Date post: | 18-Oct-2014 |
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Planning the House
Perhaps the ideal way to buy a car is to go down to the dealer, select the one you want, write a
check for it, and drive away in a new Cadillac, Continental, or Imperial; but many of us have to
be content with a second hand Chevrolet or Ford, and that on the installment plan of dollars per
month for eighteen months.
Something similar may occur in getting possession of a house. The ideal way is to employ a good
architect to help select the lot and to prepare complete plans and specifications. Then get a
reputable contractor to build it while you take a tour of Europe. When you return, he will hand
you the key, and the van will move you in and set the furniture in place under the direction of an
interior decorator. Of course, in the meantime, the landscape architect and the nursery men have
completed planting the shrubbery and have the lawn under control. Just write a few good healthy
checks and all is yours. Alas, most of us have to be content with considerably less luxury.
Look at it another way. It is really fun to build a house, and the above method deprives one of
much of the joy of accomplishment and pleasure that comes from successfully completing a good
piece of hard work.
Almost any energetic young woman can build herself a house, if she gets enough help from her
husband. Even if she may not get quite the elegance available to the affluent, it is surprising what
a little imagination coupled with considerable hard work can accomplish in building an
outstanding house, well adapted to gracious living. Sometimes she can have even more luxury in
a house that the family builds than is usually possible where the house is already built, or where
the work is all done by hired help.
That's where this book comes in. Although it should be of considerable help to anyone
considering building by the above method, or any method, or buying a house, it is intended
primarily for the family that wants a good home, but finds it necessary to study the costs very
carefully and to keep within a restricted budget.
We shall now assume that having already selected the lot you are ready to begin the actual
planning of your dream house. First, take a blank sheet of paper on which you write the items that
must absolutely be in the new house. Then make a second list of the things you would like to
have if the budget, or other relevant considerations, makes them possible.
When rooms are mentioned, write down the approximate size desired, either in square feet or give
the desired dimensions in feet. These will be only approximate, as they must all eventually be
fitted into the completed plan.
You might begin with something like this:
Living Room: 350 to 400 square feet
carpet floor
fireplace
large picture window
space for grand piano
wall space for furniture
quiet corner for reading
Economical and convenient house for a retired couple or for any couple without children. A modernfold door would close
off the den or guest room from the living room.
Entrance Hall: 50 square feet
tile or slate floor
coat closet, 6 to 8 square feet
room for small table and chair
Kitchen: 140 square feet
large double sink with waste disposal unit
separate stove top and oven
large refrigerator with deep freeze compartment
plenty of working areas, heights 36" and 32"
well-arranged cupboards, both below working surfaces and above
plenty of light, both natural and electric special attention to light on working surfaces
convenient to front door close to family room which may have to double as dining room
breakfast nook to seat four or a well-arranged bar storage room 4' x 5' for canned fruit,
cases of tin-canned goods, etc.
Family Room: about 300 square feet
not too far from kitchen
cupboards for toys
book shelves
television outlet
outside door
oak floor
room for large table for children to use for study table and may occasionally be used for
dining room
Master Bedroom: about 200 square feet
two 6' wardrobes with rods and shelves, shoe racks
walk in closet, 4' x 6'
cross ventilation
private bath with shower, no tub
dressing table in bath
linoleum floor in bath
oak floor in bedroom
heat light in bath ceiling
Girl's Bedroom: 11' x 13'
wardrobe 8' long, with rod and shelves
Boy's Bedroom: 11' x 13'
wardrobe 5' long with rod and shelves
book and toy shelves with doors
Bathroom
opening from hall tub with shower over
linoleum floor
built-in around wash bowl
medicine cabinet
Utility Room
space for washer and dryer single china laundry tray cupboard for supplies place to hang
work clothes broom closet outside door
Continue the list until you have included the things you consider essential to a satisfactory house
for you and your family. Other people would have different lists. A statement of this kind would
be of much more help than a partially drawn plan in case you decide to get a professional planner
to assist you in making your final plans. If you draw your own plans, you will find the list
indispensable. You can check your drawings against the list to find out what you are omitting in
time to correct the plan.
The second list of things that would be desirable should be consulted once in awhile to see if any
of those items can somehow be included in the plan. Possibly a few luxuries will not carry you
too far beyond your budget. As you double check your list, consider decorative and protective
items that can make every part of your house more beautiful and secure.
Adapting the Plan to the Lot
Every successful house plan is made to fit a specific lot. First consider the approach to the
property; how will the driveway and the car affect the arrangement? Consider the view; don't let
the garage obstruct it. Think of the drainage, the utilities, the use of the land, the public lawn, the
private outdoor living, the swimming pool, and all the features desired in a modern up-to-date
establishment.
