Rural Architecture

L >> Lewis Falley Allen >> Rural Architecture

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INTERIOR ARRANGEMENT.

The main body of this cottage is 18x12 feet, with a lean-to, 8 feet
wide, running its whole length in rear. This lean-to may be 8 or 9
inches lower, on the floor, than the main room, and divided into a
passage, (leading to an open wood-house in rear, 10x12 feet, with a shed
roof,) a large closet, and a bedroom, as may be required; or, the
passage end may be left open at the side, for a wood shelter, or other
useful purpose. The roof, which is raftered, boarded, and shingled in
the usual mode, is well spread over the gables, as well as over the
front and rear--say 18 inches. The porch in front will give additional
convenience in summer, as a place to sit, or eat under, and its posts so
fitted with grooves as to let in rough planks for winter enclosure in
front and at one end, leaving the entrance only, at the least windy, or
stormy side. The extra cost of such preparation, with the planks, which
should be 1-1/4 or 1-1/2 inches thick, and jointed, would not exceed ten
or fifteen dollars. This would make an admirable wood-house for the
winter, and a perfect snuggery for a small family. While in its summer
dress, with the porch opened--the planks taken out and laid overhead,
across the beams connecting the porch with the house--it would present
an object of quiet comfort and beauty. A hop vine or honeysuckle might
be trained outside the posts, and give it all the shade required.

In a stony country, where the adjoining enclosures are of stone, this
cottage may be built of stone, also, at about double the cost of wood.
This would save the expense of paint, or wash of any kind, besides the
greater character of durability and substance it would add to the
establishment. Trees, of course, should shelter it; and any little
out-buildings that may be required should be nestled under a screen of
vines and shrubbery near by.

This being designed as the humblest and cheapest kind of cottage, where
the family occupy only a single room, the cost would be small. On the
plan first named, stained with a coarse wash, it could be built for
$100. On the second plan, well-framed of sills, plates, posts, studs,
&c. &c., covered with vertical boarding and battens, or clapboarded, and
well painted in oil, it might cost $150 to $200. Stone, or brick,
without paint, would add but little, if anything in cost over the last
sum. The ceiling of the main floor is 8 feet high, and a low chamber or
garret is afforded above it, into which a swing-step ladder ascends; and
when not in use, it may be hung to the ceiling overhead by a common hook
and staples.

DESIGN II.

This cottage is a grade beyond the one just described, both in
appearance and accommodation. It is 20x16 feet on the ground, with a
rear wing 26x8 feet in area. The main body is 10 feet high, to the roof,
vertically boarded and battened. A snug, half-open (or it may be closed,
as convenience may require,) porch shelters the front door, 5x4 feet in
area. The cottage has a square or hipped roof, of a 30deg pitch from a
horizontal line, which spreads full two feet over the walls and
bracketed beneath. The rear wing retreats two feet from the wall line of
the main building, and has also a hipped roof of the same pitch as the
main one, with eight-feet posts. The open end of the wing advances 6
feet toward the front of the main part for wood-house and storage. The
construction of this is in the same style as Design I. The windows are
plain, two-sashed, of six lights each, 8x12 glass in front, and 8x10 in
the rear.

[Illustration: COTTAGE. Pages 217-218.]

INTERIOR ARRANGEMENT.

The front door opens into a common living room, 16x12 feet, with two
windows, in which is a stove-chimney running up from the main floor next
the partition, or placed over it in the chamber, and running up through
the center of the roof. On one side of the living room is a bedroom,
10x8 feet, with two windows. Next to this bedroom is a large closet, 8x6
feet, with one window, and shelves, and tight cupboard within. These
rooms are 9 feet high, and over them is a chamber, or garret, 20x16
feet, entered by a swing step ladder, as in Design No. I. This garret is
lighted by a small dormer window in the rear roof, over the shed or
lean-to. A bed may be located in this chamber, or it may serve as a
storage and lumber-room.

The wing contains a small kitchen, in case the living room be not
occupied for that purpose, 10x8 feet, lighted by a side-window, and
having a small chimney in the rear wall. It may contain, also, a small
closet, 3 feet square. A door passes from this small kitchen into the
wood-house, which is 16x8 feet, or with its advance L, 14 feet, in the
extreme outer corner of which is a water-closet, 5x3 feet; thus,
altogether, giving accommodation to a family of five or six persons.

