HOUSES AND GARDENS 



warm the greenhouse and dining-room, and the possibility of other retreats 

 for members of the family would depend on the number and disposition of 

 the bedrooms, and the possibility of heating them either by artificial means or 

 by additional fires, while in some cases a reception-room may be placed on the 

 upper floor, which could be reached without disturbing the privacy of the lower 

 rooms. In cases where additional frontage allows of a garden of reasonable 

 width at the back, the space outside the dining-room window may be used 

 as a garden-room, and if the wide doorway to the front room is still retained 

 this will not make the dining-room itself too dark. 



Figure 4 



FIG. 3. 



shows another modification of the normal plan which is 

 particularly adapted to houses where there is an outlook at 

 the back on to the garden, and especially when this is to 

 the south, the partition between the back room and the 

 staircase hall being removed and a beam and curtain 

 introduced. The whole of the back portion of the house 

 now becomes the hall, and the front room communicating 

 with it by double doors becomes the part of the plan set 

 apart for the reception of visitors. As the staircase now 

 becomes an important feature a slight modification in its 

 form is often desirable, and this can be effected by forming 

 a square landing as shown. This arrangement is specially 

 adapted for houses where the back room is fairly large, and 

 in its altered form it will become the dining-hall. Here, 

 as in small dining-rooms generally, a folding table will be 

 desirable which can be removed when not in use, and in its 

 reduced size used as a side-table. 



In the decoration and furnishing of the villa thus modified 

 in its structure the general principles advanced elsewhere will 

 equally apply, and it only remains to note a few of the special 

 conditions which it presents. In the new house it is advised 

 that the structure should in itself be complete and satisfying 

 and not depend on superficial decoration, which when applied takes the form 

 of clothes designed to display bodily beauties of proportion rather than to 

 conceal defects. In the villa, however, decoration must be palliative. It 

 is not so much a case of a house to be decorated as a disease to be alleviated, 

 and the decorator thus becomes a physician who advises the proper treatment 

 for each case. 



It has already been shown how features which cannot be removed may be 

 made at least inconspicuous, and how others too important for such a system 

 may be removed and replaced by something better. A few notes may be added 

 as to the treatment of the floor, which, in a house built as one would wish, 

 should, as far as possible, be structural. In the villa the best treatment of the 

 ordinary floor is to cover it with a veneer of parquet prepared with a dull 

 glossy surface which does not require polishing. This treatment should at 

 any rate be adopted, if possible, in the principal sitting-rooms, and considering 

 the saving in the cost and wear of carpets its cost will be justified. 



94 



FIG. 4. 