Where is the best view from the kitchen window? Which is more important, to be able to
supervise the play yard from the kitchen window, or to get a view of the lake, or can both features
be included in one kitchen? Is there a view, or must you create your own view by wise and
careful planting, to shut out the undesirable by a row of tall evergreens, and to create a scene of
beauty by a considered choice of shrubs
and flowers?
How are you going to control the sun to get the light and heat where you want them and to shut
them out from places where they are unwelcome? Do you want the living room on the back or at
the front? Does your pattern of living call for large outdoor areas, or do you live mostly in the
house? Then you will need to decide how much room you need in the house. Keep it as small as
you can be comfortable in, as every square foot costs money, and it all has to be kept in
condition. Instead of attempting to keep up with the neighbours, build what you yourselves need
and build it well, making it beautiful both inside and outside.
A house that is too small, especially if it lacks storage space, is harder to keep in order than one
that is adequate in size. Beware of large porches and verandas. Give study as to who is going to
sweep down the cobwebs twice a week, and who will sweep the leaves off every day in the fall,
and who will mop or hose off the dust occasionally. Space that is not useful is worse than wasted.
You have to pay taxes on it and keep in cleaned. You have to light it, heat it, and paint it
occasionally. So do not build more house than you really need.
It is possible that the modern trend toward trailer houses for permanent residence is a revolt
against too much house. Everybody seems to want larger and larger houses, more and more
rooms, until suddenly the overworked people ask, "What is the use? Why not reduce living to a
simpler form, and get a trailer house?"
It is wonderful to have many large rooms, but if you have a large living room, adequate eating
space, and a good-sized master bedroom, perhaps you will not feel too much circumscribed if the
den is not large and the other bedrooms are reasonably small. Perhaps the family room and the
dining room can be combined, especially if you have a nice breakfast nook. It is entirely possible
to get too much house. Every square foot has to be paid for and taken care of.
If you are building a house with the idea of selling it in two or three years, you will consider the
resale possibilities more than if you are planning to keep it the rest of your life. For resale
nowadays a house should have at least three bedrooms and two baths; perhaps you want this
anyway, as it makes a very convenient house. Sometimes two bedrooms and a den is better,
because the den can easily be converted into a bedroom. If it meets your needs to plan it that way,
the den should have a storage space that can easily be made into a clothes closet. It can just as
well be not too far from a bathroom, and will make a good bedroom if it is a good den.
It is a good idea to keep the bedrooms from getting too large so that you can save the space for
the family room or the living room, or someplace where you really need it. Although what we
actually need in a house is really very little, what we would like to have or feel we need is
probably something quite different. Consider the modern trailer house, in which many families
get along very well with less than two hundred square feet of floor space, and even the large
luxury trailer houses have less than five hundred square feet, and that strung out in a narrow line.
There was a time in the history of this country when a log cabin was considered pretty good
housing, when many families had to be content with a dugout in the side of a hill or with a sod
shanty.
The real physical necessities require only a very little space. Why couldn't you sleep just as
soundly in a bedroom 6' x 8' as you could in one 16' x 18' and save 240 square feet of floor space?
Perhaps the soul requires something more: a feeling of spaciousness, an artistic expression of
one's personality, a variety of living space to suit our various moods, room to entertain without
embarrassment over the crowded condition of the place, places to display treasured possessions,
or to store them, room for music and hobbies, room so the children do not need to be under foot
all the time, a place where one part of the family can escape from the other part once in awhile,
room to do the necessary work without stepping on each other's toes, in short, room to live and let
your soul expand.
We may not need quite so much house as we think we want. After all, it must all be kept clean
and in order, heated, lighted, painted, and the taxes have to be paid on the assessed valuation. Let
us try to keep our house within reasonable bounds. It is an equally egregious error to fail to build
enough house to make living easy and gracious.
When the walls seem to crowd in on you and everything is in a mess with no place to put
anything, did you ever feel like screaming and throwing things? Don't build your house that
small.
There is a tendency, after a person has had to put up with crowded quarters for a long time, that
when an opportunity comes to expand, instead of a reasonable and gradual expansion, something
like an explosion occurs. We want to go all out for a bigger and better house, with expansive
room, space for everything. Remember that every square foot costs money and has to be kept up.
That snug, cozy, warm feeling that comes over one when he is seated with his family around
his own brightly glowing fireplace may disappear if a house gets too large, particularly if it isn't
paid for.
House Should Fit Family
The number and size of rooms needed in a house depend largely on the size of the family and the
manner in which they are accustomed to living. In some parts of the world, a room 8' square is
considered adequate for most purposes, and two or three such rooms make a complete liveable
house. Much depends on one's style of living—and what the neighbours have is sometimes a
consideration.
Avoid cutting up a house into a large number of tiny cubicles for specific purposes. Remember
every wall costs money and will often be in the way. More-over, our ideas of suitable activities
are continually taking on new forms as we and the children grow older. We can't keep moving the
partitions to keep up with our changing activities. It is a mistake to think that every different type
of activity requires a separate and distinct room of its own. A given area can often serve
efficiently for several different purposes at various times of the day and of the year.
