Morning journal and courier., 1885-04-23
Hints on House Building.

l In most cases q house should be planned
built and placed as to afford facilities for en-
! largement, and without making a thorough
fare of any old room to get to the new part
of the house.
For country house, porch is desirable
almost essential, and big enough for chill
| dren to play on, and to swing hammock
in.
If you can't have a dry cellar, don't hav,
| any, but build your house on the GROUND
! level, on a concrete bed. Cellars can b,
| made dry by concreting floor and walls by
giving the floor an inclination toward draiI
at one corner. A trough-shaped gutter N ay
be run in the concrete when fresh, so as to
make an admirable water course for any
| water that may get in by bursting water
pipes or from floods The cellar should bt
as light az you can make it. Dark cellars
get damp and dirty. Light ones are apt to
be clean, dry and sweet.
If you are going to have water pipes
throughout the house, see that you have
plenty of water clear up at the top-fo1
cleanliness and for use in case of fire. An
upstairs sink where scrub water can be drawn
and discharged, save many step-and tends
to keep things clean.
All the rooms on the floor should be on
the same level. This up-a-step and down-a
step business is nuisance.
Many a small house is spoiled through not
having enough room; no place to put hat
rack, or the baby carriage, or lots of other
things which take up room and which do get
put in hall or an entry where there is one.
1t would be a very handy thing if at least
one dimension of each room was an even
number of carpet widths. Carpet comes
either twenty-seven or thirty-six inches wide,
and rooms can generally be nultiples of at
least one of these dimensions.
The parlor may be more nearly square than
the dining room. 1t should, if possible, be
so planned as to leave room for square
piano against an inside wall. A piano placed
against an outside wall gets out of tune
and changes with the outside temperature.
The dining room should be considerably
longer than it is wide. If you have to
F'skimp" on the size of your dining
you'd better shave off the width of it and
arrange for room lengthwise. The room
must be wide enough for four-foot table,
and guests on each side, and passage way be-
hind the guests; that is fixed width, no
matter how many are sitting down to the
table; but the table has to be heightened to
accommodate the guests, and there should be
lengthwise room.
A square kitchen seems the handiest to the
housewife; ana her ideas should be consult
ed-and carried out-as to this room above
all others; as to this room, if as to no other.
Don't ''skimp" the kitchen as to size. A
summer kitchen If it is only shed, will help
keep the house warm in winter and cool in
summer. A kitchen storeroom. where the
women folks can keep many of their sup
plies and save themselves the time and
trouble of going down cellar or up attic, will
be a daily blessing in most families. A but
ler's pantry or china closet between kitchen
and dining room is a good investment, if you
can afford it. Plenty of expensive houses
are built without it and would be better
with it.
The bathroom should be accessible with
out having to pass through any other room.
1t is well to have it communicate with one
of the bedrooms, or better yet with one of
each side, but there should be one door open
ing into entry.
Set it down that winding stairs are an ex-
pensive. inconvenient, dangerous and mar
tistic arrangement. Straight flights
equally dangerous and more inartistic.
Flight with rightangled turns at landing
ways give fine effect, and do not trip one
up and children cannot fall far when they
start from the top. Where there are little
children or very old people, "halved steps"
are good things, that is, the stair case is COM
posed of two separate stairways each half the
width, each having full height of riser, but
the treads arranged SO as to alternate or
break joint. A child or very old person, ip
stead of having to take seven inch steps,
can walk up the center of the flight with the
right foot on the right hand set and the left
foot on the left hand set, and take only three
and half inch steps; or two persons can
pass each other, each taking the regulation
steps, This is not theoretical, but is good
thing which is in actual use in some old
English houses.
Communicating rooms are a great conven-
fence in most families. 1t is very easy to
sAut off the communication where it is not
needed; Ydt those houses where all the rooms
are isolated and open only into the halls are
about as inconvenient as those in which some
e L "a
fares.
If you intend to make a home out OF a
house, get in plenty of storage room, and real
closets not four-inch-deep places in which
man can't hang up high hat. If you in
tend to rent out your house, put the closets
in all the same; and if the woman of the
house has anything to say about which house
is to be taken, She one with the most closets
will get the vote, other things being consid-
cred