Kitchen sink

“ A well-constructed sink is indispensable in a kitchen. Wooden sinks, lined with zinc, sinks made of stoneware, and sinks lined with well-cemented tiles are very serviceable, and easily kept clean. They should never be fixed in out-of-way corners, but should be easy of access for both cleaning and repairing. Whether the sink is in constant use or not, the pipe should be flushed at least once a day with hot soda and water. However some people prefer it excluded from the kitchen.
Every kitchen should be provided with some outlet for the hot foul air which rises to the top of the kitchen. ”

“ Stove should be convenient to, but slightly away from, work shelf for hot weather. An ideal arrangement is china cupboard at right of sink, cabinet with broad work shelf at left of sink and, in a narrow kitchen, range on opposite wall from sink across narrowest part of room; if range is far from any broad working surface a table should be very near range. All kitchen equipment, except range, should be as near as possible to dining room door. If no dining room pantry with sink is provided, kitchen sink should be near dining room door. ”

“ The kitchen should, of course, be airy and sunny. The sink should be placed near a south window, if possible, to prevent freezing of pipes. An iron sink is more cleanly than a wooden one, and cheaper than porcelain and copper. It should have a platform with room for two dishpans, and a drying shelf, raised at one end to permit drainage. Where economy of space is essential, this shelf may be removable, permitting the use for other things of the table beneath. ”

“ It is better to step up than to form a crick in one’s back.
However, any plumber will alter the standards, no matter what sink you buy. Sinks are purchasable with from one to four standards, depending upon what space in the kitchen is to harbor said sink.
The standards of sinks are made of glass, brass, nickle plate, or porcelain, or a porcelain coating over metal. Some of these standards are supplied with adjustable bracelets, making it possible to raise and lower the sink [146] to desired levels. The nickle standard is very desirable, as is the brass, but they require cleaning and polishing. ”

“ As soon as running water is established in a house, the kitchen sink fails conspicuously to fulfill all requirements, and a wash-tub seems a sorry substitute for a modern bath-room. A single pipe supplying cold water only, no matter how pure the water or how satisfactory in the summer, does not afford the constant convenience which an unlimited supply of both cold and hot water offers, and the introduction of running water is usually followed by an addition to the kitchen stove whereby running hot water may be obtained as well as running cold water. ”

“ There is usually an inch waste connection to the cellar or kitchen sink. It would be highly improper to connect a safe with the drain, trapped or otherwise, as its use under any circumstances will be occasional, and any water that there might be in the trap would be certain to evaporate, and in that way the safe waste would be the means of connecting the foulness of the drain with the house. ”

“ It is cemented the same as the cistern, is generally twenty or twenty-five feet away from the house, and has a four-inch vitrified drain connection with the waste from the kitchen sink or other sink in which greasy water may be deposited. The sink itself has a siphon connection with the main drain or vault, and, being provided with an iron top, the deposit of grease or other material may be removed if necessary. In some instances a sink of this kind is required to be used to collect all solid matter before the drainage connection passes from the property. ”

“ Clay Furnishings.—For such articles as the kitchen sink, the bathtub, and other bathroom fittings clay is a satisfactory material. These articles may be modeled by the children, in as good an imitation of the real fittings as they are able to make. Various methods may be used for holding the kitchen sink and the bathroom basin in place, and it is much better for the children to evolve one of their own than to follow the teacher's dictation [Pg 52] from the start. If they meet serious difficulties, a suggestion from her may help clear the way. ”

“ The sink is set about three inches too low for comfortable use, a fault in sinks almost universal, and to remedy this defect a rack was evolved from four nickel towel-bars joined by connecting metal plates. Lack of wall space required that the shelf on this side of the room should be shared equally between the preparations for cleaning and the kitchen library, while the basket for newspapers and magazines occupies the end of the cleaning-table. But does not cleanliness of mind accompany cleanliness of material equipment? ”

“ Let the kitchen sink be of plain cast-iron, the laundry tubs [47] of wood, or better, of slate; the bath-tub of wood, lined with 14 oz. copper, and select a good earthen-ware flushing rim hopper with supply-cistern. Of course, there is more expensive, more durable and handsomer plumbing apparatus sold, but the above fixtures, if well set, answer all practical requirements of a small home. The water-closet should be arranged with so little woodwork as only a seat resting on cleats; the closet itself standing on all sides free on the floor. ”

“ It is certainly much cheaper to have a properly managed earth-closet and to confine the plumbing in the house to a kitchen sink, a force-pump, a tank and a kitchen [46] boiler. Certain advantages, however, of an indoor water-closet, as regards comfort, convenience and health, must be conceded. A bath-room with a plain bath-tub is also a great convenience and an important aid to bodily cleanliness. ”

“ A good quality of white enameled iron sink, of size suitable for a kitchen, with white enameled back and a drainboard on the side, costing $30, is very attractive as an ornament, but it serves no more useful purpose than a $3 sink and a fifty-cent drainboard. ”

“ The problem with dishes in the sink isn’t just that it’s a pain when I want to cook a meal: it’s that when you leave them in the sink, you’re being inconsiderate. And the reason you’ve left them in the sink, as you’ve pointed out, is that putting dishes in the dishwasher is a pain in the ass: you have to bend over, you have to empty it out, and so on. If we moved the dishwasher into the kitchen cupboards and turned half of them into a dirty side and half into a clean side, then disposing of dishes would be as easy as getting them out.”
Lester laughed, and so did Tjan. ”