The types of activity that are interesting to a family will determine to a large extent the size of the
room needed. If your favourite indoor sport is to read the newspaper, you do not need a very large
room. You need even less space in which to read a magazine or book. A real bibliophile,
however, needs a lot of shelves in which to keep his voluminous library. If you like to entertain
with large parties, you will need a large beautiful living room.
In this country every young couple wants a house that is exclusively its own. In many places of
the world, a family is likely to include what we would call several families, including
grandparents and several married children and their offspring. With a house for only two people,
perhaps we can get along with a moderate amount of space.
It is a mistake to build a house with only one bedroom, even for a couple without children who
seldom have overnight guests, as such a house is hard to finance and is often difficult to sell.
Select a lot where all the houses are approximately in the price class as the house that you want.
Sometimes it is all right to build a little below your neighbourhood if you are sure to make the
house especially attractive in appearance.
Where to Get Ideas
Where should a person look for ideas? Visit houses under construction and subdivisions near you.
These houses will indicate the popular trends in your area. Many magazines are full of house
plans and ideas for beautifying the home. The trouble with many of them is that they show only
what is different or spectacular, and do not spend much time on the ordinary house for everyday
living. There is more news value in the unusual, the bizarre, the different, and even the ridiculous,
than in the things that you can live with right along.
The Building Budget
Most of us have to be careful to keep the cost within a certain limited budget, and sometimes it
seems very limited indeed. But that is not always the handicap that it may seem. If there were no
limit to the cost, we might get such a monstrous house with so many rooms and so many fine
things we could not half care for them and would be worn out with so much housework.
To keep the taxes as low as possible, do not let the house get too large, but do not on this account
cramp your rooms too much. Have the living space you need and can use to advantage, but do not
go too much beyond this just to impress the neighbours. What a person wants is happy and
carefree living.
The budget limit requires us to do more careful planning, to use our space wisely. Of course, the
actual number of square feet in a house is not a true measure of its cost. The things you put into a
house are what actually determines the cost. You can keep a house warm with a $500 heating
system or with one that costs $3,000. You can get
a fireplace for $400, or you can spend $1,500 if you wish to do so. The cost will be determined by
the kinds of material used and the amount of labour required to produce the kind of building you
want. You can pay $7 a yard for carpet, or you can pay $35 or more per yard, depending on the
carpet and the pad under it.
There are many qualities of nearly all building materials and furnishings. We have to balance the
space we need with the quality we can afford. A smaller house of better quality is usually to be
preferred to a large house built in the cheapest possible manner.
Houses are costing anywhere from $8 to $20 a square foot, depending on where they are and how
they are built. I know of a good warehouse that was built recently for less than $3 a square foot,
and it is a good substantial building. The cost is not so much for enclosing the space as it is for
what is put into that space.
What Can an Architect Do for You?
When you decide to build a house, you may want to employ an architect to help you with your
plan. What can you expect him to do for you? He can help you decide what kind of house you
want, by suggesting the various possibilities, by studying your family and your living habits and
showing you the kind of house you need. Besides helping you find reliable contractors and
supervising the work to see that it is done right, he can help you steer clear of financial
difficulties, by certifying when it is time to pay for certain phases of the work.
He can draw the plans and write the specifications. He has been over the ground often enough to
know most of the pitfalls that lurk in the path of building.
Do not expect an architect to save you money in the total cost of your house, although he should
be able to see that you get a better than average house. Since the contractors know he will
probably insist on using the very best quality of material and workmanship, they will often raise
their prices high enough to compensate for the better job they know they must do in order to
satisfy the architect. If you want a really superior house, get a good architect and put him to work.
If you want a less expensive house, you may find that an architect is a luxury, although there are
many architects who take pride in the fact that they can build inexpensively and still do a good
job.
Most Expensive Materials Not Always Necessary
If you must economize, sometimes the best and most expensive ways of building may not be
necessary. Where a feature of the construction does not show and does not weaken the stability or
jeopardize the integrity of the house, logically the cheapest way of building is the best, especially
where the budget is strictly limited. Many builders believe that the place to put your money is
where it will show, or where it is necessary to make a durable, comfortable, and weather-tight
house; otherwise use the cheapest things that will do the work. This is the theory followed to the
limit by the builders of subdivisions and tract houses.
Defects in construction can sometimes be corrected, but a serious defect in planning is with you
as long as you keep the house and may be a great hindrance in selling. Although there are places
to save time and money, planning is not the place to start your economy drive.
Get Someone to Review Your Plans
In case you draw your own plans, it is usually a good idea to get some experienced builder to
look them over to help you get most of the "bugs" out of it before you start to build. These could
be waste space, awkward corners, poor circulation through the house, freakish features, unusual
methods of building which increase the labour involved, crowded places, or inconsistencies.
