Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/291

 EXTERIOR FINISHING OF COTTAGES. 267 escutcheons of keyholes, &c. All knobs to cottage doors should be of real oak, laburnum (false ebony, as it is called by the French, from its hardness and blackness), yew, box, or other hard and tough wood, or of iron blackened or bronzed, but never of brass, which is too fine, and is besides liable to tarnish. The knobs, and other iron work of doors, may be blackened, by heating them nearly red hot, and immediately plunging them in oil ; after being taken out and dried, they are polished with a coarse woollen cloth. Knobs, nail heads, and other parts of doors, whether of iron or wood, may be made to imitate bronze, by first painting them of a deep yellow colour, and then green : before the green is quite dry, it should be rubbed off the projecting parts, so as to allow the yellow to be seen through it. The greatest ornaments to cottage doors are, the porch, the penthouse roof, and the projecting canopy or shelf supported by brackets ; but these may be considered as already disposed of. 552. Windows may be ornamented in a great variety of way. A plain sash or lattice window, figs. 478 and 479, may be disguised by a Gothic framework being put before it, as in figs. 480 and 481. In tliese cases it is supposed that the window to be disguised shows outside reveals of at least six inches in depth, and that the thickness of the frame- work is not more than an inch, which will still leave five inches of reveal ; a deep reveal being always desirable, as expressive of the thickness and strength of the walls. To dis- guise windows placed in nogging, studwork, weather-boarding, or other kinds of thin walls, which prevent any reveal from being shown on the outside, an artificial reveal must first be formed round the window by a projecting facing, in the manner of an architrave ; and to be truly architectural, and to convey the expression of strength, this facing ought to be continued to the ground below, and to the roof above. Fig. 482 shows a portion of the front of a common weather-boarded cottage, in which it is desired to improve the appearance of the windows. Fig. 483 shows the windows improved in the manner described. On the supposition that these windows gave light to a stable and hayloft, to a tool-house with a seed-room over, or to any apartment not occupied as a dwelling, the windows might be further ornamented by placing a framework before the glass, as in fig. 484 ; or Gothic labels might be added, as in fig. 485. It will readily be conceived 482 483 484 485