“ The plans of this house are compact, the rooms opening into each other in such a manner as to afford easy communication and economy in heating. The porch is spacious, and more pleasant than the long, narrow verandah. The supply of water for all purposes is from a filtering cistern, which is connected with the kitchen sink, by a pump. The entire house [36] may be heated by a furnace, hot water, or steam, as is most preferable; or stoves may be used in nearly all the rooms, if first cost is to be closely considered. ”

“ The same dresser, or a space over the sink, must hold washing-pans for meat and vegetables, dish-pans, tin measures from a gill up to one quart, saucepans, milk-boiler, &c. Below the sink, the closet for iron-ware can be placed, or, if preferred, be between sink and stove. A list in detail of every article required for a comfortably-fitted-up kitchen is given at the end of the book. House-furnishing stores furnish elaborate and confusing ones. The present list is simply what is needed for the most efficient work. ”

“ You will be likelier far to decorate the walls of the house than to bring water into the kitchen sink. I therefore enclose you three hundred dollars and beg that you will have the well piped at once, and if there is any way to carry the water to the bedroom floor, do it, and let me send the extra amount involved. ”

“ The sink should if possible stand out from the wall, so as to allow free access to all sides of it for the sake of cleanliness, and under no circumstances should there be any inclosure of woodwork or cupboards underneath to serve as a storage place for pots and kettles and all kinds of rubbish, dust, and germs. ”

“ Some housekeepers keep in one end of the sink a wire dish drainer into which all fruit and vegetable parings are put. If wet, the water quickly drains from them, and they are ready to be put into the stove, where a very little fire soon reduces them to ashes. All waste products which cannot well be burned, may be buried at a distance from the house, but not too much in one spot, and the earth should be carefully covered over afterward. ”

“ To secure a perfect ventilation, a large register is placed in the flue of the chimney, which creates so strong a draft that the air in this room can all be changed in a few minutes. The left-hand flue of the kitchen chimney contains the pipes that convey warm air from the furnace to the bath and tank rooms. The wash-room contains the copper boiler and wash-tubs, and has a closet under the private stairs. The sink is large, and is provided with large drain-boards at each side, and a row of closets underneath. ”

“ In this impossible kitchen the pantry is on the wrong side for the worker. By the arrangement of doors and windows light and air are shut out. The rotten old wooden sink is bad smelling, too low, and too narrow, and it is so far from the pantry that the worker will have to go back and forth ten times as many times to do a piece of work as she would if the articles were conveniently placed. The room is too large; there is many times as much walking as is necessary; it is as far removed as it possibly can be from the compact [Pg 140] convenience of the ideal kitchen. ”

“ A white enamel sink with a wide drain-shelf attached appeared next, with signs of a butler's pantry between kitchen and dining-room. A delightful set of china-closet doors with little diamond panes that matched the windows was put in one corner of the dining-room, and some bookcases with sliding doors began to develop along the walls of the living-room. Down in the basement a man was fitting stationary tubs for a laundry, and on both the first floor and the second bathrooms were being made. If the place hadn't been so big, the workmen would have got in one another's way. ”

“ If kitchen is well ventilated and stove has hood, pass pantry not necessary. It makes extra steps. If pass pantry is in house, only its narrowest dimension should divide kitchen from dining room. Partitions under sink for trays to stand; a narrow space for table leaves; a china cupboard with reachable shelves, and a sink and drainboards like those described for kitchen are desirable. Drawer on small shelf for cleaning compounds and brushes for cleaning silver, steel, brass and copper. ”

“ This is our kitchen as regards its ground plan and its exterior aspect. But the student of history always looks behind the external surface and studies the record; hence our kitchen records a belief in a few principles that seem fundamental in a household.
The first principle is that a kitchen should be absolutely sanitary in all its appointments. This means not only filtered cistern water, a still for distilling water, a porcelain-lined sink, and an abundance of hot water, but it means an absence of cubby-holes and cupboards where articles may be tucked away and accumulate dirt. ”

“ Under the sink should be kept a slop-pail; and, on a shelf by it, a soap-dish and two water-pails. A large boiler, of warm soft water, should always be kept over the fire, well covered, and a hearth-broom and bellows be hung near the fire. A clock is a very important article in the kitchen, in order to secure regularity at meals. ”

“ There was a sink in the kitchen, with a little spout leading into it, from which the water was running in a constant stream. It came from an aqueduct of logs brought under ground. There was a tin dipper there upon the top of the post which the water-spout came out of, and Mary Bell and Bella had an excellent drink from it the first thing. The kitchen floor was covered with shavings, and the children played in them for some time, until they were tired. ”

“ The most disagreeable work of a kitchen, and that which takes much time, is the dish-washing. It is possible to make this work lighter and pleasanter than is usual. The necessary conditions are plenty of water, hot and cold, a place where the dishes will drain themselves, an abundance of table room for them both before and after washing. In the kitchen given the sink is placed next the kitchen flue. This gives a place for the pipe duct next the warm bricks, which prevent freezing even in severe cold weather. ”

“ Again, it is idle to propose installing plumbing fixtures unless the house is properly heated in winter time, and this calls for a furnace for at least a portion of the house. Usually the kitchen is kept warm enough through the winter nights, so that running water may be put in the kitchen without danger from frost; although the writer knows of a house where it is the task of the housewife each winter night to shut off all water in the cellar and to clean out the trap in the sink drain in order to prevent freezing in both the supply pipe and drainpipe. ”

“ A soapstone sink or a porcelain-lined pan would be desirable but for the greater liability of breaking dishes. It is a good idea to have a small cedar tub—they are made with brass hoops, and look very neat—for the washing of the most delicate china and glassware, which is likely to get marred or broken if crowded into a pan with other heavier articles. ”