Getting an experienced house designer to double check your plans would usually be a profitable
investment, which might keep you from making absurd mistakes. After they are built, things do
not always look the same as they do on paper. If you do not believe that people mak many queer
mistakes, drive up any residential street and take a critical look at the houses people have built in
the mistaken notion that they were creating works of art.
There are many good planners who will work for a modest fee. Although they have not had the
experience on large buildings to qualify as architects, they are willing to take time to give careful,
personal thought to your house and to draw you a good plan. Since you are the one who has to
decide what you want anyway, find someone who can help you and who is interested in seeing
that you get just the house you really want.
Some contractors and builders are good at planning and some of them are not. Most contractors
are good at the details of construction, even though they may be poor or indifferent planners as
far as room arrangement, convenience, and appearance are concerned. Although you might be
wise to leave many of the construction details to the judgment of the contractor, insist on the
room arrangement you want and any special features you consider important. If you want a
screened porch, do not let anyone talk you out of it. You are building the house to get what you
want, not what someone else thinks you ought to want.
Much depends on one's personal preference. Since you are building instead of buying because
you want something that is not just run of the mill and ordinary, because you want something
different from what everyone else has, plan your own house to suit you and your family.
In all your planning allow enough room, but do not waste any space. A common mistake of the
beginning planner is to fail to allow enough room for the thickness of the walls. Walls are usually
5V&" thick; if you draw them 6" the plan will be about right. Some people crowd things in the
mistaken notion that they are saving money. The size of the house is just one of the many factors
that enter into the cost of the building. Some odd corner or peculiarity of construction will often
cost more than an additional hundred square feet of floor space.
Economical Room Sizes
Lumber comes in even foot lengths. If you need a 13' joist, it might just as well be 14', as you will
have to buy the 14' piece and cut off 1' to get the 13' you want. A dimension like 12' 6" is
especially wasteful. If rooms can be made with outside dimensions, that is, including the
thickness of the walls, in even feet as 12, 14 or 16, it is more economical than dimensions like 9,
11, 13, etc.
Erasers Versus Wrecking Bars
The time to make changes in plans is while they are in the formative stage. Study carefully your
every need. Let your friends see your plans and welcome their criticisms. After getting all the
suggestions you can, you will have to sort them over, discarding many and deciding between
those that are contradictory. You will get some good ones that you can use.
Be sure to get into the plans everything you will require in the building, as the contractor will
charge you a much higher rate for the "extras" than he will for the things shown in
the plans before the contract is let. If you are doing the building yourself, you will find that
changes often complicate your work, as one change often makes a change somewhere else
necessary, and that still another until you do not know where to stop changing.
While the plan is being drawn, it is well to remember that a five-cent eraser can erase a thousand
dollars’ worth of building and show but little wear. Most of the problems can be foreseen without
the aid of a prophet. If you study your needs carefully and consider the entire plan objectively,
you should be able to find the plan that is exactly suited to your tastes and to your needs and is
still within your limited budget.
A poor time to think about changing a part of the structure is after that part is built. It costs to
build in the first place, it costs to tear down, and it costs to build again.
The most costly item, and the one that gives the least return for the money spent is a change in the
plan after the work is started. It costs money, time, and effort to use sledge hammers and
wrecking bars.
Changes are sometimes necessary, usually because the planners did not study their problem
enough, or failed to see it with sufficient clarity, or failed to consider the details. A multitude of
changes is a sure sign of poor planning, or a vacillating nature. Make your changes during the
planning stage as erasers are easier to use than wrecking bars, and cheaper.
Of course, if you find a serious error in the plan, or something that will make you definitely
unhappy in your new home, go ahead with the change, pay for it, and charge it up to experience.
If money is scarce, why not try planning an entire house just the way you want it, and then
building only part of it at present, reserving the rest until you are in a financial position to build it.
You could plan the house so that you could build the kitchen, the bath, and one or two bedrooms,
and take a rest before you start on the remainder. You could use one of the bedrooms for a living
room temporarily and have a complete three-room house. Or you could build the kitchen, the
bath, the family room, and one of the bedrooms. That would give you a very comfortable house.
Then later, you could add the other bedrooms and bath, and the living room. It might be better to
build on the installment plan than to pay for it that way.
Unless you plan the whole house, however, before you start to build any of it, you are sure to get
some part where eventually you want some other part. It is hard to add on to a small house
satisfactorily, whereas it is easy to build only part of a larger house and finish it later.
A person can get along in an apartment, consisting of a living room, a kitchenette, a bedroom, and
a bath, and not feel too crowded. Why couldn't he build the same amount of room as the
beginning of a house and get along with it for a time? Some people live in trailer houses with two
or three hundred square feet of floor space and feel that they have enough room for comfortable
living. Other people feel crowded in any house with less than two thousand square feet of floor
space. Between these extremes, a house should be found to meet the needs of almost any family.
