PLAN
The main body of this cottage is 18×12 feet, with a lean-to, 8 feet wide, running its whole length in rear. This lean-to may be 8 or 9 inches lower, on the floor, than the main room, and divided into a passage, (leading to an open wood-house in rear, 10×12 feet, with a shed roof,) a large closet, and a bedroom, as may be required; or, the passage end may be left open at the side, for a wood shelter, or other useful purpose. The roof, which is raftered, boarded, and shingled in the usual mode, is well spread over the gables, as well as over the front and rear—say 18 inches. The porch in front will give additional convenience in summer, as a place to sit, or eat under, and its posts so fitted with grooves as to let in rough planks for winter enclosure in front and at one end, leaving the entrance only, at the least windy, or stormy side. The extra cost of such preparation, with the planks, which should be 1¼ or 1½ inches thick, and jointed, would not exceed ten or fifteen dollars. This would make an admirable wood-house for the winter, and a perfect snuggery for a small family. While in its summer dress, with the porch opened—the planks taken out and laid overhead, across the beams connecting the porch with the house—it would present an object of quiet comfort and beauty. A hop vine or honeysuckle might be trained outside the posts, and give it all the shade required.
In a stony country, where the adjoining enclosures are of stone, this cottage may be built of stone, also, at about double the cost of wood. This would save the expense of paint, or wash of any kind, besides the greater character of durability and substance it would add to the establishment. Trees, of course, should shelter it; and any little out-buildings that may be required should be nestled under a screen of vines and shrubbery near by.
This being designed as the humblest and cheapest kind of cottage, where the family occupy only a single room, the cost would be small. On the plan first named, stained with a coarse wash, it could be built for $100. On the second plan, well-framed of sills, plates, posts, studs, &c. &c., covered with vertical boarding and battens, or clapboarded, and well painted in oil, it might cost $150 to $200. Stone, or brick, without paint, would add but little, if anything in cost over the last sum. The ceiling of the main floor is 8 feet high, and a low chamber or garret is afforded above it, into which a swing-step ladder ascends; and when not in use, it may be hung to the ceiling overhead by a common hook and staples.
ELEVATION
COTTAGE Pages 217-218.
Design II.
This cottage is a grade beyond the one just described, both in appearance and accommodation. It is 20×16 feet on the ground, with a rear wing 26×8 feet in area. The main body is 10 feet high, to the roof, vertically boarded and battened. A snug, half-open (or it may be closed, as convenience may require,) porch shelters the front door, 5×4 feet in area. The cottage has a square or hipped roof, of a 30° pitch from a horizontal line, which spreads full two feet over the walls and bracketed beneath. The rear wing retreats two feet from the wall line of the main building, and has also a hipped roof of the same pitch as the main one, with eight-feet posts. The open end of the wing advances 6 feet toward the front of the main part for wood-house and storage. The construction of this is in the same style as Design I. The windows are plain, two-sashed, of six lights each, 8×12 glass in front, and 8×10 in the rear.