HOUSES THAT DON'T MAKE WORK

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8178, 3 May 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOUSES THAT DON'T MAKE WORK

By MRS. C. S. PEEL. The houses that we build to-day will be our homes, and years hence they wall be the homes of our children and children’s children. Let us see to it that we do not bequeath to the young mother of 1944 dwellings such as our forbears bequeathed to us—houses in which women have lirudged away youth and health and happiness in ceaseless striving against adverse conditions. Let us consider, toe, how better education and shorter working hours may affect the home. Some day a house may no longer be a place to which a man returns to eat and to sleep and in which a woman’s work is never done—it may become as well a place for study and for recreation.

It was Mr. J. H. Thomas who deplored the result should working people “put out their t hinking, as rich people put out their washing.” We women through force of circumstances, have “put out their thinking, as rich peoundertake to do it for us played us false, partly because architects and builders, being men had little knowledge of domestic work, and partly because women were so plentiful that if one revolted at a ceaseless round of unnecessary toil there were plenty more ready to take her place. -To-day women have a unique opportunity of thinking for tnemsejves and to good purpose. Hundreds of thousands ol houses must be built in. the next few years. What kind of houses are they to Ik? P Are they to be homes, or brick and mortar monsters which eat away the energies of those who inhabit them ?

The women who must he consulted about these houses may, like myself, lack architectural knowledge, but nevertheless they know how backs break when bending over ranges and sinks set too low, and how the whole body aches after the toil of washing day when every pan of water must be carried from sink to copper. They know the weariness o" bathing children, when each pint of water must be boiled in the kettle. They know the endless labour of scrubbing rough and porous surfaces which, if smooth and hard, would need but to be wiped. To avoid this useless toil women ask for :

Walls which are easy to clean. Floors of concrete with a surface re

sombling linoleum or cork carpet. Skirtings with curved corners and without dust-conserving mouldings. Varnished, rather than painted, woodwork.

Cupboards in plenty, and in the cooking place a glazed cupboard instead ot the dust-collecting drerser. (Women do not dust for pleasure.) A deep earthenware sink fitted with a plug and with rounded corners. Drain-ing-hoards and drying-iacks and a “surround” to the ‘•ink which may be wiped instead of scrubbed. (Women Jo not scrub just to fill up their spare time.) Taps and other fittings which do not need polishing. (Even polishing lias been known to pall upon a woman.) Hot water. (Almost everything in a house has to be washed. Women sicken of this continual washing.) Central heating. liecmuse it is la-bour-saving and because any apparatus which heats water and also heats oven and hot-plate wastes some 90 per cent, of the fuel with which it is fed. IntelI gent women dislike dragging coals about and cleaning flues', and buying one ton of coal in order to use one hundredweight of it as fuel and the remainder chiefly in smoke, Which dirties everything within and without the house and creates the necessity for more cleaning. Built-in furniture. Women haying experienced the pleasure of “turning

out- a room” are inclined to like the io'ea of furniture whi.ui would not need “turning.”

Three-bedroom houses which when built in pairs may lie converted into one 4-bedroom and one 2-bedroom Ihouse at the convenience of the tenants. Houses of attractive exterior. (Prettiness pleases women.) TV omen realise that the nation must pay for these new houses. They ask : Does the nation prefer to pay for houses for the people or for hospitals, infirmaries, sanatoria, workhouses, reformatories. madhouses, and prisons for the people ?