Fig. 26.—Detail of gable.
A cardboard roof is in many ways easier to build. In a house similar to the one shown in [Fig. 25] two gables are used, and the roof slopes to front and back. The framework can be very simply made. At the two gable ends place uprights made of two pieces of wood joined in the form of an inverted T. (See [Fig. 26].) These should be nailed to the box. A ridgepole may then be nailed to the upper ends of the uprights. If the house is not large, no other framework will be necessary. If the slope of the roof is long enough to allow the cardboard to sag, light strips of wood extending from the ridgepole to the outer edge of the box may be added. If a single piece of cardboard of sufficient size is available, it may be scored[1] and bent at the proper place and laid over the ridgepole, with the edges extending beyond the box to form the eaves. Or, two pieces may be used, one for each slope of the roof, each piece being tacked to the ridgepole. Chimneys may be made from paper and colored to represent bricks or stone.
Fig. 27.—Colonial kitchen. Columbia, Missouri.
The outside of the house may be treated in several ways. It may be sided after the manner of frame houses by tacking on strips of paper or cardboard lapped in the proper fashion. It may be covered with paper marked in horizontal lines to represent siding, in irregular spaces to represent stone, or in regular spaces to represent brick, and finished in the appropriate color. Or, a coat of paint or stain may be applied directly to the box.
VARIATIONS IN HOUSE PROBLEM
A playhouse for its own sake is a justifiable project for primary children and one which may be repeated several times without exhausting its possibilities. Each time it is repeated the emphasis will fall on some new feature, and the children will wish to do more accurate work.
In the lowest grades very simple houses of one or two rooms may be built for story-book friends, such as the "Three Bears" or "Little Red Riding Hood," with only such furniture as the story suggests. In intermediate grades the house may have an historical motive and illustrate home life in primitive times or in foreign countries, such as a colonial kitchen in New England, a pioneer cabin on the Western prairies, a Dutch home, a Japanese home, etc. In upper grades it may become a serious study in house decoration.