Modern Planning

The Trait of Multifariousness

One trait of modern planning is multifariousness, but keep it for large houses with many servants. Kings during the Middle Ages were content with a few rooms; and now that royal economy is forced upon most of us by increased work for diminishing pay or profit.

The Characteristic of Isolation

Another characteristic is complete isolation for the several parts of a home. But this may be carried much too far, as when the small amount of space in a flat is frittered away on passages. Communicating doors between rooms, common today in France, are not always bad.

The Necessities of Comfort and Convenience

Comfort and convenience sum up all the other necessaries of good planning: not an ideal sort of comfort, but practical comfort, in strict accord with each family’s income and real needs. As to imagined or fanciful wants, they are like that ambition which cannot mount a horse, preferring to leap over the saddle.

Successful Home-Making

In brief, successful home-making is the art of doing well not more than we can afford to do.

The Benefits of Hand-Baths

A hand-bath by a good fire is not such a bad thing after all; it is better, undoubtedly, than a bathroom too small for a fireplace and having not even a heated towel-rail to warm it during winter months. Such bathrooms, always friendly to influenza, are common, though hot-water cisterns ought to be put there snugly housed in large airing cupboards for linen.

The Need for Proper Bathrooms

You, of course, will have a proper bathroom, sunned, airy, light and warm; but have you noticed that a whole family wants to bathe at the same hour precisely, which gives rise to a daily game of hide-and-seek in dressing-gowns and pyjamas? Do we not need a bath in each bedroom with hot and cold water?