DESIGN XI.
A HOUSE COSTING $1,600.
This plan is for a comfortable and genteel dwelling, suited to almost any location, and for the accommodation of an averaged-sized family. Upwards of twenty years’ experience in planning and building has taught me that it is not difficult to design either as to Style, Room, or Cost, when the owners have means sufficient to gratify their individual tastes, and no special care is required to save expense. But it is quite another matter to provide plans for the great mass of people who, through habit or necessity, put everything to the test of economy, and to whom every inch of room, or foot of material, is an important consideration. In designing and projecting such work, theories avail little; practical experience must then be the chief guide.... Conventional modes of living have established a system of household arrangement and economy requiring for every home of even moderate refinement, a house with a front hall, a parlor, a dining-room, and a kitchen on the first floor, and a liberal suite of chambers in a second story. Our plan herewith, though only 20 by 30 feet, provides for all the above. If built on an ordinary 25-feet village lot, it will allow a needed passage-way on one side. In rapidly filling up, crowded localities, four persons owning single lots, making a frontage of 100 feet, can arrange together and build five houses on this plan for about the cost of erecting four detached houses. The fifth house may be rented or sold for the benefit of the four owners. In such cases, a hall should be finished in the basement, with an entrance in front similar to the one shown in the rear in [fig. 45].... The Front Elevation is made up of simple parts, in a neat arrangement. The Bay-window indicates refinement, and adds largely to the area or room of the parlor.... The Cellar walls are of hard brick, are 8 inches thick, 7 feet high, and show at least 3 feet above ground. For health’s sake alone, as well as for a better appearance, and for convenience, if the basement should ever be desired finished off in rooms, which can be done at any time with little expense, it is best to always place the first floor well up from the ground. In very cold localities, frost can be kept out of the basement by banking up in winter, or better by laying the brick walls with an opening up through the center, extending bricks across the opening at frequent intervals to secure firmness. This central air-chamber promotes health, warmth, and dryness in the basement or cellar. One foot of the soil taken from the excavation for the cellar should be used in grading around the house, to secure the flow of water away from it, and still leave the walls three feet or more above the ground.... First Story, ([fig. 46]).—Hight of ceiling, 9½ feet. The divisions embrace three rooms, a hall, and two closets. Double doors are provided for the front entrance, and between the parlor and dining-room, and marble mantles and shelves in the principal rooms. A movable “Dresser” having drawers and shelving with small doors, is indicated for the dining-room. This room may be heated by leading a pipe from the kitchen stove to a drum and back into the chimney, or up through the chamber above to warm that somewhat. A “Fireplace heater” in the parlor will warm the chamber above.... Second Story, ([fig. 47].)—The hight of the ceilings are 8½ feet. There are four chambers, with closets to each, and a small hall. The head-room over the main stairs extends beneath the closet to the inner edge of the shelf shown—the floor in these parts being angled to suit the pitch of the stairs.... Remarks on construction.—An end section of the “Novelty siding” is shown in [fig. 48]. This is of 10-inch boards, 1 inch thick, cut as shown in the engraving. The groove in the center gives it the appearance of narrow clapboards; the lap of about an inch closes tightly, and the thick boards not only add to the warmth, but also to the strength. A house covered with this will vibrate very little in the most windy situations, and be firmer than one covered with thin siding having much heavier timber. Where planing mills are accessible, it is little more expensive than the dressed half-inch boarding, and the appearance is quite as pretty. In this vicinity it is customary to purchase a lot of pretty good quality merchantable pine boards, select the best and clearest of knots for siding, and use the rest for flooring where knots are not objectionable when to be covered with carpeting. The smaller and firm knots in the siding used, are readily covered with paint, if first primed with a little solution of shellac in alcohol. A section of the wall is shown in [fig. 49]. The studding, 2 × 4, makes a space of four inches between the siding and plastering. Tarred paper, or what is termed roofing-felt, is procured in rolls 32 inches wide. A saw run through the roll cuts it into 16-inch strips. The studs being set 16 inches apart from center to center, leaves the clear space of 14 inches. The strips of felt are turned up an inch on each edge, and these turned edges are held against the studs by lath firmly up and down, so as to hold the sheets midway between the plastering and siding. This leaves two air-chambers, both good non-conductors of heat. Mice or insects will not eat or go through this material. It is impervious to currents of air, and the whole is as warm as if filled in with brick. The cost is very small, and, as will be readily seen, it is much warmer than when the felt is put on directly under the boards, leaving only one air-chamber, and that a wide one.... In all house-plans, we advise putting in all the closets possible; they are always convenient, even a foot square “cubby-hole” in the side of a chimney is a handy place. In planning a house, after making the size as large as one’s means will allow, the “better half” should be consulted as to the advisability of making this or that room a little smaller by cutting off a few inches here and there to enlarge a pantry or closet.... We always advise to put in an extra bell or two, and one or more speaking-tubes, to connect the upper and lower rooms. The cost is but trifling, if they are put in when building. A hundred feet of speaking-tube will cost but $2 or $3; the carpenter can insert it behind the lath, running it from one room to another in a few minutes, and it will save many steps, and much calling through the halls, especially when the mother happens to be an invalid, and restrained to a chamber.... In arranging sink, table, dish-pantry, etc., with reference to dining-room and kitchen, always plan to save steps. A distance of 10 feet extra, traveled over each way, say 20 times a day, in handling food and dishes, amounts to 28 miles extra walking every year, all of which may be saved by a slight change in arrangement. These are small matters, but these have much to do in making a “convenient house.”
