One who wishes to build goes to an architect with some sketches or prints, which he has been collecting, lays them down and says,—
“We’re thinking about building a house. We want something like this. Here are four rooms and a hall downstairs, and four rooms and a bath-room above. We want to build of wood, and wish to have the house warm and substantial. Can it be built for three thousand dollars? It’s all we have to put in it.”
“Oh, yes,” says the architect; and so it can. A good, comfortable, substantial house, from the plans indicated, can be built for three thousand dollars. The architect knows this, and says that the work can be done for that price. He is ordered to make the plans. In a day or two the owner comes into his office and says,—
“My wife and I were talking over the house last night, and concluded that we would like to have a bay window from the dining-room,—a place where we can sit in summer, and put flowers in the winter.”
“All right.”
“And she told me to ask where you were going to put a wash-stand downstairs. You know we will want some kind of a wash-room.”
“I hadn’t thought anything about that,” said the architect. “Nothing was said about it. I supposed that in a house of this size the bath-room was the only place where you would put a stationary wash-stand.”
“We have to have a place downstairs. We can’t go upstairs every time we want to wash our hands.”
Another two or three days pass. The owner visits the architect again. It is the old story. He and his wife have been studying the house question in earnest. They are educating themselves in house-building. The more they think about it, the more they want, all of which is perfectly natural and right. It is in the natural order of things. It is the way the world moves.
“We were talking about the house, and have about concluded that we will finish two front rooms upstairs in oak. What do you think it will cost?”