Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/675

 INTERIOR FINISHING OF FARM HOUSES. 651 1244 are tliree large fire-bricks, or Welsh lumps, which reach up to the horizontal line at c. The fire-grate may be lifted out to be cleaned; and, as all the patterns of the grates are alike, a single spare one is sufficient to avoid the necessity of cleaning them within the rooms. The peculiarities of this grate are as follows : — First, the bars of the grate are principally vertical ; both these bars and the horizontal ones present their angles, and not their sides, to the front ; consequently, there is no surface on which ashes can rest, and the appearance of the grate is always clean and neat : secondly, the whole fabric is very firm, and easily set up. The three fire-bricks or lumps, b b b, are first set up, and filled in solid behind as high as the dotted line in fig. 1243. The front plate, a, is then put in its place, having two roughly forged pieces of iron, d, attached to it by the screwed knobs, c c ; the building is then carried on till the pieces of iron, d, are embedded in the brickwork, which is allowed to set ; after which, by unscrewing the knobs, c c, the plate a is again removed, and free access obtained to finish the building. This is rendered more obvious by the section across the fireplace, fig. 1244, in which the same parts are designated by the same letters as ill fig. 1243. These fireplaces, in their simplest form, are very cheap, and yet they are very handsome ; but with some additional expense they may be made suitable to the most highly finished apartments. They are economical, both from the small quantity of fuel required to warai the apartments, and from the unusually small portion of dust which they throw out into the rooms, or on the furniture. A grate, eighteen inches wide in front, nine inches high, ten inches from front to back, and one foot wide at -the back, fig. 1245, burning good splint or Newcastle coal, is suflHcient to keep a room jF==^ ==^ " 0"~^ ]> ^»— ^