A Model Will Help In Planning
If you have time to make a cardboard or plywood model of the house, you will get a much clearer
picture of the finished building than in any other way. Make a model in which the roof lifts off
and shows the room arrangement, with the furniture in place. Then imagine yourself walking
around in the house, sitting in the den, or working in the kitchen. This will help to discover the
good points of the plan and to reject those that are objectionable.
Cardboard boxes cut out and put together with model airplane cement can be used to good
advantage in making a model. Get a piece of plywood for the foundation. Have it larger than the
house, so you can landscape it. Use a scale of V2" equals 1' if you have the room. Otherwise
make the model the same size as the plans, which is always XA" equals V. The model can be
made out of scraps of wood and plywood if you prefer it to the cardboard. Use crepe paper for the
drapes, plastic for the windows, small blocks of pine or other soft wood for the furniture. Time
spent in making a model is time more than well spent. With cardboard, plywood, glue, small
pieces of brick and tile, a few small stones, and some sand, crepe paper, plaster of paris, soap to
carve into the shape of plumbing fixtures, and a little paint, you should be able to make a very
attractive model of your new home. This will aid greatly in deciding on what the exterior is to
look like and will also be a real help in arranging the rooms, windows and doors so that suitable
places will be provided for the various pieces of furniture.
Do not be in too big a hurry to decide. Take time to study every angle.
Entrance
Did you ever drive up in a car and wonder where the front door is? The entrance to a house
deserves special consideration. It should be set off with some very attractive feature: a bright
color, a different material, a wrought iron railing, or other special feature to identify it definitely
as the front door.
When friends drive up in a car, it is the most natural thing for them to come to the back door if it
is the closest to the driveway. If you prefer it that way, well and good. But if you want to be a
little more formal, be sure that the front door is easy to recognize and that the back door is placed
where people will not find it first.
Some kind of doorbell or chime is often desirable. Or if you want to go all out, a telephone by the
front door is a good thing. When people ring the doorbell you can ask them through the phone
who it is and what is wanted. Then you can make up your mind whether or not you want to open
the door. When a woman and her children are often alone in the evening, this is a good safety
measure, which aids in keeping out undesirables.
A small lens set in the door will give a person a view of the porch before the door is opened. This
is a good safety idea. A catch with a small chain attached that permits the door to be opened a few
inches only may also be used, but the telephone or the lens is probably superior to the chain.
When a person steps through the front door, where is he? In the middle of the living room,
shaking snow all over the rug, or in an entrance hall, where he can take off his overcoat and place
it in a proper closet on a hanger, with a receptacle for his umbrella and a shelf for his overshoes?
Perhaps the powder room also opens off the entrance hall and his wife has had opportunity to
inspect and adjust her make-up. Plan the living room so that people can enter it gracefully.
Many good housekeepers feel that an entrance hall is of vital importance to a complete house. If
people come right into the living room with their muddy feet, with no preliminary place in which
to get ready to make their entrance, a happy result is difficult.
The entrance hall should have a good durable floor that can take a beating without a murmur. A
floor of quarry tile, ceramic tile, slate, stone, or marble will be found very durable and can be a
beautiful part of the entrance hall. Snow, mud, water, and hard usage can't harm it.
Concrete blocks laid in a novel pattern to screen an entrance.
Carpet is hardly the best material for the entrance hall floor, unless you have a special piece,
different from the living room carpet, that can be changed every two or three years, or as
necessary. But to have it a part of the living room carpet can be to invite disaster.
The entrance hall should be warm and cheerful, to give the guests the proper welcome to your
house. It need not be large, but should be at least 5' wide, and
perhaps 1' long, and of course, a larger size will be more useful. Planning a house is largely a
matter of finding the best for the space.
Whatever you use for the entrance, beyond the bare minimum, is just so much space taken from
some other part of the house that may need it worse.
The more use you can make of a given space, the more efficient your planning. The entrance hall
can often double as the telephone booth.
Multiple use of space is an evidence of good planning. Consider the human body: if a separate
organ were provided for each function, we wouldn't be able to carry them all around with us.
Think of the mouth and its many uses. Aside from its principal uses as a base for lipstick and for
kissing, it is used for talking, for sucking and blowing, for emergency breathing, including
snoring, for biting off thread, for taking in food and grinding it up preparatory to swallowing it,
for holding pins in sewing and nails in shingling, for forming a smile, a grin, or a grimace, for
laughing, clucking and whistling, and too rarely to say a kind word.
A car-port and, entrance combined. Note used brick wall and shake roof.
The Living Room
When you pass from the hall into the living room, what kind of room do you like to be in? There
are almost as many types of ideas as to the size, shape, colors, and uses of the living room as
there are people. Some have the idea that a living room is similar to the old-fashioned parlor that
was shut up all week and was opened only on Sunday, was usually musty, and generally unused
and uncomfortable. Others go to the other extreme and think of the living room as a place where
the children study, where people lounge and read the paper or the latest magazine. A living room
is to be lived in, isn't it?