The construction of this cottage is shown as of wood. Other material,
either brick or stone, may be used, as most convenient, at a not much
increased cost. The expense of this building may be, say fifty per cent.
higher than that of No. I, according to the finish, and may be
sufficiently well done and painted complete for $300; which may be
reduced or increased, according to the style of finish and the taste of
the builder.

A cellar may be made under this cottage, which can be reached by a
trap-door from the living room, opening to a flight of steps below.

DESIGN III.

This cottage is still in advance of No. II, in style and arrangement,
and may accommodate not only the farm laborer or gardener, but will
serve for a small farmer himself, or a village mechanic. It is in the
French style of roof, and allied to the Italian in its brackets, and
gables, and half-terraced front. The body of the cottage is 22x20 feet,
with twelve-feet posts; the roof has a pitch of 50deg from a horizontal
line, in its straight dimensions, curving horizontally toward the eaves,
which, together with the gables, project 3 feet over the walls. The
terrace in front is 5 feet wide. On the rear is a wood-house, 18x16 feet
in area, open at the house end, and in front, with a roof in same style
as the main house, and posts, 8 feet high, standing on the ground,
2 feet below the surface of the cellar wall, which supports the main
building.

[Illustration: COTTAGE. Pages 221-222.]

INTERIOR ARRANGEMENT.

The front door opens, in the center of the front wall, into a hall, 12x8
feet, with a flight of stairs on one side, leading to the chamber above;
under the stairs, at the upper end, is a passage leading beneath them
into the cellar. On one side of this hall is a bedroom 8x10 feet,
lighted by a window in front, and part of the hooded double window on
the side. On the inner side, a door leads from the hall into the living
room or kitchen, 18x12 feet. On one side of this is a bedroom, or
pantry, as may be most desirable, 9x6 feet, from which leads a close
closet, 3 feet square. This bedroom has a window on one side, next the
hall. A door from the kitchen leads into a closet, 3 feet wide, which
may contain a sink, and cupboard for kitchen wares. The living room is
lighted by a part of the double hooded window on one side, and another
on the rear. A door leads into the wood-house, which is 12x16 feet, in
the extreme corner of which is the water-closet, 5x3 feet. The rooms in
this cottage are 9 feet high. A chimney leads up from the floor of the
living room, which may receive, in addition to its own fireplace, or
stove, a pipe from the stove in the hall, if one is placed there.

The chamber has two feet of perpendicular wall, and the sharp roof gives
opportunity for two good lodging rooms, which may be partitioned off as
convenience may require, each lighted by a window in the gables, and a
dormer one in the roof, for the passage leading into them.

The hall may serve as a pleasant sitting or dining-room, in pleasant
weather, opening, as it does, on to the terrace, which is mostly
sheltered by the overhanging roof.

The construction of this cottage may be of either stone, brick, or wood,
and produce a fine effect. Although it has neither porch, nor veranda,
the broad eaves and gables give it a well-sheltered appearance, and the
hooded windows on the sides throw an air of protection over them, quite
agreeable to the eye. The framing of this roof is no way different,
in the rafters, from those made on straight lines, but the curve and
projection is given by planks cut into proper shape, and spiked into the
rafters, and apparently supported by the brackets below, which should be
cut from two to three-inch plank, to give them a heavy and substantial
appearance. The windows are in casement form, as shown in the design,
but may be changed into the ordinary sash form, if preferred, which is,
in this country, usually the better way. It will be observed, that we
have in all cases adopted the usual square-sided form of glass for
windows, as altogether more convenient and economical in building,
simple in repairing, and, we think, quite as agreeable in appearance,
as those out-of-the-way shapes frequently adopted to give a more
picturesque effect.

In a hilly, mountainous, and evergreen country, this style of cottage is
peculiarly appropriate. It takes additional character from bold and
picturesque scenery, with which it is in harmony. The pine, spruce,
cedar, or hemlock, or the evergreen laurel, planted around or near it,
will give it increased effect, while among deciduous trees and shrubs,
an occasional Lombardy poplar, and larch, will harmonize with the
boldness of its outline. Even where hill or mountain scenery is wanting,
plantations such as have been named, would render it a pleasing style of
cottage, and give agreeable effect to its bold, sharp roof and
projecting eaves.

