IOWA HISTORY PROJECT |
MODERN CONVENIENCES FOR THE MODERN FARM HOME
ADVANTAGES OF BUILDING FIRST ON PAPER
With the development of good roads, the telephone, and daily free mail delivery, the farmer is becoming less isolated and desires to install the improvements of his neighbors of both country and city. The most practical way of doing this is to lay the buildings out on paper, making provision for future extension wherever possible. The orchard, the flower and vegetable garden, the vines and vineyard are all allotted spaces although only a few trees and plants are starred now. The buildings for the machinery and the granaries can be located so as to shut off the barnyards from the house, with space left for additions when more room is needed. It is not economy to poorly house any kind of machinery. In building the house two rooms may be all that are built now, but if a plan is made that will provide for future additions a more convenient home will finally be secured at less expense than when a room is added wherever it seems best at present without regard to the finished house. The living room, which is the dining room, overlooks the garden and is connected with an enclosed porch which can be used for a summer dining room, the passage from the kitchen being arranged for this. The fireplaces are the best ventilators the rooms can have as well as affording a cheerful means of warming the room in spring and autumn before the furnace fire is started. The life carries the prepared food, that should be kept cool, to the cellar without the need of going up and down stairs. If a pneumatic tank is used in the cellar the air near it is cool in the summer and advantage can be taken of this as a substitute for a refrigerator. The kitchen sink is against the laundry partition, while the bathroom would be on the second floor and over the laundry to keep all the plumbing together. The laundry can be used for a washroom if desired, and the water closet off of it is convenient from both outside and in.
The planning of each room also pays. There can be a kitchen and dairy, with accompanying conveniences. The ice box of the cold-storage room can be filled from the porch, and a winter door is provided, so ice need not be used in cold weather. The kitchen sink is supplied with hot and cold water, and although the kitchen must also be used as a laundry, the stationary tubs are provided with a cover and serve as a table when not otherwise used. A lift brings the fuel from the cellar, and is used to take vegetables and fruit to and from the storeroom. Provision is made for washing the dishes in the pantry convenient to the shelves upon which they are kept, and plenty of shelf room is provided wherever it is needed.
The arrangement being first made on paper and lived in by the imagination many improvements will suggest themselves, until a home adapted to the use for which it is built will be the result when the plan is embodied by the carpenter and mason. The man that can make two blades of grass grow where one grew before has done something; but the man who makes one step do what took two before should also be given due credit.