Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/281

 COTTAGE DWELLINGS IN VARIOUS STYLES. 257 457 '^■— -"~ b --'v -/ z"' 1, f e 8X1 1 " 1 1 ^ R-li ^ 12 HX12 «-'bc'2 ... 1 r I 1 1 a — .. ,. .. IH :^-^ — -wi, ,r n fl has a floor of ploughed and tonguod boards laid on ceiling joists, so as to form a ceiling to the room below, and a floor to that above. The roof is thatched ; and the walls are painted, and dusted over with powdered freestone. The interior is painted in imitation of wainscot. The fireplace of the sitting-room is a ship's cabin stove, and that of the kitchen a ship's galley stove ; both having iron piping for flues. By having horizontal piping from the kitchen through the servant's room, sitting-room, and bed-room, with a return pipe, one fire might suffice to heat the whole house. In this case, by a veiy simple contrivance, the smoke, during warm weather, instead of circulating through the horizontal flues, might be made to escape direct from the fire through the upright pipe (see § 489.). The cost of this cottage in London, exclusive of the stoves and the thatch, was only j£'120. For this sum, which would do little more than pay for a year's lodging of two rooms and a kitchen, in a fashionable street in London or New York, we have here a handsome and comfortable dwelling, abundantly commodious for a single person, or a man and his ^rife without children, and which, with moderate attention to painting, would last a lifetime. It must not be forgotten that a great saving is produced by the paneled walls, which render unnecessary all expense of plastering and papering, and wliich, when painted in imitation of wainscot, look remarkably well, and remain many years without requiring any repair. 515. Ambulatory Cottage. With such a portable cottage as this on wheels, a man with £'200 or ^^300 a year might enjoy in Britain as much niral beauty and variety, as would cost another with a fixed town and country residence as many thousands. 516'. Cooperative Ambulatory Cottages. If a family or a party intended to live in portable cottages, renting a small field wherever they found it desirable to set them down ; and to change their place of residence frequently, say to the north of England or Scotland during summer, and to the south during winter, the most convenient plan would be to have not more than two rooms in one cottage, or, perhaps, even one room might be found enough, as the wheels should be low, and under the floor. At every place of encampment, the cottages, or rooms, any number of which might belong to one family, might be placed in a line, with the kitchen at one end ; from which a steam pipe might proceed to heat all the others, and also a pipe of cold water from a cistern over the ceiling of the kitchen, filled by one of Siebe's pumps, and a long leathern hose, from any neighbomung well or brook. The roof and the floor of one side of every cottage might project three feet beyond the wall ; and, when all the cottages were placed close together with the projections alongside of each other, a covered passage or veranda would be formed the whole length of the line of cottages. There would be no diflSculty in heating all the rooms by steam from one fire, or in supplying all the bed-rooms with water from one cistern. Every cottage should have its own pipes for these purposes ; and those of one cottage could be connected with those of another by right and left- handed screws and coupling pieces, as in Perkins's tubes for circulating hot water under compression. In short, by some contrivance, many of the comforts of a fixed residence might be obtained in these portable and ambulatory cottages ; and many of the enjoy- ments and advantages of society and of cooperation, by a number of them encamping together. We do not say that the same comforts and advantages would be obtained so economically as in a fixed locality ; but for those who have no occupation, and derive a great part of their enjoyment from visiting diflTerent parts of the country ; who like to live by turns among mountains, by the sea-shore, in a fertile valley, or in the suburbs of a large town ; among the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland in summer, and in Devonshire or Cornwall during winter, we do say that an arrangement of this kind would procure those enjoyments for one tithe of what they now cost.