CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE 



CEILINGS 



NE of the most widespread of the popular delusions about 

 houses is expressed in the demand for a high ceiling, quite 

 irrespective of the scale of the house or the size of its apart- 

 ments. The mansion, with its numerous apartments and 



lofty rooms, is still the model for the small house. Under the 



inexorable pressure of the limited site and limited means the rooms are 

 reduced till each is too small for human habitation, but still the lofty 

 ceiling is retained, partly because it is an attribute of the ideal mansion, 

 and partly because of the baseless superstition that it is healthy. 



This " hygienic falsehood," as Mr. Voysey justly describes it, has been 

 sufficiently exposed, but apparently to little purpose. Conditions of perfect 

 ventilation are quite independent of the cubic capacity of a room. A man 

 enclosed in a box sufficient only to accommodate his person may enjoy perfect 

 hygienic conditions as regards ventilation. But the question is not one 

 between a small cubic capacity and a large cubic capacity. We have, it may 

 be assumed, a certain sum of money to expend in cubic feet of air in a room, 

 and the question is, how are these cubic feet best arranged to secure the 

 best results to what extent shall they be disposed vertically, to what extent 

 horizontally ? Now it is obvious that, as man cannot fly but wants all the 

 elbow-room he can get in a small house, it will be wise for him to extend his 

 rooms as much as possible horizontally, and as little as possible vertically; 

 and the first improvement which suggests itself in the small house will be to 

 make it lower and broader, so that all the wasted space overhead may be 

 exchanged for extension of the floor area. Such a change, it must be borne 

 in mind, will not decrease the cubic capacity or increase the cost. Not only 

 will it increase the actual size, it will also add to the apparent size of the 

 rooms. They will become at once large rooms of a small kind instead of 

 small rooms of a large kind. We shall so far achieve the roomy cottage 

 instead of the cramped mansion. It is unfortunate that the by-laws in many 

 districts reflect the popular superstition in this matter, and minimum heights 

 of ceilings are often fixed which make it impossible to build a small house on 

 rational lines. 



For the height of the ceiling is not an isolated and independent feature in 

 the plan, which may be modified at will. It is one of the ruling factors in 

 the design of a house, and governs the whole structure. The long, low window 

 of the horizontal type, which has so many practical advantages, follows as a 

 necessary result of the long, low room. The staircase becomes easy of ascent 

 and occupies little space. The house itself becomes broad and low and snug, 

 and in its rooms this breadth and spaciousness is exchanged for the cramped 

 floor-spaces of the vertically extended house. The ceiling, too, comes into 

 the picture of the room and completes it, and the whole effect is comfortable 

 and homely. 



The fixing of the ceiling height of rooms, which is often so thought- 

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