THE BREAKFAST ALCOVE.

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 45, 16 November 1929, Page 22

THE BREAKFAST ALCOVE.

(By E.S.) When plans of the many new houses (of the small servantless type—five or six rooms) are drawn up, how many builders take advantage of the serviceable arrangement of breakfast alcove and kitchenette? The latter is now so well known as to require no further "boosting,” for the hundreds of housewives whose daily journeyings are shortened by that most labour-saving and compact of workrooms would certainly not willingly return to the arrangement of kitchen. pantry and scullery. But the breakfast nook is less widely known, and I have heard some prospective home builders speak of it as almost a luxury • —certainly as an unnecessary waste of the space which seems to be so precious when plans are being prepared for the new home.

Now, as a housewife who has, for the best part of a year, experienced and appreciated the usefulness of the breakfast alcove, the writer would like to recommend it to other women who may be planning a new home or remodelling an existing dwelling. This alcove did not find a place in the final plans without a considerable amount of argument—menfolk are frequently conservative and the head of affairs had an idea that mother had been studying the attractive plans and pictures in some magazines; probably he feared this was but the thin end of the wedge, and other unnecessary features would be desired also. However, eloquence (and perhaps some persistence) won the day; the alcove is an accomplished fact, and in its manifold usefulness has more than justified all the claims made for it.

To enumerate the many activities that are concentrated in this little corner would be tedious. We will take one day in the ordinary life of the household. Two adults and four children breakfast at the table ere father and two of the children leave for office and school respectively. It is a wet day and the two little ones cannot play on the veranda, so mother spreads newspapers on the table, and they bring out their toys, blocks, crayons or plasticine as the case may be, and the alcove is the playroom till dinnertime. It is as warm as the rest of the kitchen, and the little ones are under mother’s eye and yet not in her way. Then toys are put away and the table is set for dinner. The children come home first and their father arrives half an hour later, as it is very much more convenient for the busy housewife to serve dinner here than in the living room; but seated round the table in this little nook with its pretty curtains and table linen, and the .gay posters on the walls, it is indeed hard to remember that we are in part of the kitchen.

In the afternoon when the youngsters come home from school, the alcove is just the place to prepare home lessons and write exercises. It is schoolroom as well as playroom ! An up-to-date map of the world hangs on one wall; there is a small bookshelf with an Oxford dictionary, Pears’ Encyclopaedia, and some extra school books; and several coloured posters with pictures of children, animals, flowers, etc., grace the other wall. A window at the end of the table ensures a good light, and on the ledge are two flower-pots containing the children’s “own” plants. The furnishings are completed by rose-coloured curtains at the window, nnd the table linen is of unfadeable material—biscuit colour with a sixinch border of rose-pink. All these activities are carried ion in an alcove 6ft. x sft. 6in. with a table 2ft. 6in. x sft. Oin. nnd two built-in seats, each 6ft. x I ft. 4in. Has it not . justified its inclusion in the plan of the home?