We give on page 136 a perspective view and floor plans of a cottage costing $4,200. The general dimensions are:
Front, 32 ft.; side, 39 ft. 2 in., exclusive of bay window and butler’s pantry. The size of rooms will be seen by reference to the floor plans.
The height of stories is as follows: Cellar, 7 ft.; first story, 9 ft. 6 in.; second story, 9 ft.; attic, 8 ft.
_Materials._—Foundation, stone; first and second stories, clapboarded; gables, cut shingles; roof, slate.
_Cost._—Four thousand two hundred dollars, including furnace and mantels.
This house is designed to be heated by a furnace. There are fireplaces in the dining room and in one front bed room. The attic has two bed rooms and hall finished, and garret. Cellar under the whole house.
The house illustrated on page 137 has the following general dimensions:
Front, 31 ft. 6 in., including bay window; side, 43 ft., including bay window.
Cellar, 7 ft.; first story, 10 ft.; second story, 9 ft. 6 in.; attic, 8 ft. The floor plans show the sizes of the rooms.
_Materials._—Foundation, stone; first and second stories, clapboards; gables, cut shingles; roof, slate.
_Cost._—Five thousand dollars, without heater and mantels.
It may be heated by a furnace. There are fireplaces in the dining room and in one chamber. The attic has two chambers and hall finished. Cellar under the whole house. Water closet off the laundry, and private stairs from kitchen to platform of main staircase.
There are few objects connected with our art that have been more frequently dwelt on by those who have undertaken to be our guides and monitors than the right proportions to be given to rooms. Vitruvius led the way, and subsequent theorizers have laid down, sometimes very dogmatically, their views of just proportions. I find, however, in the actual practice of the ablest men such extreme diversity, and I observe pleasing effects producible by the adoption of such widely different proportions, that I find myself, I confess, much inclined to be somewhat incredulous of all these theories. Certainly if beauty could be thus reduced to a formula, and the proper relation indisputably established between the length, breadth, and height of every room, a royal road would be cleared for us, which would be at least very convenient both to those who teach and to those who learn. I fear I can scarcely hope to furnish you with such a desirable help in your studies. I find rooms of universally admitted beauty, yet of almost every geometrical figure. I have heard of the room in the museum of Florence, the Tribune it is called, which contains the Venus di Medici, spoken of in terms of rapturous approval for the beauty of its form and proportions. This saloon is an equilateral octagon on plan. I have known square rooms greatly admired—such, for example, as the saloon in Cobham Hall, which is usually pointed to as one of the _chefs‐d’œuvre_ of Inigo Jones. Who is there that is not charmed with the proportions of the Pantheon at Rome? This, you know, is circular. The classical teacher of our art, Vitruvius, seems to contemplate only rectangular forms, and directs us to adapt the double cube and the cube and a half, whether for a temple or a triclinium.