Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/292

 268 COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. that, by the application of facings round windows, and by placing framework, judiciously painted and shaded to imitate mullions and their mouldings, before them, an inexhaust- ible source is opened for the improvement of commonplace windows. Where the window to be improved is flush with the outside wall, even its proportions might occasionally be changed; its height might be added to by using framework in which there was much tracery in the upper part, painting the wall immediately behind it black ; and the width might be increased in the same manner, by having narrow side-lights, and broad mullions and transoms. Thus, fig. 486 might be placed before fig. 487, and fig. 488 before fig. 489 ; the spaces marked a in both figures being painted black. In a country like 486 487 488 • 489 Britain, where the cottage windows are generally low and broad, nothing adds more dignity of character to a dwelling than heightening the windows ; because high windows are expressive of lofty rooms. Where height cannot be given, and the obvious tendency of the openings is to width, the effect of the elevation is improved by increasing that tendency, because the idea of a larger rooiu is thus given. From what we have said on the subject of disguising and ornamenting windows, we hope no reader will for a moment suppose that we intend any of the frames to be jdaced before the windows of the dwelling-rooms of cottages, in such a manner as to diminish the quantity of light and air admitted by them, or to injure the prospect seen from them. Nothing can be truly an ornament, or an improvement, to a house, which in the slightest degree diminishes the comforts or enjoyments of the occupier. There are few things to which we have a greater dislike than the practice of some great owners of parks, of putting labourers to live in lodges, and other ornamental buildings, which, with a great display externally, are scarcely habitable within. 553. Outside Shutters to windows or doors certainly cannot be considered as ornamental. To see on the outside of a building what we are accustomed to see on the inside, seems an offence against propriety ; while it gives, at the same time, the idea of meanness and insecurity. Nevertheless, it is certainly more economical, in building a cottage, to have outside shutters than inside ones ; and this circumstance, together with the influence that it is likely to have on the comfort of the cottager, being duly taken into consideration, we ought to moderate our dislike to them. What, perliaps, increases this dislike is the practice of holding forth these shutters as ornaments, by painting them green, and other gaudy colours ; instead of keeping them subordinate, by making them the colour of the walls, or of oak ; or by avowing them, and giving them the character of great strength, by fillets of wood, and nail heads, painted in imitation of iron ; or by adding some description of architectural expression. When we consider the economy produced in interior finishing by having dutside shutters, we think that, treated in this manner, they might be admitted even in ornamental cottages. Figs. 490, 491, 492, and 493, are examples of what may be called architecture shutters : those which 490 491 492 493 are meant to be completely subordinate should be painted, and marked with lines, in exact imitation of the forms and materials of the walls against which they are to l)e turned back. We have seen houses in the suburbs of Kiinigsberg with the outside shutters painted so exactly like the walls on both sides, that, when shut, the house .ap- peared to be without windows; and we were informed in 1813, by M. Koch, that several