Fig. [36], is a latticed portico, which is cheap, and answers all the purposes of a more expensive one. It should be solid, overhead, to turn off the rain, and creepers should be trained over it. A simple latticed arch, over a door, covered with creepers, is very cheap, and serves instead of an expensive portico.
C, Parlor ceiling. K, Kitchen ceiling.
Fig. [37], represents a sliding closet, or dumb waiter, a convenience which saves much labor, when the kitchen is in the basement. The two closets should be made wide, and broad enough to receive a common waiter. The chain, or rope, which passes over the wheels, should branch, at X, so as to keep the closet from rubbing in its movements, when the dishes are not set exactly in the middle, or are of unequal weights. By this method, almost every thing needed to pass between the kitchen and parlor can be sent up and down, without any steps. If the kitchen is not directly under the eating-room, the sliding closet can be placed in the vicinity of one or both. Where the place is not wide enough for two closets like these, they can be made wider than they are long, say one foot and six inches long, and three feet wide. A strip of wood, an inch broad, should be fastened on the front and back of the shelves, to prevent the dishes from being broken when they are set on carelessly.
There is nothing, which so much improves the appearance of a house and the premises, as painting or whitewashing the tenements and fences. The following receipts for whitewashing, answer the same purpose for wood, brick, and stone, as oil-paint, and are much cheaper. The first, is the receipt used for the President's house, at Washington, improved by further experiments. The second, is a cheaper one, which the writer has known to succeed, in a variety of cases, lasting as long, and looking as well, as white oil-paint.
Receipt.
Take half a bushel of unslacked lime, and slack it with boiling water, covering it, during the process. Strain it, and add a peck of salt, dissolved in warm water; three pounds of ground rice, boiled to a thin paste, put in boiling hot; half a pound of powdered Spanish whiting; and a pound of clear glue, dissolved in warm water. Mix, and let it stand several days. Heat it in a kettle, on a portable furnace, and apply it as hot as possible, with a painter's or whitewash-brush.