the other rooms (save the bathroom) you can humorously tell your decorator to do it in early Pullman or seriously in Louis Quinze--and all will be well. Your furniture in these rooms must be passably durable, consistent, and beautiful, but it need not be unstainable, washable, non-absorbent, rigid, non-corrosive, etc., etc. Equipping a kitchen is like equipping a medical laboratory--skill must be employed.

THE TABLE

Chief among the furnishings of the kitchen are the table and its relatives. They have to be rigid, enduring, and must be the correct size for the job and the correct kind for the work they are meant to do.

The table has been the storm center of discussion for years. The problem is this:--to find a table top that is non-absorbent, easily cleaned (not holding stains like an artist’s palette), not brittle, not cracking under changes of temperature or when utensils are dropped upon it.

[Illustration:

_Courtesy of Duparquet, Huot & Moneuse_

SHOWING THE MEAT-CHOPPING TABLE, RANGE, TABLE ARRANGEMENT, RUBBER MATS, SINK, AND POT SHELF ARRANGEMENT]

For if you are doing your own work, you do not want to be scraping and cleaning all day, and if you have servitors you will want them for more productive work.

This is a big order. Teachers, scientific experts, and manufacturers of laboratory conveniences (they are never called kitchen conveniences in these circles! Would this nomenclature help the servant problem?) have massed their findings and the results of the world-wide demand for a practical kitchen table top are the following:

_Enamel Tops._ These (and their confrères vitrolite, etc.) are excellent if you know that the manufacturer is good. They do not crack or craze (fall into multitudinous vein-like cracks) and break with ordinary usage. The enamel is baked over steel or iron and should be at least three coats thick.

_Glass Tops._ Not for general utility, but well adapted for the pastry table since with this top no special pastry board is needed. Glass tops are really very beautiful and have every qualification but unbreakableness. Some new patents are less brittle than old makes.

_Marble Tops._ Excellent for the pastry table, and if one can afford them, fine for most things. There is only the remotest chance that they may break and only when they are less than 2″ thick.

_White Metal Tops._ Excellent, non-corrosive, flat coverings. They are expensive but do not need any nursing to keep them in order.

_Zinc Tops._ Very much used, but these tops buckle and puff and are very much affected by acids and alkalis.

_Wooden Tops._ Far better than zinc for the householder who cannot afford the other tops. The wood can be treated with non-staining varnish, or a varnish that can stand heat without being annihilated, and you will have a fine table. If this is not possible, the ordinary wooden table, fresh from the shop, if covered with linoleum or oil cloth, is very useful and durable, especially since the linoleum can be changed inexpensively and often. There may be a metal binder around the wooden table top if desired.

_Composition Tops._ These need a guarantee as they are often of glass or some mixture undefined.

_Tin Tops._ These are not used any more, as far as we know.

SPECIAL TABLES

The ordinary table length is from 3′ to 7′, depending upon the size of the kitchen. There are usually from one to three tables in use,--more often two. The ordinary heights are from 32″ to 28″. Get the height that fits your workers. Be sure to find this out if possible; otherwise you will have to make a later arrangement.

Maple is a satisfactory wood for strong tables; ash, and pine for the cheaper kind of top.

The marble top table is the royal pastry table, which, of course, though not a luxury, is an extra table. Fancy a seven foot marble slab 2¹⁄₂″ thick! Isn’t it like an Alma Tadema conception! The pastry table usually has a rack of some sort beneath it, either slatted or solid. This rack may be half shelf and half electric plate warmer. In smaller homes the pastry table of 3′ length is the most convenient with a somewhat thinner marble top or glass top.

The top of the cook’s table is sometimes divided into two parts, one

## part made of marble or glass for pastry work and the other part of

polished wood for ordinary pursuits. This effects the saving of a table if the cooks do not squabble or there is but one cook and little room!

The cook’s table is placed opposite the range and has a 7′ pot rack attached.

The legs of most of these high-grade tables are tipped with metal to keep them unspotted from the washings of the floor. The trimmings, too, are of the same metal, formerly called German silver.

It would not be a bad idea to have a metallic tip of some sort put on the legs of the less expensive tables, to keep them from wearing and to maintain a rigidity well beloved in tables. For there is no happiness in table tipping outside of the spiritual seance!

KITCHEN CABINETS

A kitchen cabinet (see also