A manual of home-making

If an upstairs sleeping-porch is planned, the railing should be built sohdly from the floor for 2 or 3 feet, and the open part above should be provided with window sasli and awnings in Jced. kr.l *pe<F and to g ther- JUS? Plate IL — Appropriate typps of tirchitp^^tun? for a suburban or cour»tr>' Jumn'. 3 THE MODERN HOUSE 2S that storms and early morning !ij;ht may be excluded. I awangement can be made comfortable for year-round use. Outside entrance doors should be sheltered by a hood on brackets, by a (lortico, or by a porch (Fig* 12). It is usually de- I arable to separate the living-porch from the main entrance. 1^ Fig, 12. — A modcat farm nottagc of go<xl dcsigii. Here, if anywhere, a little genuine design should be afforded, portal is an intimate feature and should express dignity , hos- tality, and l)eauty to all who enter. A natural-finish oak door with plate gla^ss panel can hardly be considered appro- priate for a decorative doorway, because it i^ out of keeping, both in material and color, with the remainder of the exterior. COST OP BUILDINO The actual cost of building a given house is determine fi largely by local conditions, llie cost of labor, the cost of ma- 20 MAXUAL OF HOME-MAKING terials used, the distance of the new building from the base of supplies, and the amount of hauJing involved, are it^ms that vary with every enterprise. Thus no fixed price may be quoted as to the cost of a given building, the year round and in all localities. The reading public should, therefore, place no faith in the Iniiiding figures riuotcd in popular magazines. The}' are lUL^ileading in the extreme; for tliey usually represent either a set of conditions which have not been fully told or which are so unusual that they may not be duplicated. In general it may safety i>e said that a modest house of usual construction may l>e built for considerably less money by rural than by (^ity lafior. One wa}^ of estimating the probable cost of a new house ia to compare it with another tlwelling recently built in the local- ity. If the size and cost of the house already built are known, one may compute the average cost a cubic foot by dividing the total cost by Ihe number of cubic fec»t that the house con- tains. If the house that is planned is to be of better grade than tlie one figureil on, it will cost more a cubic foot; if it is simpler, it will cost less, A rough estimate may thus l)c reached l>efore the work is undertaken or is figural out by the con- tractor. With present standardB of building it is Ukely that in no locality can a house witli modern improvements l>e erected for less itian sixtt^^n cents a cubic fcKJt, and that a modest house need not exceed twenty-four cents a cubic foot unless fireproof construction is used. An average cost of about eighteen centa a cubic foot is probably fair for most count r>' tlistricts.