ves than to be
uncomfortable and feel out of place in the home.

[Illustration: A homelike living room.]

The living-room plan in a small house reduces the reception hall to
something little more than a vestibule, but where six rooms are
exceeded the reception hall may be enlarged and made serviceable. The
first impression counts for much, not only with our guests but with
ourselves, and if the hall be appropriately finished and fitted it
seems fairly to envelop one with its welcome. One thing that must be
insured, whatever form the entrance may take, is that it shall not be
necessary to pass through the living room to reach other parts of the
house.

THE DINING ROOM AND KITCHEN

Vastness is not essential to the dining room. Under usual conditions
we are not likely to seat more than a dozen persons at our table, and a
dinner party exceeding that number is too large for common enjoyment.
Connection with the kitchen should be convenient without having the
proximity too obvious. City kitchens are now usually made just large
enough to accommodate required paraphernalia and to afford sufficient
freeway for the cook. Many families do no home baking, and where fruit
and vegetables are preserved the basement is utilized. Compactness in
the kitchen saves hundreds of steps in the course of a day, and though
it is difficult for us to forget the spacious room thought necessary by
our parents, we may well learn, for our own comfort, to profit by the
modern reasoning that opposes waste space. Still, it is better to defy
modern tendencies and even to pain the architect than that the faithful
house-keeper who clings tenaciously to the old idea should be made
miserable. Some persons feel perpetually cramped in a small room,
whereas others only note the snugness of it.

THE SLEEPING ROOMS

The general well-being of the family is more directly affected by the
character of the bed chambers than by any other department of the
house. However we may permit ourselves to be skimped in the living
rooms, it is imperative that the sleeping apartments should be
large--not barnlike, of course--well lighted, dry, and airy. Three
large rooms are in every way preferable to four small ones. It is, to
be sure, sometimes difficult to put the windows where they will let in
the sunlight, the registers where they will heat, and the wall space
where it will permit the sleeper to have fresh air without a draught.
But marvels in the w