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A PLAIN HOUSE THAT WILL LAST FOR GENERATIONS AND NEED BUT FEW REPAIRS
Published in The Craftsman, July, 1905.
EXTERIOR VIEW SHOWING STRUCTURAL USE OF TIMBERS ON UPPER STORY AND EFFECT OF BUNGALOW ROOF.
MOST of the Craftsman houses are designed for an environment which admits of plenty of ground or at least of a large garden around them, but this one,— while of course at its best in such surroundings, —would serve admirably for a dwelling to be built on an ordinary city lot large enough to accommodate a house thirty feet square. Seen from the exterior, the house shows a simplicity and thoroughness of construction which makes for the greatest durability and minimizes the necessity for repairs. Also the rooms on both floors are so arranged as to utilize to the best advantage every inch of space and to afford the greatest facility for communication; a plan that tends to lighten by many degrees the burden of housekeeping.
In looking over the plan of the interior, we would suggest one modification which is more in accord with the later Craftsman houses. It will be noticed that the doors leading from the hall into the living room and dining room are of the ordinary size. We have found the feeling of space and freedom throughout the rooms intended for the common life of the family so much more attractive than the shutting off of each room into a separate compartment, so to speak, that were we to revise this plan in the light of our later experience, we would widen these openings so that the partitions would either be taken out entirely or else be suggested merely by a panel and post extending only two or three feet from the wall and open at the top after the fashion of so many of the Craftsman interiors. This device serves to break the space pleasantly by the introduction of a structural feature which is always decorative and yet to leave unhampered the space which should be clear and open.
While we advocate the utmost economy of space and urge simplicity as to furnishing, we nevertheless make it a point to render impossible even a passing impression of barrenness or monotony. As we have said, this is partly a matter of woodwork, general color scheme and interesting structural features that make each room a beautiful thing in itself, independent of any furnishing. But also we realize the never ending charm of irregularity in arrangement, that is, of having the rooms so placed and nooks and corners so abundant that the whole cannot be taken in at one glance.
In this case the simple oblong of the living room is broken by the window seat on one