i6 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



January, 1913 



end room — the parlor if 

 you choose to call it so, but, 

 please you, a parlor in the 

 old English sense of the 

 word and not one of those 

 dreadful apartments with an 

 atmosphere of hair-cloth, 

 crinoline and buckram. 



Through the generously- 

 wide kitchen windows pours 

 a flood of sunlight war- 

 ranted to keep the cook in 

 cheerful mood — a thing 

 highly needful for a happy 

 household, for good cookery 

 and ill-humor are usually 

 strangers. To some, it may 



One of the bedrooms in Krisheim Cottage 



with dormers popping up 

 here and there and every- 

 where. There is no desire 

 herein to decry dormers in 

 general. They are, how- 

 ever, a source of danger and 

 it is best that we should 

 frankly admit it. Their 

 treatment requires the most 

 consummate skill and if they 

 are not carefully managed 

 they can spoil completely the 

 whole aspect of an otherwise 

 excellent exterior. Where it 

 is possible to have an un- 

 pierced roof, especially with 

 the type of house here illus- 



seem a bit far-fetched to allude to culinary psychology in an trated, it is generally preferable for artistic considerations. 



architectural description, but it may properly be urged that 

 whatever may conduce to the physical comfort and happi- 

 ness of in-door family life is not beyond the purview of 

 architect or home-maker. 



The second floor, with its four bed-chambers and fair- 

 sized bathroom, is as compact as anything well could be, 



Now, as to the purely practical side of the matter, some 

 objector, doubtless, is ready to cry out "But look at all the 

 waste space; if there were dormers there could be third 

 floor bedrooms." To this one might reasonably reply that 

 in a cottage that already has four bedrooms on the second 

 floor there is no need of any on the third. Besides, in our 



and yet it is by no means cramped. Room is made for one climate a room immediately under the roof is apt to be 



bed-chamber by a departure from the rectangular plan more unbearably hot in Summer, and then, too, a room in which 



seeming than real. A short wing is thrown out from the you are afraid to stir more than a few feet from the center 



body of the building on the second floor level and supported for fear of bumping your head against the sloping walls or 



by the substantial rounded arches that form the porch. In ceiling is not a cause of much joy anyhow. At all events, 



this gabled wing is 

 the aforementioned 

 bed-chamber. By this 

 device several ends 

 are served. In the 

 first place more space 

 is gained in the sec- 

 ond floor, then next 

 it agreeably relieves 

 the rectangularity of 

 the exterior and last- 

 ly — this is, perhaps, 

 its best feature — it 

 keeps the porch with- 

 in the structural lines 

 of mass and com- 

 pletely does away 

 with the disfigure- 

 ment due to the 

 tacked -on, lean-to 

 contrivance unfor- 

 tunately appended to 

 a good many houses. 

 Another excellent 

 feature of this cot- 

 tage is its unbroken 

 roof. Its whole ex- 

 panse spreads out 

 unmarred by fussy, 

 restless dormers. 

 Consequently the cot- 

 tage has the same re- 

 poseful aspect we 

 note so frequently in 

 English country 

 houses, where the 

 skyline merges into 

 the environment al- 

 most imperceptibly, 

 which it could not do 

 if it were punctuated 



Entrance porch of Krisheim Cottage and story above 



Krisheim Cottage is 

 meant to have two 

 floors and an air- 

 space and no more. 



On the other hand, 

 an unobstructed gar- 

 ret, lighted at the 

 gable ends, is an 

 ideal place to stow 

 away all manner of 

 things in, things that 

 are needed time and 

 again, but for which 

 ordinarily space can 

 ill be spared. Fur- 

 thermore, it may be 

 seriously questioned 

 whether we do not 

 often waste space on 

 the first floor by not 

 using it all to live in 

 and then distort our 

 houses by trying to 

 expand unnecessarily 

 above stairs. 



Although the cot- 

 tage is rectangular in 

 plan, its mass has 

 greater variety than 

 is usual in a house of 

 that description. This 

 element of variety is 

 gained partly by the 

 gabled projection in 

 which is the porch 

 downstairs and a bed- 

 room above, partly 

 by the gables above 

 some of the upper 

 windows and partly 

 by the well-shaped 