In a snowy country, the plan of roof here presented is well adapted to
the shedding of heavy snows, on which it can find no protracted
lodgment. Where massive stone walls enclose the estate, this style of
cottage will be in character, as comporting with that strong and solid
air which the rustic appearance of stone alone can give. It may, too,
receive the same amount of outer decoration, in its shrubbery and
plantations, given to any other style of building of like accommodation,
and with an equally agreeable effect.

DESIGN IV.

This cottage is still in advance of the last, in its accommodation, and
is suitable for the small farmer, or the more liberal cottager, who
requires wider room, and ampler conveniences than are allowed by the
hitherto described structures. It is a first class dwelling, of its
kind, and, in its details and finish, may be adapted to a variety of
occupation, while it will afford a sufficient amount of expenditure to
gratify a liberal outlay, to him who chooses to indulge his taste in a
moderate extent of decoration and embellishment.

The ground plan of this cottage is 30x22 feet, in light rural-Gothic
style, one and a half stories high, the posts 14 feet in elevation.
It has two chimneys, passing out through the roof on each side of the
ridge, uniformly, each with the other. The roof has a pitch of 45deg
from a horizontal line, giving it a bold and rather dashing appearance,
and deeply sheltering the walls. The side gables give variety to the
roof, and light to the chambers, and add to the finish of its
appearance; while the sharp arched double window in the front gable adds
character to the design.

[Illustration: COTTAGE. Pages 227-228.]

The deep veranda in front covers three-quarters of its surface in
length, and in the symmetry of its roof, and airiness of its columns,
with their light braces, give it a style of completeness; and if
creeping vines or climbing shrubs be trained upon them, will produce an
effect altogether rural and beautiful.

Or, if a rustic style of finish be adopted, to render it cheaper in
construction, the effect may still be imposing, and in harmony with the
purposes to which it is designed. In fact, this model will admit of a
variety of choice in finish, from the plainest to a high degree of
embellishment, as the ability or fancy of the builder may suggest.

INTERIOR ARRANGEMENT.

From the veranda in the center of the front, a door opens into a hall,
17x7 feet, with a flight of stairs leading, in three different angles,
to the chambers above. Opposite the front door is the passage into the
living room, or parlor, 17x15 feet, lighted by three windows, two of
which present an agreeable view of an adjacent stream and its opposite
shores. At the line of partition from the hall, stands a chimney, with a
fireplace, if desirable, or for a stove, to accommodate both this room
and the hall with a like convenience; and under the flight of stairs
adjoining opens a china closet, with spacious shelves, for the
safe-keeping of household comforts. From this room, a door leads into a
bedroom, 10x13 feet, lighted by a window opening into the veranda, also
accommodated by a stove, which leads into a chimney at its inner
partition. Next to this bedroom is the kitchen, 12x13 feet, accommodated
with a chimney, where may be inserted an open fireplace, or a stove, as
required. In this is a flight of back chamber and cellar stairs. This
room is lighted by two windows--one in the side, another in the rear.
A door leads from its rear into a large, roomy pantry, 8 feet square,
situated in the wing, and lighted by a window. Next to this is a
passage, 3 feet in width, leading to the wood-house, (in which the
pantry just named is included,) 16x12 feet, with nine-feet posts, and
roof pitched like the house, in the extreme corner of which is a
water-closet, 5x3 feet. Cornering upon the wood-house beyond, is a small
building, 15x12 feet, with ten-feet posts, and a roof in same style as
the others--with convenience for a cow and a pig, with each a separate
entrance. A flight of stairs leads to the hay-loft above the stables, in
the gable of which is the hay-door; and under the stairs is the granary;
and to these may be added, inside, a small accommodation for a choice
stock of poultry.

The chamber plan is the same as the lower floor, mainly, giving three
good sleeping-rooms; that over the kitchen, being a _back_ chamber, need
not have a separate passage into the upper hall, but may have a door
passage into the principal chamber. The door to the front bedroom leads
direct from the upper hall. Thus, accommodation is given to quite a
numerous family. Closets may be placed in each of these chambers,
if wanted; and the entire establishment made a most snug and compact,
as well as commodious arrangement.

COTTAGE OUTSIDE DECORATION.

