Cottages; or, Hints on Economical Building

by Unknown

If we can contrive a little retreat or “den” in some out-of-the-way corner of the house, it may be well, for, although man is a social animal, “solitude sometimes is best society.”

Many of us will appreciate a little sanctum entered by one door only, where we can leave our books and papers, having the sweet satisfaction that they will remain undisturbed.

The bed-rooms should be specially light, airy and well ventilated. Space must be left for the bed, a consideration which, if overlooked in the plan, may make it necessary to put the bed in front of a window or against a closet door.

The arrangement of doors and windows requires particular attention, and a little care in regard to this will contribute much to comfort. A certain amount of wall-surface should always be left, or there will be no place to put the furniture—a fault often found in our houses, and productive of much discomfort. Every bed-room should have a closet, and, indeed, an abundance of closets is necessary, it being hardly possible to have too many of them. One for coats, in the front hall, one for linen, one for stores, and a good-sized pantry for the kitchen, are dear to the heart of a housekeeper.

No house should be without a bath-room, large and conveniently located. Care must be taken that the plumbing apparatus is not exposed to the cold, or the pipes will freeze in winter. The matter of ventilation and construction of the plumbing work, is ably discussed in a separate article devoted to that and other sanitary questions.

V.

Doors are generally hung according to the sweet will of the carpenter, but there are two ways to hang a door, one so as to expose the room, the other so as to screen it. The first may be good for the more public rooms, but, in regard to bed-rooms, the doors must swing so that, when partly open, they will shield the apartment from view. Closet doors should be hung so that the closet may receive light from the nearest window. Doors are sometimes made to swing out on stair landings or halls, and who has not seen two doors so placed that they strike each other when opened? It is hardly necessary to say that these methods should not be adopted.

The question of how to heat a house is discussed at length elsewhere, but from the point of beauty, cheerfulness and comfort, we must enter a plea for the open fire-place. It may be troublesome to keep clean, although this may be obviated by an ash-shoot to the cellar. We admit that the open fire-place is wasteful, as two-thirds of the heat goes up the chimney. And then most of the foul air in the room goes with it, and we have the best and surest ventilating flue yet devised. But the cheerful appearance, the crackling of the logs, the sparkling embers, the ruddy flames twisting themselves into fantastic shapes—are these worth nothing to us? Contrast a roaring fire of hickory logs, blazing on a broad brick hearth, with the dismal hole in the floor or wall covered with a cast-iron register. The cricket on the hearth is a little out of fashion now, and with it has gone the sense of comfort that the broad, picturesque chimney-piece always gave. Open fire-places alone are often insufficient in our climate, and furnaces are extremely useful for heating the halls and the house generally; but to rely on their heat entirely excludes one of the features which make home more home-like. The fire-place should be in a position so as to admit of a group sitting around it; it should not stand between two doors, for instance. A little nook or seat may be contrived next to it, making a cosy corner in the room. Chimney-stacks can be combined if the house be judiciously planned, and a saving of expense effected. The plans in Plates VI, X and XVII, show how one stack can serve three rooms on the same floor with fire-places, and in the case of the double houses all the designs show that this method of saving expense has been adopted. Chimneys must be carefully built of good, hard brick, laid in cement mortar, the flues straight and smooth and of uniform size. To allow of better arrangement in the upper floors, the flues may be safely drawn on one side to at least 30° from the perpendicular. There must always be at least 8 inches of brick work when the chimney-stack comes in contact with any wood-work.

Every house should have a cellar with stone or brick walls and cement floors. And it is of the utmost importance that the cellar be dry. To insure this, the greatest care should be given to the outside finish of the walls—reversing the usual practice of carefully finishing the interior, and on the exterior allowing the rough edges of stone to project and form little courses and channels through which the moisture will pass. In case the cellar extends only under part of the house, the rest of the walls should be supported upon brick piers, only filled in between with wooden lattice, giving free access to the air, thus preventing dampness and rotting of timbers.