The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Kitchens & Kitchen Remodeling

All furniture such as stools and work table, the cabinet surfaces, and cupboards should be enameled and protected with a waterproof varnish so that the frequent steaming will not harm the surface or leave damp corners and crevices. Window curtains should be washable, like those used in any kitchen.

The ventilation of such a kitchen is of greatest importance. There must be fresh air and good ventilation, or the odors of the washing will permeate the house. If large windows are not possible in the kitchen, the laundry equipment as a kitchen feature had better be abandoned, and the weekly washing sent out.

Cleanliness In The Kitchen

WITH the kitchen equipped for comfort, cheer, and convenience comes the crucial test: is it easily kept clean, and how? For this there should be a well stocked, as-large-as-possible broom closet. This should be of a size to contain, if possible, the carpet sweeper, vacuum cleaner, waxing brush and polisher, brooms and brushes for floors, windows, and walls, long-handled dustpan and dust mop, and whisk broom. It should have a shelf just wide enough to hold the polishers and cleaning fluids for windows, silver, aluminum, pewter and brass, furniture polish, floor wax and dust cloths. Small closets in wood, painted, cost $10. There should be, if possible, in this place where we keep these treasures, hooks on which to hang our various small brushes, the curved ones for cleaning around cabinet legs and plumbing, the small, soft, fluffy ones used just to brush up and brush off, at $1.00 each, the string floor mop, at $1.00 or less, that has so many uses.

The electrical vacuum cleaner will keep not only the kitchen floor polished, but that of every room in the house, and the manufacturers, realizing that even when run by electricity a cleaner may be heavy to guide, have made new kinds that weigh but a few pounds, so that this necessary task may be accomplished without weariness. We spoke in the chapter on Floors of waxing linoleum. We would repeat that, as even the cheapest, old-time floor oilcloth or printed linoleum will last much longer and be easier to clean if treated in this way. If the inlaid linoleum has not been waxed, or the cheaper grades varnished and waxed, clean only with a good, mild soap and water. Never use gritty or alkaline soaps or powders. And this holds true for table oilcloth and fabric-covered walls. If you would keep your table coverings in all their original gayety of color and design, clean only with pure soap and warm water.