When the Bride Plans Her Home

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 376, 9 June 1928, Page 21

When the Bride Plans Her Home

Looking Past Halcyon Days

Day-dreams are apt to cloud over hard, practical facts when the young bride is planning her future home. She is prone to see it down the vista of years as always clean, fresh, new, like the sets arranged in the windows of furniture stores. But instead of this young intending housekeepers should conjure up a picture of the sweeping, dusting, paint-washing hours, which must succeed the delight of the first dinner served in the new home. It is a pity that words of wisdom are nearly always dubbed depressing, but even at the risk of this it is only kind to emphasise the need for spending a certain proportion of the money allocated to the furnishing of each room for the purchase of electrical labour-saving appliances for keeping it clean, and for conducting the housekeeping without hired help. In the Kitchen Equipment for this important room should be the first consideration. In the all-electric house plugs are placed in convenient positions, but in the home where it is only installed for lighting, arrangements can frequently be made with the company to do what they call “free wiring for power” on the understanding that a certain amount of current is used during the year. If there are plugs for power, then the more expensive devices, such as refrigerators, clothes-washers and sink geysers, can be used, besides the cooker; but where there are only ordinary lighting points, then the kitchen can but specialise in the electric iron. But if there is power, then the following list of labour-saving appliances may be helpful: Electric cooker, hot cupboard, hot plate, kettle, iron, griller, electric washer and wringing machine, refrigerator and ice-making machine, dishwasher. Of course, some of these items are very costly, but the small articles, such as the hot plate, iron and kettle, are cheap. The Bathroom Luxury in the bathroom is most usefully and adequately interpreted through electricity. There is the shaving mirror, which is made like a small cupboard, with a light inside, which keeps the mirror warm and free from steam.

Then we have electric portable fires, hair drier, towel rail, bath gown drying stand, and a shaving mug which keeps the water at the required temperature. A special light for hanging over the mirror above the basin is another necessary luxury, and the water for the bath and basin may be heated byelectricity. All these fittings are impervious to damp, a rather important point in a continually-steaming atmosphere. And for cleaning there is an electric floor polisher. The Sitting-rooms The first requirement is a vacuum cleaner. This will baiiish all the unpleasant, arduous, distressing hours known by our mothers as “turning the room out.” That task included tealeaves on the carpet to “lay the dust,” which was later swept out of the pile and over the walls and paintwork. Nowadays not a single object need be moved or covered with “dust sheets,” for the electric cleaner draws the dirt from carpets, furniture and hangings without allowing one atom to escape. A polisher—the same one that is used for the bathroom will do—is needed if there are stained boards surrounding the carpet. So much for the cleaning. The list of useful, time-saving and comfort-giving objects controlled byelectricity is a long one. A screen which can be placed behind the invalid to shield him or her from draughts has electric coils hidden beneath the covering and radiates a gentle heat. With this one can use an electric footstool and so ensure real warmth for aged limbs. There are electric table candles, a tablecloth which lights a lamp when it is placed on in a certain position, electric toaster, table kettle, hot plate and cigar lighter. The Bedrooms

Bedrooms are frequently chi desolate apartments where the bed is a real refuge from gusty draughts, A portable radiator placed in the middle of the room and switched on a little before bedtime would make undressing more of a pleasure and less of an ordeal by ice. An electric curling iron is very handy, and for health one may instal an electric massage vibrator.