An interesting entrance with wrought iron railing and stone decoration.
Oh, to get away from this bedlam! How often have you thought that when the children get to
playing Indians and cowboys, or some other equally exciting and din-producing game! A house
needs a quiet spot, a den, a library, a family room, or some other place where some members of
the family can escape from the rest of the gang at times. A quiet retreat from the din of living.
There is usually the need for more than one area of living: the children want to look at the TV;
Dad wants to read his paper; Mother wants to telephone; the older brother has to study and do his
homework for high school; friends drop in for a short call; someone comes to see Dad on some
kind of business. These things must all go on simultaneously. They can't very well all be in the
same room at the same time. Open planning is fine, but it has its limitations. Some families have
hobbies that they work on at home, whereas others are content to read the newspaper, turn on the
television, and drop off to sleep in an easy chair.
If a quiet corner can be found for a writing desk or if a well-lighted alcove with an easy chair and
a bookcase can be managed, the liveability of the house will be greatly enhanced.
The living room must not be the principal hallway through the house, although careless planners
often make it just that. Every living room should have a point of interest aside from the television
set: a fireplace, a picture window, a mural, an interesting grouping of elegant furniture, a music
center, or something that reflects the tastes, personality, or interests of the owner.
The living room should be spacious, well-lighted, well ventilated, with durable floors and walls
that can stand hard usage and still look presentable. This fact should be kept in mind at all times
in selecting carpets, furniture, drapes, and wall finishes.
The house and furnishings must be suited to the family. If a house has a family room, to take the
brunt of the hard wear, the living room can be a bit more delicate than where it has to take the
beating all the time.
Plaster is still the accepted thing for walls; if you can get along with wallboard, don't expect it to
take quite the hard knocks that plaster can.
Wood panelling can be very effective as a living room wall. One end of the room can often be of
brick or stone with good effect. Sometimes one wall can be papered with a very pleasing result.
I have seen rooms papered on all four sides, but with one side of figured paper and the other three
sides with the same paper without the figures on it.
Oak makes a good durable floor with natural beauty built right in. A large rug and a few small
rugs can be used with good effect with the oak floor.
Wall-to-wall carpeting is popular at the present time. It has several advantages: it is quiet, warm,
easy to clean with a vacuum cleaner, and if of good quality, it wears well.
An elderly couple without children, or whose grandchildren do not come too often, can have a
more fragile living room than a family that has several hard playing, fast growing boys and girls.
How big should a living room be? Some people feel crowded in a room 16' by 24', while others
feel that such a room would be spacious.
In Korea a good-sized room would be 8' x 10'. In Japan a living room is rarely more than 12'
square, but there they can remove the sliding partitions and add the other room which is usually 9'
x 12', making the total size of the principal room 12' x 21'. The kitchen is only 6' x 9'. The
bathroom is usually 6' square. This makes the average Japanese house about 500 square feet in
area, compared with perhaps slightly over 1000 square feet for Americans.
The popularity of trailer houses seems to indicate that people can get along with less space than
was formerly thought desirable. Trailer houses have from 150 to 500 square feet of floor area,
and some of the larger ones seem rather spacious.
Still, good planning indicates that the living room should be fairly good sized, even if the rest of
the house has to be rather small.
A living room should seldom be smaller than 12' x 16'. Perhaps a medium-sized house, say 1400
square feet, should have a living room 15' x 20' up to 16' x 24', or about 300 to 400 square feet of
floor area. But a large house of over 2000 square feet of floor area could afford a living room of
from 450 to 500 square feet of floor space.
The number of doors entering a living room must be kept to the minimum, preferably one or two.
If sliding doors can also open on to the patio that might be very desirable.
If the transition from outdoors to indoors can be made by easy, almost imperceptible stages, so
that there is not so much distinction between the outside and the inside, a more spacious and
charming living area can be created, in the milder climates. In severe climates it is a cozy feeling
to have the outdoors seem as remote as possible in the winter time. But provision should also be
made for summer and autumn living.
Facing the Rear
It has been customary in this country for many years to face the house toward the street, with the
living room in front. Although rocking on the front porch and passing the time of day with those
who travel in the street is now out of style, many people, especially in the smaller towns, like to
see who is passing in the street, or who is coming up to the door. Women like to see what their
neighbours are doing. You can draw the blinds or the draperies when you do not want to be seen.
There are disadvantages in facing toward the street, for your view is your neighbour’s yard. You
may want the windows open and still not be as conspicuous as a goldfish.
Many houses are now being built facing the rear. People say the advantages are that you can be as
private as you want to be; your parties can overflow from the living areas into the outdoor spaces
easily and smoothly. With outdoor living coming into style, facing the rear is a natural solution.