Nothing so perfectly sets off a cottage, in external appearance, as the
presence of plants and shrubbery around it. A large tree or two, by
giving an air of protection, is always in place; and creeping vines, and
climbing shrubs about the windows and porch, are in true character;
while a few low-headed trees, of various kinds, together with some
simple and hardy annual and other flowers--to which should always be
added, near by, a small, well-tended kitchen garden--fill up the
picture.

In the choice of what varieties should compose these ornaments, one can
hardly be at a loss. Flanking the cottage, and near the kitchen garden,
should be the fruit trees. The elm, maples, oak, and hickory, in all
their varieties, black-walnut, butternut--the last all the better for
its rich kernel--are every one appropriate for shade, as _large_ trees.
The hop, morning-glory, running beans--all useful and ornamental as
summer climbers; the clematis, bitter-sweet, ivy, any of the _climbing_
roses; the lilac, syringa, snow-ball, and the _standard_ roses; while
marigolds, asters, pinks, the phloxes, peonies, and a few other of the
thousand-and-one simple and charming annuals, biennials, and perennials,
with now and then a gorgeous sunflower, flaunting in its broad glory,
will fill up the catalogue. Rare and costly plants are not required, and
indeed, are hardly in place in the grounds of an ordinary cottage,
unless occupied by the professional gardener. They denote expense, which
the laboring cottager cannot afford; and besides that, they detract from
the simplicity of the life and purpose which not only the cottage
itself, but everything around it, should express.

There is an affectation of _cottage_ building, with some people who,
with a seeming humility, really aim at higher flights of style in living
within them, than truth of either design or purpose will admit. But as
such cases are more among villagers, and those temporarily retiring from
the city for summer residence, the farm cottage has little to do with
it. Still, such fancies are contagious, and we have occasionally seen
the ambitious cottage, with its covert expression of humility,
insinuating itself on to the farm, and for the farmer's own family
occupation, too, which at once spoiled, to the eye, the _substantial
reality_ of the whole establishment. A farmer should discard all such
things as _ornamental_ cottages. They do not belong to the farm. If he
live in a cottage himself, it should be a _plain_ one; yet it may be
very substantial and well finished--something showing that he means
either to be content in it, in its character of plainness, or that he
intends, at a future day, to build something better--when this may serve
for the habitation of one of his laborers.

The cottage should never occupy a principal, or prominent site on the
farm. It should take a subordinate position of ground. This adds to its
expression as subordinate in rank, among the lesser farm buildings. A
cottage cannot, and should not aspire to be _chief_ in either position
or character. Such should be the farm house proper; although
unpretending, still, in style, above the cottage; and if the latter,
in addition, be required on the farm, it should so appear, both in
construction and finish; just what it is intended for--a tenement for
economical purposes.

There is another kind of cottage, the dwellers in which, these pages
will probably never reach, that expresses, in its wild structure, and
rude locality, the idea of Moore's pretty song--

"I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled
Above the green elms, that a cottage was near."

Yet, in some parts of our country, landlords may build such, for the
accommodation of tenants, which they may make useful on the outskirts of
their estates, and add indirectly to their own convenience and interest
in so doing. This may be indulged in, _poetically_ too--for almost any
thinking man has a spice of poetry in his composition--vagabondism,
a strict, economizing utilitarian would call it. The name matters not.
One may as well indulge his taste in this cheap sort of charitable
expenditure, as another may indulge, in his dogs, and guns, his horses
and equipages--and the first is far the cheapest. They, at the west and
south, understand this, whose recreations are occasionally with their
hounds, in chase of the deer, and the fox, and in their pursuit spend
weeks of the fall and winter months, in which they are accompanied, and
assisted, as boon companions for the time, by the rude tenants of the
cottages we have described:

"A cheerful, simple, honest people."

Another class of cottage may come within the farm enclosures, half
poetical, and half economical, such as Milton describes:

"Hard by a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks;"

and occupied by a family pensioner and his infirm old wife--we don't
think _all_ "poor old folks" ought to go to the alms-house, because they
cannot work _every_ day of the year--of which all long-settled families
of good estate have, now and then, one near to, or upon their premises.
Thousands of kind and liberal hearts among our farming and planting
brethren, whose impulses are--

"Open as the day to melting charity,"

are familiar with the wants of those who are thus made their dependents;
and in their accommodation, an eye may be kept to the producing of an
agreeable effect in locating their habitations, and to rudely embellish,
rather than to mar the domain on which they may be lodged.

