HOUSES AND GARDENS 



In other rooms, linoleum ot plain colour or cork carpets will form a 

 satisfactory basis for rugs. These materials will form useful palliative remedies 

 for bad floors, and they are considered in this connection merely because, in 

 the house as it should be, the real floor should not require covering except 

 to gain that sense of luxury which the deep pile of a good carpet conveys. 

 Certain labour-saving appliances may be easily added to the house. A lift 

 from the kitchen when it is in the basement, and a speaking-tube, and a 

 few washstands, fitted with taps, in the bedrooms, and the use of tiles for 

 wall-covering as far as possible in bathrooms and kitchen premises all these 

 will help to reduce the labour of the house. 



To make the best of some old country farmhouse will constitute a more 

 congenial task. Old houses in the country are full of inspiration and sugges- 

 tion. But how seldom is the genius loci regarded, and how often one sees the 

 serene dignity of an old house marred by all kinds of up-to-date artistic 

 furnishings and decorations. 



Whatever is done to an old building should be so conceived in harmony 

 with the house that one should not be able to detect where the new work 

 begins and the old ends. All should show alike an old-world beauty, 

 comfortable, serviceable and homely. The ancient glories of the house, many 

 of which may have been since obscured, may be replaced with only such slight 

 modifications as may be required to meet modern demands. 



In suggesting these schemes for the modifications of the average house, I 

 am fully conscious that each case will have special conditions demanding special 

 treatment, but in the average house this will largely consist in the judicious 

 removal of partitions, so securing a sense of spaciousness instead of the 

 cramped confinement of the house, which consists of a series of small 

 compartments. 



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