You can create a beautiful view with careful planting. Make the back yard a thing of beauty. You
do not have to worry so much about drawing the shades. It encourages outdoor living. You can
have a barbecue, a patio, or any number of simple things to help you enjoy living in your own
back yard.
Of course families differ greatly in their ideas of living. Some are living only when they go
downtown, eat at swanky places, and attend elaborate entertainments. Others are happier wearing
shorts in their own back yards and barbecuing steaks and kabobs. The choice is yours. It costs
less to entertain yourself and your friends at home, as well as being more interesting if you have
fixed up your house and yard to do it easily, gracefully, and with fun.
Circulation
The circulation of traffic in a house has importance similar to the circulation of traffic on the
highways. People who are constantly moving from one room to another must be able to do so
without disturbing the activity going on in another room. It is important to keep the hallways to
the minimum, as they take up space and add to the area to be kept clean. A certain minimum
amount of hallway, however, is indispensable in a well-planned house. The entrance hall will
often do its full share, but a short back hall is often necessary to make the circulation natural and
easy.
Do not make the living room the principal hallway from the kitchen to the bedrooms; a living
room should be so arranged that it is not necessary to interrupt a party to put the children to bed.
Some housekeepers who have a regular wash day will want a full-fledged utility room, complete
with washer, laundry tubs, dryer, with plenty of working space. For many families who send their
laundry out, and others who have automatic washers, perhaps this room can be trimmed to the
minimum by putting the laundry in the back hall, en-closed by a pair of louvered doors, or even
left in the open, as the machines are good looking and may be more usable if left exposed. This
makes the space of the back hall also usable as working space for the laundry, thus saving several
square feet in the total floor space of the house.
A professional office can often be combined -with a dwelling, if a separate entrance is provided.
If the floor of this back hall can be made of quarry tile, or some other very durable material, that
is also easy to keep clean, it will be an economy in the long run. Of course good inlaid linoleum
is also satisfactory.
Bedrooms
A bedroom should be a pleasant place in which to sleep. If you live on a busy street, put the
bedroom at the back. Put it as far away from distracting noises as you can. Insulation in the walls
and draperies at the windows will help to shut out part of the noise.
A bedroom should be well ventilated, with windows on two sides of the room if possible, to
insure a good circulation of air on hot sultry nights. Windows in bedrooms should be given
careful study. If they are carelessly placed, they interfere too much with placement of the
furniture. Many people have found that high windows, 4' or 41/2' from the floor, but extending
over a wider area horizontally, give a better distribution of the fresh air with less draftiness, and
make it a lot easier to place the furniture where you want it without interference from the
windows.
The bedroom should be painted in soft colors, which are soothing to frayed nerves. Strong,
vibrant colors may be all right in the family room or in the bathroom, but the bedroom should be
a place of rest, with subdued tones.
If a bedroom is merely a place in which to sleep, it can be rather small and still be quite
satisfactory. After all, in the last sleep, all they allow a person is a space about 3' x 6'. It you want
a bedroom with a fireplace in it, two or three easy chairs, a desk, and an extensive bookcase, you
will need a considerable amount of space. If you also want to do your sewing and ironing in the
bedroom, you will have to allow room enough for that, too.
How large should a bedroom be? At least large enough so that the bed can be moved around or
turned around in it. Large enough for a full-sized bed and a chest of drawers, a night stand, a
chair, and perhaps a dressing table. Perhaps 8' x 10' inside measurement might be considered as
the absolute minimum. Most building codes do not permit rooms smaller than 80 square feet in
area, and this would just meet that requirement. Certainly a room 9' x 12' would be much better,
while 11' x 14' or 12' x 14' would seem rather spacious. In an ordinary house a room 12' x 16'
would be adequate for almost any master bedroom.
A bedroom isn't greatly in need of a view as a person usually isn't often in a bedroom during the
daylight hours and then he usually isn't looking out the window.
People are in the living room usually in the evening when the landscape is dark, unless the view
is over towns or villages where the lights make an interesting pattern.
The kitchen should, if possible, open on the sunrise. When one is working at the sink, an
occasional glance out the window overlooking an inspiring view can be very refreshing. The
breakfast nook should also have a good view if at all possible.
There should be at least half as many bedrooms as there are people in the family, and a guest
room is an important adjunct, if it can be managed. Two boys can occupy the same room when
they are small, but, of course, the ideal is for each child to have his own room when he gets older,
if at all possible.
Perhaps the master bedroom should be large enough so that two beds can be put in it in hot
weather. When it is cold, probably only one of them will be used.
Where there are small children, the mother will probably want their room to be near hers, but for
adults, if bedrooms can be separated from each other, one noisy or restless person will not bother
the others quite so much.
A private bath for the master bedroom is a good idea, but not an absolute necessity. A good rule
to follow is to have at least one bath for each two bedrooms. A three-bedroom house should have
two baths. In the morning rush hour, when the children are hurrying to get ready for school, and
Dad has to shave, and mother has to do her hair, enough bathrooms will save a lot of frayed
nerves. Better economize somewhere else and have enough bathrooms.
