Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/219

 COTTAGE DWELLINGS IN VARIOUS STYLES. 195 wall afterwards filled in with mud, or turf, or rustic work, rough stones of any kind, or straw, heath, or reeds, to keep out the heat in summer, and to keep it in during winter. One fireplace might, by means of a cast-iron back, be made to serve both apartments, and an oven and boiler might be added. It is evident, that, by this mode of proceeding, a verj' comfortable interior might be included in a very simple, picturesque, or grotesque exterior. The brickwork of the interior, and of the doors and windows, being arranged, as in the ground plan (fig. 339, to a scale of 1^ of an inch to ten feet), no interior 339 plastering would be required, provided rubbed bricks were used. Tliis adds greatly to the durability of the surface of rooms, and prevents them from being injured by children, and idle people, in countries where the labouring classes are not yet accustomed to comfortable dwellings. In this ground plan, fig. 339, fffff'^'^^ the outside spaces, to be filled up with turf, rammed earth, rubble work, or whatever may be most economical in the given situation ; g g g, inside spaces, to be fitted up as closet cupboards ; h, bed ; i, bed, with the foot projecting into a cupboard or small dresser in the kitchen or living-room, in the manner represented in fig. 143, § 171 ; k, dresser; /, pantry shelves; and m m m-, piers of the porch built hollow. All the doors must necessarily have door- frames, with projecting heads or h'ntels, and sills, in order that they may build into the four-inch work. There should also be wooden bricks built in the door-jambs, to which the door-frames are to be nailed ; and there must be a strong wall-plate to rest on the four-inch work, for the sake of equalising the pressure of the roof. Much may be done, in point of economy, by adopting this mode of building the walls of a house ; and by using corrugated iron roofs, corrugated iron panels for the doors, and flues for heating, either under the floors, or as benches over them, in the Cliinese manner, to be afterwards described. 387. General Estimate. Cubic contents, 8696 feet, at 6d. per foot, £2X1 : 8s.; at 4d., £144 : ISs. : 8d. ; and at 3d., iri08 : 14s. 388. Remarks. This cottage is not without comfort ; and it would be improved, in point of ai'chitectural eflfect, and executed at less expense, if the porch were included under the same roof. We say, it would be improved in architectural effect, because the roof and ground plan would be more symmetrical, and symmetry is the soul of Architec- ture ; but it would not be so picturesque as it now is, because the soul of that beauty is irregularity.