Take it all in all, one rarely finds a farmhouse that shows more attractive features than this one, where comfort, light, and view have all been carefully considered. It is perfectly available for an all-the-year-round home, as it is not too far from the station to allow its occupants to go back and forth to business every day.
CHAPTER XX
THE WALTER SCOTT HOPKINS HOUSE
When you plan to remodel your house, there is nothing that should receive much more careful attention than the closets. It is doubtful, that is, if the house is of the earliest period, if you will find many. Our emigrant ancestors did not have as many clothes or table appointments as we require to-day. The few of the former they possessed were hung on pegs or disposed of in chests; the dishes were placed on racks, thus eliminating the necessity for closet room in houses where every available bit of space was utilized for living purposes.
In all probability you will find corner cupboards which will be more or less elaborate in design. The best examples show a shell treatment. The earliest corner cupboards were clumsy affairs, being movable; later on they were built into the house and employed to hold family china and glassware. There was a great variety in these closets, some being fitted up with shelves only, while others were divided in two, the underneath part being used for books and odds and ends.
Fortunate is the house owner who finds in his old house one or more of these old corner cupboards. To be sure they can be reproduced; but how much better are the originals. Dig out the old plaster, rip open the sides of the partitions, if you think there is any chance of odd closets being hidden away between, and remember that in many old houses there are secret closets, and it will pay you to tap the wall space to discover their whereabouts. Sometimes they are hidden under the flooring, and again the space between the windows is used for this purpose. It is always well to open them, for who knows what valuable heirlooms may be hidden inside.
There are plenty of spaces where new closets can be introduced as, for instance, the end of the dining-room, where a glassed-in china closet with an arched top and half-domed interior makes an excellent place to display the old china and glass. Panels in the wainscot can be utilized, more especially when they are under the first step of the staircase. These are most convenient for filing newspapers or any magazines that are kept for reference.
If the hallway is paneled, it is a very easy matter to put an invisible door into one of the panels. This can be used for the coat closet, with a low shelf underneath to hold hats; and on the floor partitions can be made to hold rubbers. On each side of the chimney a great deal of waste space can be converted into bookcases, with little, leaded, glass doors. Above the mantel, set in the chimney-breast, will be found spaces which even in the early days were devoted to closets. They are cut in a panel and were used to protect china or old pewter from the dust. Sometimes three of these closets have been found built into the fireplaces, all of which were used to hold the household china.
In the upper part of the house, under the attic stairs, can generally be found places that can be made into linen closets, but it must be remembered that if no ventilation is allowed, cloth will become yellowed, so by all means have brass ventilators in the doors. Whatever the purpose of the closet, its location should be carefully considered,—the shape, the place, and the cost,—so that as many as possible can be introduced.