Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/296

 272 COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. on account of the damp produced, and the insects harhoured, by leaves; and because, in proportion as any building depends for its effect on a covering of vegetation, in the same proportion does it lose its beauty as a piece of Arcliitecture. We are more par- ticularly anxious to impress on the minds of our readers the impropriety of planting trees, or creepers of any kind, against walls of cottages, which are shaded by opaque-roofed verandas, penthouses, or far-projecting eaves ; because in such situations they can never thrive, and not only have a sickly and disagreeable appearance, but actually, to a certain extent, contaminate the air by their decaying foliage. Life without health is without beauty. Sect. II. Designs and Directions for lite Interior Finishing of Collage Dwellings, 564. The Walls of a Cottage, viewed externally, ought, by the appearance of the nature of the materials, and the mode in w^hidi they are put together, to give at the first glance imquestionable evidence of their sufficiency to support the roof. This being the case, on entering the dwelling we dispense with a repetition of this evidence, as far as the roof is concerned ; but if the apartments are large, and one is placed over another, as in houses of two or more stories, we require the appearance of strength in the ceilings to support the floor above them. Hence, the ceilings, in all very large rooms, should be thrown into compartments, by the reality, or by the appearaiice, of beams crossing the ceiling in the direction of its breadth, or shortest diameter. On the same principle it is desirable that these beams should be, or appear to be, supported at the extremities by piers or pilasters projecting from the walls, and sometimes even by detached columns. The finishing of these piers or columns is generally in imitation of some description of stone or marble, as belonging to the wall ; and that of the horizontal beams, of oak, or some other timber, as belonging to the superincumbent floor, or the roof. 565. The Interior of the Walls of a Cottage of the humblest class may, in some cases, require no other finishing than the rubbing or dressing of the material of tlie wall. This may be the case when the walls are built of brick, and the inner courses are rubbed and worked to a fair smooth surface. Rubbed sandstone may be applied in the same manner. For the plainest description of cottage the walls may be completely finished with one coating of plaster ; either by mixing the lime with a portion of Roman cement, or by using fresh -burnt stone lime and sharp sand, in the proportions of five of the latter to two of the former. The basement stories of many of the commoner street houses about London are finished in this manner ; by which not only the labour of putting on two coats of plaster is saved, but a more durable surface to the wall is produced. In general, however, the internal surfaces of cottage walls, of whatever materials they are composed, require to be plastered as indicated in the specifications already given ; for example, in § 80, and in § 235. 566. Without a Coi-nice no Room can have a finished Appearance, therefore we recom- mend cornices to be introduced into the living-rooms and principal bed-rooms of even the humblest cottages. The simplest cornice is formed by filling up the angle by a straight hypotenuse line, fig. 501 ; the next step is to curve this line convexly, fig. 502, or concavely, fig. 503 ; a square fillet, fig. 504, may be introduced ; or a round bead, fig. 505. In cottage dwellings, this bead is frequently formed of wood, as being 501 502 503 504 505 U' D" easier executed in that material than in plaster. The eflPect, when the bead is about an inch in diameter, is satisfactory ; and we think, instead of wood, it might, in some cases, be made of iron, fastened to the walls with staples ; and with one or two hooks to each length of rod between the staples, for the purpose of hanging pictures or other articles, agreeably to the practice in what are called gentlemen's houses. It is easy to conceive how a variety of cornices may be deduced from this simple form : by flattening the circle, by narrowing it; by causing it to present the broad end of an oval, or the narrow end ; and by its being made, sometimes, to seem chiefly projecting from the wall, and, sometimes, chiefly from the ceiling. From these elementary forms a great variety of cornices may be produced. For example, in figs. 506 and 507 we