ned with a
view to making additions that will be in keeping with the general
effect and will readily fall in with the practical arrangement of the
house.
What is said about emergency space applies principally to the sleeping
apartments. There is an altogether happy tendency in these days to
simplify the living rooms and to plan them for constant use. We of the
East have something to learn from the Californians, whose bungalows and
cottages are so often models of simplicity without the crudeness of
most small houses in other sections. Our coast brethren have
demonstrated that a four- or five-room cottage will satisfactorily
house a considerable family, and that it may be given the
characteristics that charm without increasing the cost.
PLANS FOR BUILDING
The simplest and in many instances the prettiest cottages are of only a
single story. But more than four rooms in one story makes a
comparatively expensive house, besides using up a great deal of ground.
With the foundation, first story, and roof provided for, the second
story adds little to the cost compared to the space gained. Where
ground and labor are cheap the single story is to be considered; but in
most places it would not be practicable for us.
In planning the house due regard must be had for the dispositions of
the respective members of the family. In any event we shall not please
all of them, but the less the others have to complain about the happier
the rest of us shall be.
NECESSARY ROOMS
If paterfamilias is accustomed to depositing his apparel and other
belongings rather promiscuously about, expecting to find things where
they were left on his return in the evening, it may be better to plan
his room where it may stand undisturbed rather than to attempt the
breaking of a habit which shows that he feels at home in his own house.
Likewise, some place there should be where the mistress may conduct her
sewing operations without wildly scrambling to clean up when the
doorbell rings; the children should have at least one place in the
house where they may "let loose" on a rainy day, and the master should
have somewhere a retreat safe from interruption, as well as a workroom
in the basement in which the tools and implements that quickly
accumulate in a country home may be secure.
THE SICK ROOM
Sickness, too, may come, and the questions of privacy without an
unwholesome curb upon both children and adults, of convenience to hot
wa
|