They may be very unlike, yet both beautiful. From the farmer’s standpoint it may be said that the chief characteristics of beauty are fitness, naturalness and simplicity.
CHAPTER VIII
BUILDING THE HOUSE—GENERAL LAY-OUT
The reader will understand that no attempt is made to treat this subject in detail nor strictly from the architect’s viewpoint. A casual observation will make it self-evident that the structures on farms have received little attention as to beauty of form, economy of construction, or adaptation of means to ends. Like many others, I have noted all this and have made a somewhat careful study of the causes which usually have produced this want of harmony, durability, adaptability and economy in the construction of rural homesteads.
The many illustrations of detail are designed to emphasize underlying principles. Principles are always the same: details may be varied to suit conditions. While the numerous illustrations are meant to explain the details, it is believed that they will also give help to a large part of the rural population who have had little opportunity to secure any adequate instruction in the art and science of home building.
Usually the cellar would better be extended under the entire house, although it is neither wise nor healthy to store large quantities of material in it which, if not cared for, may decay and vitiate the air in the rooms above. If the cellar be properly constructed there is no objection to storing family supplies of fruit and vegetables for the winter in this partly underground room. Large quantities of vegetables held for future sale should not find storage in the house cellar. Now that the floors of houses are made tight, often double with paper between, and carpets or rugs to cover them, the cold no longer enters the cellar through the floor. The cellar wall may therefore extend upwards on three sides, well above ground, that opportunity may be given for the introduction of light and air. With only single-glazed cellar windows, no building paper, and floors and boarding of unseasoned lumber, the pioneer was compelled to place the cellar well under ground, or bank the walls with manure if the winter’s supply of vegetables was to be made secure.
Fig. 43. Cellar under the upright only.
Fig. 44. Cellar under the entire house.
A common form of the foundation for farm houses is shown in [Fig. 43]—a main structure, reinforced by a wing which, in most cases, has no cellar under it. [Fig. 44] shows the cellar under the whole structure. If the walls of the unexcavated wing are placed 3¹⁄₂ feet below ground, as they should be in a cold climate, and extend 2 feet above ground, it will take more stone to construct the foundation walls of the house with a cellar under only a part than when it extends under the entire structure. The stone saved by leaving out the wall between the two sections of the house will more than suffice for building the walls of the wing to their full height. In the latter case, it would cost slightly more for excavation than in the former. Since cellars, when appropriately used, are in some respects the most useful and cheapest rooms in the structure, there is no economy in not placing them under the entire house. A cellar may be divided by 4-inch brick walls into various rooms, corresponding in shape to those above, thereby securing for the partitions in the superstructure, separate compartments, in order that the vegetables, fruit, milk, and furnace may be separate one from the other.