PLAN YOUR KITCHEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20623, 23 July 1930, Page 7

PLAN YOUR KITCHEN.

LET PSYCHOLOGY ENTER.

EFFECT OF COLOUR.

By OIMCE COPE

Cleanliness can be a burden unless you bring scienco to your aid and simplify.

Most housewives spend at least 60 per cent, of their working hours in this workshop of the home. Just why is it that by evening undue fatigue is experienced ? Simply because psychology has not entered the kitchen.

Given the right conditions for working, a well thought out kitchen, coupled with a stimulating atmosphere, the housewifo will bo as fresh in her evening hours as in the early morning. The dissipation both of strength and time in a badly arranged kitchen is incalculable, whereas, if the cookshop is psychologically designed, not only the mother but the whole family benefits. There are innumerable kitchen tools, for instance—can-opener, dish scraper, colander, paring knife, wooden spoons, and so on, which should find ft homo near tho sink. They should be placed on a rack at exactly tho right height to ensure that no strain is entailed cither in reaching up or bending down. This will save miles of unnecessary walking in a month, which would bo necessitated if the same implements were placed in a drawer the other side of tho room. Do not have your kitchen too spick and span, as this means both work and steps —putting away and taking out —from tho vario-js cupboards. Many housewives are proud of their beautiful kitchen cabinets, whero utonsils aro hidden from sight, but here, again, more steps aro necessary. Havo a shelf—not a cupboard, which quickly becomes odoriferous however, hygienically kept—under the sink and draining boards, where tho vegetables in readiness for preparation in the 6ink can bo placed. Then the task of preparing potatoes is transformed into a pleasure instead of drudgery. Simply lift your knife from its rack and your pan from the same place. A half stoop and you get your potatoes, sit on a stool and peel them, dropping

the peelings into a miniature garbago roceptacle swung on an arm under tho sink. This should be emptied after each m< Bo careful to see that your enamelled stool is the right height, and remember that to a woman a full stoop is a sin. Standing is detrimental but stooping is far more so and quickly engenders fatigue. While you are waiting for your pots and pans to boil relax on the littlo rocking chair which should livo in every kitchen and Mother Nature will be able to trace many tired lines from the face. Have your table height made to your measurements and see to it that your shelves are neither too high nor too low. A pantry is unnecessary in the modern home. Have a Vio-ray glass larder built in your kitchen with the cold storage underneath, the flaps of which form tempor ary tables. When closed all is flush with tho wall, not a crcvico for dust to lodge, and the food is impregnated with health giving rays. Towel rails attached to the draining boards, tiled walls, sympathetic lighting, all are aids to easo of mind. The colour scheme is exhilarating, yet simplicity itself. (Jay curtains match the rubber floor, which boasts a coved skirting and the rest fill grey enamel of stove and cooker makes a harmonious whole, bearing out Huskin's injunction—"Let everything that is useful be beautiful, and everything that is beautiful be useful."