Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1912 — USEFUL FOR KITCHEN [ARTICLE]

USEFUL FOR KITCHEN

ZINC-TOPPED TABLE IS A GREAT CONVENIENCE. Ingenious Bride Contrives Home* • Made Affair That is Constant Do- - light—ls Wonderful Saver of Time and Labor. A home-made zinc-topped table is a convenience that is a constant delight in the home of an ingenious bride. She carried out the idea very inexpensively, after admiring a costly metal-tdpped table with a -raised border of the metal all around the edge to keep small objects from rolling off wheq the surface was wet and slippery. She had noticed in her girlhood home that the kitchen table in constant use caused considerable annoyance in keeping it clean and sightly after hard service. In spite of constant care, grease spots frequently penetrated the wooden surface and' refused to be removed. Dishwashing stains from pots and pans resulted from mishaps when the dishwasher was too busy to take the usual precautions. Stains and marks from canning and preserving, knife-marks from careless bread cutting, meat stains and evidences of various forms of cookery left their mark, until It seemed almost impossible to keep the table presentable while in constant use. The metal-topped tables (especially the desirable zinc-topped tables) proved out of the reach of the moderate pocketbook of the bride in - search of novelties and devices in kitchen furnishings. Sim determined, however, to improve on the old methods in furnishing her new kitchen, and to consider first of all every possible method of labor saving. She avoided the usual stumbling block of considering anything good enough for the kitchen—the castoffs. from other parts of the house usually relegated to kitchen limbo—and studied the developments of the newer science in .housekeeping displayed in the attention paid to the construction of kitchen furniture and furnishings. In her crowning achievement —of developing a home-made zinc-topped table—she chose the smallest of her , kitchen tables, without drop leaves; and" purchased n Tjiece of zinc to exactly cover it, giving the dimensions of the table top, without allowing an edge for turning under. Then to give a smooth finish and prevent the slippery edge that turned-under zinc would give, and also to avoid the rough sharp edge, she nailed securely all around the edge of the zineflush with the extreme edge' of the table —a bit of wooden beading well rounded and smoothed.