Cost.—The following Estimates of cost in detail will give an idea of the general character of the work. The prices given are for materials in the vicinity of New York. Carpenters wages are reckoned at $2 per day; mason’s work, $2.50 per day; and painters, $3 per day:
| Excavation, 2½ ft. deep, at 20c. per yard. | $11.00 | ||
| 12,000 | hard brick, furnished and laid, at $12 per M. | 144.00 | |
| 28 | ft. stone steps, at 40c. per ft. | 11.20 | |
| 16 | ft. stone sills, at 30c. per ft. | 4.80 | |
| 488 | yards lath and plastering, at 30c. | 144.90 | |
| 2,000 | ft. timber, at $15 per M. | 30.00 | |
| 2 | sills, 4 × 7 in. 20 ft. long. | ||
| 2 | sills, 4 × 7 in. 30 ft. long. | ||
| 4 | posts, 4 × 7 in. 20 ft. long. | ||
| 2 | plates, 4 × 6 in. 20 ft. long. | ||
| 2 | plates, 4 × 6 in. 30 ft. long. | ||
| 2 | ties, 4 × 6 in. 26 ft. long. | ||
| 2 | ties, 4 × 6 in. 30 ft. long. | ||
| 2 | girders, 4 × 8 in. 15 ft. long. | ||
| 2 | stringers, 3 × 8 in. 20 ft. long. | ||
| 30 | beams, 3 × 8 in. 20 ft. long. | ||
| 32 | rafters, 3 × 4 in. 12 feet long, at 18c. | 5.76 | |
| 300 | wall-strips, 2 × 4 in. 13 ft. long, at 11c. | 33.00 | |
| 200 | novelty siding-boards, 9½ in., at 30c. | 60.00 | |
| 160 | lbs. tarred paper, at 5c. | 8.00 | |
| 100 | hemlock boards, 10 in., at 18c. | 18.00 | |
| 100 | ft. main cornice, at 40c. | 40.00 | |
| 1 | bay-window, complete, with blinds, labor included. | 60.00 | |
| 1½ | stoops, complete, labor included. | 70.00 | |
| 8 | windows, with blinds, at $16. | 128.00 | |
| 4 | windows, with blinds, at $8. | 32.00 | |
| 8½ | squares of tin roofing, at $7. | 59.50 | |
| 100 | ft. gutters and leaders, at 10c. | 10.00 | |
| 150 | flooring-plank, tongued and grooved, at 28c. | 42.00 | |
| Stairs, main and cellar, $60; base-boards, shelving, etc. $30. | 90.00 | ||
| 4 | mantels (1 full marble, and 3 marble shelves on trusses of plaster). | 50.00 | |
| 21 | doors, complete, labor included, $158; 350 lbs. nails, at 5c., $17.50. | 175.50 | |
| Painting, two coats. | 80.00 | ||
| Carpenter’s labor, not included in windows, doors, and porches, about $200.00; cartage, average one mile, $30.00. | 230.00 | ||
| Allow for extras, cistern, pump, sink, etc., etc. | 62.34 | ||
| Total. | $1,600.00 | ||
Prices vary in different localities, somewhat, but when higher in some particulars, they will generally be lower in others, so that the whole cost will not be greatly different over a considerable extent of country. There are many items that can be cut down in the above estimate, where great economy is needful. For example, substitute wood for stone steps and sills; omit the blinds and bay-windows, use cheaper doors, pine-stair railing and newel, instead of walnut, etc. Our estimate is for a pretty, complete, tasteful house.
Fig. 44.—FRONT ELEVATION OF HOUSE.
Fig. 45.—PLAN OF CELLAR.