As to number and distribution of rooms, the field is somewhat wide. Here the differences of income, of pursuits, and the idiosyncrasies of taste come in; and more than all, not only are the circumstances originally different, but constantly varying. I speak not of the fluctuations of fortune, but of normal and expected changes. The young couple, or the old, are easily lodged. But in middle life,—since we are not content, like our forefathers, with bestowing our children out of sight,—it takes a great deal of room to provide for them on both floors, without either neglect or oppression, and to keep up the due oversight without sacrificing ourselves or them. For children are rather exclusive, and spoil for other use more room than they occupy. Here I counsel every man who must have a corner to himself to fix his study in the attic, for the only way to avoid noise without wasteful complication is to be above it.
The smallest house must provide some escape from the dining-room. If dining-room and sitting-room are on the sunny side, and the entrance be also on that side, they will be separated, as indeed they always may be, without loss. The notion that the rooms must immediately connect is one of those whims to which houses are sacrificed. The only advantage is the facility for receiving company. But if the occasions when the guests will be too many for one room are likely to be frequent, rather than permanently spoil the living-room, it is better to set apart rooms for reception. Our position in this matter is in truth rather embarrassing. Formerly (and the view is not yet wholly obsolete) the whole house was a reception-hall, the domestic life of the inmates being a secondary matter, swept into some corner, such as the cells of the mediaeval castles or the mezzanino of the Italian palaces. But the austere aspect of the shut-up "best parlor" of our grandfathers, with its closed blinds and chilly chintz covers, showed that the tables were beginning to turn, and the household to assert its rights and civilly to pay off the guest for his usurpations. Henceforth he is welcome, but he is secondary; it was not for him that the house was built; and if it comes to choosing, he can be dispensed with. It would be very agreeable to unite with all the new advantages all the old,—the easy hospitality, the disengaged suavity of the ancient manners. Now the brow of the host is clouded, he has too much on his mind to play his part perfectly. It is not that good-will is wanting, but that life is more complicated. The burdens are more evenly distributed, and no class is free and at leisure. But to fret over our disadvantages, and to extol the past, is only to ignore the price that was paid for those advantages we covet. There was always somebody to sweat for that leisure. Would a society divided into castes be better? Or again, who would like to have his children sleep three in a bed, and live in the kitchen, in order that the best rooms should always be swept and garnished for company?
In every case, unless a man is rich enough to have two houses in one, it comes to choice between domestic comfort and these occasional facilities. Direct connection of rooms usually involves the sacrifice of the chimney-corner, on one or both sides; for it is not pleasant to sit in a passage-way, even if it be rarely used. For use in cold weather the available portion of a room may be reckoned as limited by the door nearest the fireplace.
It will be noticed that this supposes the use of open fireplaces. The open fireplace is not a necessary of life, but it is one of the first luxuries, and one that no man who can afford to eat meat every day can afford to dispense with. No furnace can supply the place of it; for, though the furnace is an indispensable auxiliary in severe cold, and though, well managed, it need not vitiate the air, yet, like all contrivances for supplying heated air instead of heat, it has the insurmountable defect of not warming the body directly, nor until all the surrounding air be warmed first, and thus stops the natural reaction and the brace and stimulus derived from it. Used exclusively, it amounts to voluntarily incurring the disadvantage of a tropical climate.
Let the walls of the second story be upright. The recent fashion of a mansard or "French roof" is only making part of the wall of the house look like roof, at equal expense, at the sacrifice of space inside, and above all, of tightness. For, though shingles and even slates will generally keep out the rain, the innumerable cracks between the sides of them can never be made air-tight, and therefore admit heat and cold much more freely than any proper wall-covering. A covering of metal would be too good a conductor of external temperature,—while clapboarding would endanger the resemblance to a roof, which is the only gain proposed.
As to the size of the house, it is important to observe that its cost does not depend so much upon the size of the rooms (within reasonable limits) as upon the number of them, the complication of plan, and the number of doors and windows. For every door or window you can omit you may add three or four feet to your house. The height of the stories will be governed by the area of the largest rooms;—what will please each person depends very much upon what he is used to. In the old New-England houses the stories were very low, often less than eight feet in the best rooms. In favor of low rooms it is to be remembered that they are more easily lighted and warmed, and involve less climbing of stairs. Rooms are often made lofty under the impression that better ventilation is thereby secured; but there is a confusion here. A high room is less intolerable without ventilation, the vitiated air being more diluted; but a low room is usually more easily ventilated, because the windows are nearer the ceiling.
Mr. Garbett advises that the windows be many and small. This costs more; and if it be understood to involve placing the windows on different sides, the effect, I think, will be generally less agreeable than where the room is lighted wholly from one side. A capital exception, however, is the dining-room, which should always, if possible, abound in cross-lights; else one half the table will be oppressed by a glare of light, and the other visible only in silhouette.
As to material, stone is the handsomest, and the only one that constantly grows handsomer, and does not require that your creepers should be periodically disturbed for painting or repairs. But this is perhaps all that can be said in its favor. To make a stone house as good as a wooden one we must build a wooden one inside of it. Wood is our common material, and there is none better, if we take the pains to make it tight. There is a prevalent notion that it is the thinness of our cheap wooden houses that makes them pervious to heat and cold. But no wooden house, unless built of solid and well-fitted logs, could resist the external temperature by virtue of thickness. It is tightness that tells here. Wherever air passes, heat and cold pass with it. What is important, therefore, is, by good contrivance and careful execution, to stop all cracks as far as possible. For this, an outside covering of sheathing-felt, or some equivalent material, may be recommended, and especially a double plastering inside,—not the common "back-plastering," but two separate compact surfaces of lime and sand, inside the frame.
The position, the internal arrangement, and the material being determined upon, the next point is that the structure shall be as little of an eyesore as we can make it. Do what we will, every house, as long as it is new, is a standing defiance to the landscape. In color, texture, and form, it disconnects itself and resists assimilation to its surroundings. The "gentle incorporation into the scenery of Nature," that Wordsworth demands, is the most difficult point to effect, as well as the most needful. This makes the importance of a background of trees, of shrubs, and creepers, and the uniting lines of sheds, piazzas, etc., mediating and easing off the shock which the upstart mass inflicts upon the eye. Hence Sir Joshua Reynolds's rule for the color of a house, to imitate the tint of the soil where it is to stand. Hence the advantage of a well-assured base and generally of a pyramidal outline, because this is the figure of braced and balanced equilibrium, assured to all natural objects by the slow operation of natural laws, which we must take care not to violate in our haste, unless for due cause shown.
We hear much of the importance of proportions, but the main point generally is that the house be not too high. This is the most universal difficulty, particularly in small houses, the area being diminished, but not the height of stories. In this respect the old farm-houses had a great advantage, and this is a main element in their good effect,—aided as it is by the height of the roof; for a high roof will often make a building seem lower than it would with a low roof or none at all. The dreary effect of the flat-roofed houses in the neighborhood of New York is due partly to the unrelieved height, and partly to the unfinished or truncated appearance of a thing without a top. The New York fashion gives, no doubt, the most for the money; but the effect is so offensive that I think it justifies us for once in violating Mr. Garbett's canon and sacrificing efficiency to taste.