The Complete Home. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
LOCATION
Thought of a location should begin with the birth of the home idea, even if the purchase-money be not immediately available. We should not only take sufficient time to study conditions and scheme carefully for the home, but must sagaciously bear in mind that where real estate is in active demand anxiety to purchase stiffens prices. To bide one's time may mean a considerable saving. However, life, as we plan now to live it, is short enough at most, and we should not cheat ourselves out of too much immediate happiness by waiting for the money-saving opportunity.
The question of neighborhood, if we decide to remain within city limits, is a difficult one. In most of the larger places no one can accurately foretell the future of even the most attractive residence district. Factories and business houses may not obtrude, but flats are almost sure to come. Few cottages are being constructed in cities, partly because of lack of demand, but principally because they do not pay sufficient income on the investment. Consequently the houses that are to be had are seldom modern. Sometimes they pass into the hands of careless tenants and the neighborhood soon shows deterioration. Still, if we are determined to remain in the city and take our chances, it is possible by careful investigation to discover congenial surroundings. Many of the essential tests of the suburban home that we shall discuss hereafter will apply also to the house in a strictly residence district of a large city; practically all of them to the house in a smaller town.
CITY OR COUNTRY
The chances are, however, that we shall choose the suburb. But before we desert J 72, or whatever our shelf in the apartment building may be, we may well remind ourselves that we are also to desert some of the things that have made city life enjoyable. For one thing, with all our growling at the landlord, we have been able to cast upon him many burdens that we are now to take upon ourselves. Some of our sarcasms are quite certain to come home to roost. The details of purchasing fuel, of maintaining heat, of making repairs, are now to come under our jurisdiction, and we shall see whether we manage these duties better than the man who is paid a lump sum to assume them.
RENUNCIATIONS
Living in a flat, or even in a city house, we do not know, nor care to know, who the people above or next door to us may be; and they are in precisely the same position with regard to us. Mere adjacency gives us no claim upon their acquaintance, nor does it put us at the mercy of their insistence. Our calling list is not governed by locality, and we can cut it as we wish without embarrassment. Choice is not so easy in the suburb. There, willynilly, we must know our neighbors and be known by them. Fortunately, in most instances they will be found to be of the right sort, if not fully congenial.
The theater, too, must become rather a red-letter diversion than a regular feature of our existence, if it has been so. Whatever enthusiasm we may possess for the opera, an occasional visit, with its midnight return, will soon come to satisfy us. Our pet lectures, club life, participation in public affairs, frequent mail delivery, convenience of shopping, two-minute car service, and freedom from time tables—these suggest what we have to put behind us when we pass the city gates.
It is also the part of wisdom not to forget that, though the country is alive with delights for us when all nature is garbed in green and the songbirds carol in the elms and maples, there cometh a time—if we are of the north—when fur caps are in season, the coal scoop is in every man's hand, the snow shovel splintereth, and the lawn mower is at rest. Then it is that our allegiance to country life will be strained, if ever—particularly if we have provided ourselves with a ten-minute walk to the station. Wading through snow against a winter wind, we see the "agreeable constitutional" of the milder days in a different light.
We should think of all these things, and of some sacrifices purely personal. It is better to think now than after the moving man's bill has come in. Reason as we may, regrets will come, perhaps loneliness. But the compensations, if we have chosen wisely, will be increasingly apparent, and we shall be the very exceptions of exceptions if, before the second summer has passed, we are not wedded beyond divorce to the new home.
Once determined upon forswearing urban residence, a multitude of considerations arise. First of these is "Which place?" Our suburban towns have been developed in two ways. Some are "made to order," while others were originally rural villages but have come under metropolitan influence. Living in the latter is likely to be less expensive, and local life may have more of a distinctive character; but the husk of the past is almost certain to be evident in the mixture of old and modern houses and in a certain offish separation of the native and incoming elements. The "made-to-order" town is likely to exhibit better streets and sidewalks, to be more capably cared for, to be freer from shanties, and to possess no saloons. Land and living may demand greater expenditure, but they will be worth the difference.
SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES
With ninety-nine out of a hundred families the deciding argument in favor of going to the suburb has just got into short dresses and begun to say "Da-da." Already we see pointings to the childish activities that we would not check. No one who stops to think about it chooses to have his children play in the city streets or be confined to a flat during the open months. For the children's sake, if not for our own, we turn to the country, and one of our first thoughts is for the children's school.
I called on a young business acquaintance recently and found him engrossed in examining a pile of college catalogues. "Going in for a post-grad?" I inquired. "Why, haven't you heard?" he responded. "It's a boy—week ago Saturday. Er—would you say Yale or Harvard?"
This was preparedness with a vengeance, to be sure; but almost before we realize that infancy is past, the boy and girl will be ready for school, and it is important to know that the right school will be ready for them. Happily, the suburban school is usually of special excellence, and the chief thought must be of distance and whether the children will need to cross dangerous railroad tracks.
We shall, of course, wish to be where there are strong churches, with a society of our chosen denomination, if possible. It may be that the social life which has its center there will provide all the relaxation we require; if we seek outside circles, it is desirable to know whether we are likely to please and be pleased. Always there is the suburban club; but not always is the suburban club representative of the really best people of the town.
TRANSPORTATION
On the practical side a question of large importance is that of transportation. The fast trains may make the run in twenty minutes, but we shall not always catch the fast trains, and the others may take forty. Morning and evening they should be so frequent that we need not lose a whole hour on a "miss." In stormy weather we must find shelter in the station, comfortable or uncomfortable. On the husband's monthly ticket the rides may cost only a dime; when the wife and her visiting friends go to the matinée each punch counts for a quarter, and four quarters make a dollar. To the time of the train must be added the walk or ride from the downtown station to the office, and the return walk from the home station. A near-by electric line for emergencies may sometimes save an appointment. None of these things alone will probably give pause to our plans, but all will weigh in our general satisfaction or disagreement with suburban life.