Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-11-26
HOUSE BUILDING.
Practical Hints on Universally Misun.
derstood Topic.

HOUSE BUILDING.
Practical Hints on a Universally NI1sun-
derstood Topic.
In one of our exchanges we find the
following useful suggestions on the al
teration of old houses or construction
hints here given are those of an ar
chitect or of some practical house,
wife, but the advice is none the less
useful whether they emanate from the
practical woman or the professional ar
chitect.
In most cases a house should be SO
planned, built, and placed as to afford
facilities for enlargement, and without
making thoroughfare of any old room
to get to the new part of the house.
For country house, a porch is de-
sirable, almost essential, and big enough
for children to play on, and to swing q
hammock in.
If you can't have a dry cellar. don't
have any, but build your house on the
ground level, on a concrete bed. Gel
lars can be made dry by concreting
floor and walls, and by giving the floor
an inclination tsward drain in one
corner. A trough-shaped gutter may
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 be as light as you can
make it. Dark cellars get damp and
dirty. Light ones are apt to be dry,
clean and sweet
If you are going to have water pipes
throughout the house, see that you have
plenty of water clear up to the top, for
cleanliness and for use in case of fire.
An upstairs sink, where scrub water can
be drawn and discharged, saves many
step and tends to keep things clean.
All the rooms on the floor should be
of the same level. This up-a-step and
down-a-step business is nuisance.
Many small house is spoiled through
not having enough hall room-no place
to put a hat rack or the baby carriage or
lots of other things which take up room,
and which do get put in hall or an en-
try where there is one.
1t would be 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
multiples of at least one of these dimen-
sions.
The parlor may be more nearly square
than the dining room. 1t should, if
possible, be so planned as to leave room
for a square piano against an inside
wall. A piano placed against an out
side wall gets out of tame, and changes
with the outside temperature.
The dining-room should be consider
ably longer than it is wide. If you have
to .'skimp' on the size of your dining
room, you had better shave off the width
of it and arrange for room lengthwise.
The room must be wide enough for q
four-foot table and guests on each side,
:, passage way behind the guests; that is,
Il 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 length
wise room.
A square kitchen seems the handiest
to the housewife, and her ideas should
be consulted-and carried out-as to
this room. if rs to no other. Don't
..skimp' the kitchen as to size sum-
mer kitchen, even if it is only shed,
will help to keep the house warm In
winter and cool in summer. A Kitchen
store room. where the women folks can
keep many of their supplies, and save
themselves the time and trouble of going
down cellar or up attic, will be a daily
blessing in most families. A buffers
pantry or china closet between kitchen
and dining-room is good investment if
you can afford it. Plenty of expensive
houses are built without it, and would be
better with it.
The bath room should be accessible
without having to pass through any 9th
er ROOM 1t is we'll to have it commune
cate with one of the bedrooms, or bet
ter vet with one on each side, but there
should be one door opening into an en-
try.
Set it down that winding stairs are an
expensive, announcement, dangerous and
inartistic arrangement. Straight flights
are equally dangerous and more mar
tistic. Flights with right-angled turns
at landing ways give fine effect and
do not trip one up, and children can
not 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 staircase is composed
of two separate stairways, each half the
width, each having full height of riser.
OUT the tfeadS arranged SO as 10 aiter-
nate or break joint. A child or very
old person, instead 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 take only three and
one-half inch steps; or two persons can
pass each other, each taking the regula-
ton steps,, This is not theoretical, but
is good thing which is in actqel use in
some old English houses.
Communicating rooms are a great
convenience in most families 1t is
| very easy to shut off the communities
| ton where it is not needed; but those
houses where all the rooms are isolated,
and open only into the halls, are about
| as inconvenient as those in which some
of the rooms are of necessity thorough
| fares.-SoaentHn american.