Life — April 12, 1923 — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LIFE Hints for Home Builders What to Do When the Nesting Season Complex Seizes You S the spring, or mismating season, draws near, it is well to consider the building of your new home, complete with one-car garage. (Of course, if you want to keep a car in addition to the one the cook will bring, you will have to have a two-car garage.) I therefore think it only fair to let you profit by the experiences of the Little Woman and myself, when we were arranging for our own “little nest,” as we laughingly called it. 1, Tue Rea Estate. Not counting property which may be willed to you, and which is always in the old part of town and should be sold at once, you will find it necessary to purchase two lots before you are ready to build. The first lot will be bought on the advice of a friend who is a real-estate man. If he is young and owns a car, he will be known as a “realtor.” He will describe a bargain he knows about in glowing terms, and show photographs to prove his assertions, and you, not having been brought up as a photo-retoucher, will still think that the camera can’t lie, and believe him. Your second venture will probably be in a highly re- stricted and under-developed suburban development. This will look something like a combination of some old desert and forest sets from William A. Brady. You will be assured of the gangs of gasmen, echelons of electricians, and platoons of plumbers just waiting to do the right thing by the lot the salesman has picked out for you to pick out, and don’t the trolleys pass the very i a Mt ul Mrs. Newlywed: Clerk: gates? They do, and, confidentially, there is a good chance that the company will arrange to have them stop there next year. 2. Tue House. Despite appearances to the contrary, many modern dwellings are built from plans. These may be obtained upon application (by appointment) to a man with broad “a’s” and a waxed mustache, known as an architéct. He will ask you to let him have some idea of what you want. So you and the rest of the family fight it out over a pad for three or four evenings and one Sunday ailer- noon, and then take him the result, which looks like one of those squares drawn with the artist blindfolded. When the architect delivers his plans, you will show them to your friends—oh yes, you will;—and your friends will proceed to knock the spots out of them. But you can afford to ignore all this (it is about the only thing a young couple can afford to do in the entire process of homebuilding) except the inevitable remarks of the in- evitable humor hound: “And this room next yours; I sip- pose some day you will use it for a—er—nursery, ha-hi ?” 3. THe Furnisnincs. Here I am afraid I cannot help you, for at this point of our own activities, all three coc- tors said they would give up the case and would not be re- sponsible unless we let the whole matter drop, so we took a furnished apartment. It is a solution of your difficulties which I unhesitatingly recommend. A.C. M. Asoy I want a shirt for omy husband. Is he a big man? “No, he’s just a bookkeeper now, but he’s going to be.” comicbooks.com