We have two good letters today about houses; one about a dream house some time to be built, and one about a real house that has been lived in three years. I want to add a word about our new house. Like "Agatha," I had ideals of the home we would some day build. We were hurried by the fire into building some time before we were ready. And when we came actually to doing the work, I found that I couldn't have everything I wanted. I compromised on many points, but, some way, the place is all the dearer to us because we had to wrestle with reality to get part of our dreams into it.
You ask if I have a sleeping porch. No, I haven't; nor a sun room, either. Not because I didn't want them or hadn't always planned on having them, but because I found I wanted other things worse. For instance, we will have hot water heat. It cost a lot, but we wanted it badly enough to give up other things for it. I may be able to have the sleeping porch and sun room later, but if we had not put in hot water heat now, we probably would never have had it.
To Fit Old Basement
We modified our plans according to the basement we had. The old basement, with its concrete floors, was intact after the fire, except for some straightening needed on the walls. Excavating a new basement would have added about $1,500 to the cost of the house. We decided we would rather use the old site and the old walls and put that $1,500 somewhere else.
We did not put tile floors in kitchen, washroom, and bath. There, too, we met the problem of what we wanted contending with what we could have. I feel that I am going to be perfectly happy without them, now that we have decided on something else. I wanted casement windows, too, for they are so beautiful and so airy But I gave them up, though they would have cost but little more, on account of the danger of their not being weather-tight, and account of the problems of draperies and curtains. If they open out, they are weather-tight, but you have to have your screens inside, right against the curtains. If they open in, they are not weather-tight, usually, and they are likely to interfere with any design of draperies.
But here are some of the things I have that make me satisfied to give up some of the extra things I have mentioned: I have a big, open, light, clean basement, with a wide outside door where the men can carry out ashes, or carry in vegetables and heavy things. In the kitchen I have a dumb-waiter, a big broom closet, a roomy pan closet, a built-in ironing board, two flour bins, lots of drawer and cupboard space, plenty of working surfaces of varying heights, so I can sit or stand, a ladder stool, a generous sink, a table on casters that can be pulled out in the middle during working hours or for a pick-up meal for the children and me, and can be pushed back when the room is tidied up. There are three windows in the kitchen and a space for an ice-box when I get one. As soon as it can be built, I am to have a fuel box with a metal top, just as high as the range. It will do away with unsightly fuel pails and will provide a good place for hot things.
Handy Wash Rooms
I have a first-floor toilet and lavatory and eventually the men will have a bigger wash-room and shower-bath arranged for in the basement. The house is planned so that the men never need to come through the kitchen to get to any part of the house. The kitchen is my "castle," my workshop, not a passage-way. There is a part of the living-room partly portioned off for Daddy's office. It has an outside door, so that when he brings callers in to look over the records, he does not need to go into any other room. There is a nook in the back hall where the children can put their play coats, caps, mittens, and rubbers, and reach them for them selves. There are five bedrooms, with big closets; there is a bathroom, a linen closet, a blanket closet, and a clothes chute. There is a fireplace, and there is a lovely staircase.
The house itself is my ideal; typical Colonial, with a formal center entrance and a hall straight through from front to back, with the dining room and kitchen on one hand and the living room on the other. There are wide doorways opening from the dining room and living room on the hall. And French doors lead from the living room to a wide pooch at the east end of the house, next to the lane.
The house is set among the fine old maple and elm trees, that fortunately were not harmed by the fire.
So in spite of the sacrifice of part of our dreams, we are amply satisfied with our home, remembering always that it will grow and improve as the years go on.
Memory Gem
God's plans, like the lilies,
Pure and white unfold.
We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart.
Time will reveal the chalices of gold.-- Selected by J.C.C, Kansas