A guest room can be kept to the minimum. A private bath with the guest room will be greatly
appreciated by the guests, but if this strains the budget too much, some compromise will have to
be worked out. A smaller room with the private bath would be much better than a large room
without it. Try to keep the guest room somewhat isolated from the rest of the house, so the guests
can be off to themselves at times.
This will give them more opportunity to rest and will permit the regular activities of living to go
on with less interruption.
Storage
Organized storage space is very important in designing a house. When you move in, where are
you going to put the suit cases? Well! Where are you going to put them? Of course there is no
place to put a trunk. A closet or wardrobe for a bedroom must have a rod to put the clothes
hangers on. A piece of V^" pipe or a piece of electric conduit is much better than a round wooden
pole, as the hangers slide more easily on the pipe, and a piece of wood gets black looking if not
painted, and if painted, the paint gets scraped and scarred very soon.
Shelves at one end of a wardrobe are very convenient for hats, purses, gloves, etc. Boxes to fit on
these shelves will help in holding small things and in keeping them clean and away from the dust.
Sometimes wire shoe racks fit conveniently at the end of the wardrobe opposite the shelves.
These are very handy, as they keep the shoes off the floor and in order, each pair easy to get
without disturbing the others.
Where at all possible, it is a good idea to have separate wardrobes, particularly in the master
bedroom. (A man likes to have a small place in the house that he can call his own.) A man will
not usually need as much room as his wife or daughter does for clothes, but it helps to keep the
arguments down if he has some space of his own. Even if he may not have many pairs of shoes, a
rack for them should also be planned.
With building costs the way they are, every square foot of floor space must be used to the best
possible advantage. Of course, a place for laundry, heating plant, and storage of larger items must
also be found.
Fireplace
Some people have no use for a fireplace, whereas others find it an absolute necessity. Do not
build a fireplace because it is the accepted thing to do. If you do not like a fireplace, and do not
expect to use it, you can find a better use for five hundred dollars than to put it into a fireplace.
If the hearth fire is the center of the house, and you and your family and guests like to sit by the
fire, by all means have a good fireplace even if you have to skimp on something else.
A fireplace should be located where traffic through doors will not disturb the circle sitting around
the fire. A corner is not the ideal situation for a fireplace as it restricts the circle of seats around it.
The end of a room or the side is much better than a corner. Although a fireplace exposed on two
sides may look modern, if you are going to use it regularly, there is far less danger of its smoking
if the fireplace is set back in the wall and exposed on one side only.
A wood box opening from the outside so the wood does not have to be carried through the living
room is very handy and not expensive.
The hearth should be wide enough to protect the carpet, and a good screen is a necessity to
control the sparks.
Two Stories
Some people wonder about two-story houses. When are they advisable? If your land is too
restricted to get all the space you want on one floor, then the logical thing is to build on more than
one floor, but if it isn't necessary, why climb steps all your life? It takes valuable energy, steps
take up room, and they cost money, more in proportion than al-most any other part of the house.
Of course, some builders say that since the same roof and foundation will serve two stories as
well as one, therefore the two-story house is cheaper. It isn't necessarily so—the framing has to
be heavier to support the second floor, and the joists have to be larger to span the large rooms on
the first floor. It costs more to work higher up, with scaffolding and all, so there is not much, if
any, economy in building two stories if one would serve your purpose better. Although, if you
prefer two stories, go ahead and build that way. The cost is about the same. Ordinarily,
housekeeping is simpler and easier in a house all on one level. Great efficiency is usually found
in the one-story house.
Basements
What about a basement? In sections where basements are considered a part of every complete
house, the thing to do is to keep in step with the locality. In sections where basements are
considered entirely unnecessary, the thing to do is to keep in step—but in either case, if you have
good reason to be different from your neighbours, why not go ahead and do as you please?
A small basement makes a good air raid shelter and a shelter from atomic fallout that we hear so
much about nowadays. In fact, it might be a good idea to build a partial basement just for this
purpose. You could also find other uses for it too, as a recreation room, a den, a boy's hobby
room, etc. You will usually find use for any room that you have.
Although the latest fads do not have to be followed, a person should be careful not to make the
house look as if it had been built twenty-five years ago. The new houses are more
straightforward, not having so much that is put on just for decoration. The
decoration has also taken a different form; instead of fancy gables we have "used" brick, instead
of "gingerbread," "sugar frosting."
The days of imitation are also about gone. Time was when wood siding was cut and notched to
imitate stone. (Even Washington's home in Mount Vernon did not escape this subterfuge.)
Painters used to use a background color and graining to make pine look like walnut, mahogany,
or gum wood. It is now just as inexpensive to use the kind of wood you want as it is to try to
make one kind of wood imitate some other kind.
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