Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/932

 908 COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. quite embellishment enough bestowed upon this part of the interior, to be consistent with the rest of the house. We will now enter the sitting-rooms. 1848. The Morning 7?oow calls for hardly any remark: it should be simple and un- pretending, aiming merely at cheerfulness of character. The walls might be of a pale sea- green tint ; the window-curtains either of the same hue, but rather darker ; or, if contrast in this respect, and in some other parts of the furniture, should be preferred to uniformity, buff, orange, or some colour of that kind, lined with a still paler green than the walls. A few paintings, or choice prints, with an upright piano, might form part of the furniture of tliis room. 1849. The Dining-room. In its general dimensions, this room is of the same size as the larger drawingroom on the other side of the vestibule, viz. thirty-two feet by nine- teen feet ; but, by the addition of the alcove for the sideboard, and a bay window opposite, its extreme width across the centre is increased to twenty-nine feet and a half. By this means a sufficient difference both of form and extent is obtained ; nor is the one apart- ment, in any respect, a mere repetition of the other. We have seen how far the bay window contributes to architectural character externally in the elevation in the east side of the house, fig. 1586 ; but it was originally suggested entirely by circumstances belong- ing to the plan, it being judged desirable to combine here as perfect a symmetrical arrangement as possible, with variety and extent. Towards the room, both the bay and the alcove present uniform openings, for their arches are perfectly alike ; and this similarity is still farther increased by their having sliding curtains hanging within the arch ; in order that, when drawn close, none of the architectural features of the room should be concealed. The window of the dining-room, behind the recess for the side- board, is proposed to be carried up higher than the arch within the room; a disposition contributing to variety of effect, and in many cases preferable to that of making no division between the ceiling of the bay and that of the room itself. Except what regards these two recesses, very little is to be learned from a section of this room, beyond its general proportion. Here I may remark, that, although it has not been done in the plan, there would be no great objection to forming a central door of a handsome character, rather larger than the others, at one end of the apartment, opening from the breakfast room, so that the latter might, at a large dinner party, serve as an anteroom, from which this might be entered. In such case the first coup cTceil would imdoubtedly be far more imposing ; and there would be far better keeping between the different sides of the apartment. The design of the doors on the alcove side of the dining-room, fig. 1596, it will 1596 be observed, is somewhat unusual, and rather more ambitiously decorative than a strict adherence to actual precedents in the domestic style would, perhaps, warrant. The chief pari, however, that calls for detailed notice, is the alcove itself: this has somewhat less depth than could be wished, but quite as much as the plan would allow ; still, if it does not, in this respect, produce all the effect that, under different circumstances, it might have possessed, it acquires some degree of architectural energy, if it may be so termed, from its being made an expanding recess. (By the epithet expanding I would designate any recess which is wider in itself than the opening towards the room ; by rising, one whose ceiling is cairied up higher than the soffit of the arch or opening. According to this vocabulary, therefore, such a recess as the present one, Should be termed " expand- ing rising," by which simple terms two important circumstances would be distinctly expressed.) By employing this kind of recess, greater variety of perspective er<d a pleas-