In short, cottage architecture, in its proper character, may be made as
effective, in all the ornament which it should give to the farm, as that
of any other structure; and if those who have occasion for the cottage
will only be content to build and maintain it as it should be, and leave
off that perpetual aspiration after something unnatural, and foreign to
its purpose, which so many cottage builders of the day attempt, and let
it stand in its own humble, secluded character, they will save
themselves a world of trouble, and pass for--what they now do not--men
possessing a taste for truth and propriety in their endeavors.

HOUSE AND COTTAGE FURNITURE.

This is a subject so thoroughly discussed in the books, of late, that
anything which may here be said, would avail but little, inasmuch as our
opinions might be looked upon as "old-fashioned," "out of date," and "of
no account whatever,"--for wonderfully modern notions in room-furnishing
have crept into the farm house, as well as into town houses. Indeed, we
confess to altogether ancient opinions in regard to household furniture,
and contend, that, with a few exceptions, "modern degeneracy" has
reached the utmost stretch of absurdity, in house-furnishing, to which
the ingenuity of man can arrive. Fashions in furniture change about as
often as the cut of a lady's dress, or the shape of her bonnet, and
pretty much from the same source, too--the fancy shops of Paree, once,
in good old English, Paris, the capital city of France. A farmer, rich
or poor, may spend half his annual income, every year of his life, in
taking down old, and putting up new furniture, and be kept uncomfortable
all the time; when, if he will, after a quiet, good-tempered talk with
his better-half, agree with her upon the list of _necessary_ articles to
make them _really comfortable_; and then a catalogue of what shall
comprise the _luxurious_ part of their furnishings, which, when
provided, they will fixedly make up their mind to keep, and be content
with, they will remain entirely free from one great source of "the ills
which flesh is heir to."

It is pleasant to see a young couple setting out in their housekeeping
life, well provided with convenient and properly-selected furniture,
appropriate to all the uses of the family; and then to keep, and use it,
and enjoy it, like contented, sensible people; adding to it, now and
then, as its wear, or the increasing wants of their family may require.
Old, familiar things, to which we have long been accustomed, and
habituated, make up a round share of our actual enjoyment. A family
addicted to constant change in their household furniture, attached to
nothing, content with nothing, and looking with anxiety to the next
change of fashion which shall introduce something _new_ into the house,
can take no sort of comfort, let their circumstances be ever so
affluent. It is a kind of dissipation in which some otherwise worthy
people are prone to indulge, but altogether pernicious in the
indulgence. It detracts, also, from the apparent respectability of a
family to find nothing _old_ about them--as if they themselves were of
yesterday, and newly dusted out of a modern shop-keeper's stock in
trade. The furniture of a house ought to look as though the family
within it once had a grandfather--and as if old things had some
veneration from those who had long enjoyed their service.

We are not about to dictate, of what fashion household furniture should
be, when selected, any further than that of a plain, substantial, and
commodious fashion, and that it should comport, so far as those
requirements in it will admit, with the approved modes of the day. But
we are free to say, that in these times the extreme of absurdity, and
unfitness for _use_, is more the fashion than anything else. What so
useless as the modern French chairs, standing on legs like pipe-stems,
_garote_-ing your back like a rheumatism, and frail as the legs of a
spider beneath you, as you sit in it; and a tribe of equally worthless
incumbrances, which absorb your money in their cost, and detract from
your comfort, instead of adding to it, when you have got them; or a
bedstead so high that you must have a ladder to climb into it, or so low
as to scarcely keep you above the level of the floor, when lying on it.
No; give us the substantial, the easy, the free, and enjoyable articles,
and the rest may go to tickle the fancy of those who have a taste for
them. Nor do these flashy furnishings add to one's rank in society, or
to the good opinion of those whose consideration is most valuable. Look
into the houses of those people who are the _really_ substantial, and
worthy of the land. There will be found little of such frippery with
them. Old furniture, well-preserved, useful in everything, mark the
well-ordered arrangement of their rooms, and give an air of quietude, of
comfort, and of hospitality to their apartments. Children cling to such
objects in after life, as heir-looms of affection and parental regard.

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