Fig. 3—A beautiful color scheme in old rose and brown stained wood 
that edges simple, rustic art and falling into eccentricities. 
There are certain conventions which should govern here, 
as well as in the building of a Colonial, or an Italian, or an 
inglish house. If we are formulating an architecture 
which is to be purely American (and the bungalow-cottage 
has been evolved from the East-Indian bungalow to suit 
American necessities), Jet us do so on lines which are strong 
and lasting. ‘he interior of a bungalow should be pictur- 
esque but never queer. (Figure 1.) The chimney-breast 
may be broad and hospitable, but it should not be huge. 
The front door should be made on lines that differ distinctly 
from the conyentionally accepted idea, but it should not be 
so large and heavy as to be disproportionate to the house; 
its hinges of wrought-iron and its knocker should not be so 
aggressively massive as to suggest the defence of a feudal 
castle (Figure 10) ; its electric-light fixtures and other hard- 
ware may very appropriately be made also of iron, but the 
heavy chains supporting great metal balls that are often seen 
hanging in the center of a low-ceiled room look menacing 
and ridiculous. 
In the planning of a bungalow the chief outlet for one’s 
early 
taste and originality lies in its windows. These may be 
French, English (Georgian) or Dutch. All of these types 
are casement in construction and are, therefore, far more 
picturesque than the mill-made windows which slide up and 
down. The casements of a bungalow should always be hung 
to swing outwards, as this way they do not interfere with the 
inside space. (Figure 2.) Ordinary mill-made windows 
may be so arranged in the design of the house as to give 
a picturesque effect by placing them in groups and cur- 
taining them effectively. They may also be much improved 
by building a four-inch shelf above the casing and dropping 
the drapery from the projection, or by running a wide shelf 
flush with the sill. This latter device gives an effect of thick 
walls with a wide windowsill and is a great addition to the 
beauty of a room when ferns or other potted plants are 
placed here. 
The French window is always beautiful, in fact, it adds 
so much in beauty and elegance of effect to a room that it 
is supposed to be expensive when it is not. It costs little 
more to cut a window to the floor than to have it stop some 
feet aboye, and the casements may have the stock-panes of 
Fig. 4—A Dutch window in the alcove of a bungalow living-room 
cheap glass and yet, when curtained with muslin, chiatz or 
raw silk, be all that could be desired. (Figure 9.) 
In illustration No. 9 we have French windows opening 
from a living and dining-room. Curtained with beautiful 
chinz in wistaria pattern they give much charm to the 
simple room. 
There seems also to preyail an erroneous impression that 
French windows are not suited to a cold climate. This de- 
pends entirely upon whether they are well-built and carefully 
fitted; and, undoubtedly, they add a double portion of sun- 
shine to the room within. 
In order to appreciate the real value of the present 
fashion of fitting up and furnishing the modest house of 
to-day, which is represented by a cottage or a bungalow, let 
us contrast it with the typical house of twenty years and 
more ago. The sitting-room in those days (the living-room 
was then unheard of) was often small; to have made it large 
and airy, with French windows or casements, with an arch- 
way opening to the dining-room, with an alcoved fireplace, 
would have been to have struck at the traditions which goy- 
erned the building of the cheap house and would have scan- 
Fig. 5—A dining-room paneled in white enamel battens 
dalized the public. I may safely state that, generally speak- 
ing, it was something in this wise: A room 12 x 18 feet 
had plain walls of white smooth plaster; or if papered, the 
color was dark of a mixed pattern in a calico design which 
was utterly impossible as a background for pictures and 
totally without beauty of its own. The woodwork of pine 
was grained to represent some impossible wood, generally 
light oak, and was highly varnished. The four uncom- 
promising walls of this room were utterly deyoid of a break 
or irregularity of any kind and rendered the room as char- 
acterless as the inside of a pasteboard box. The thin walls 
had shallow windows, often unrelieved by shelves or dra- 
peries; if curtains of Nottingham or other lace were used, 
they accentuated the thin, flat effect of the mill-made windoy 
These bleak, unhappy windows have small resemblance, with 
their somber shades of green cambric, to the pretty diamond- 
paned casements of to-day, where a curtain of soft silk (at 
39 cents a yard) or of flowered cotton, or denim, with rod 
and rings is drawn across the window-space, where a shelf 
below holds ferns and geraniums and where a wide-cushioned 
bench offers a lounging-seat. It is a matter for wonder that 
Fig. 6-—The inglenook is the feature of this living-room 
Fig. 7—A living-hall in a story-and-a-half bungalow 
Fig. 8—A harmonious dining-room and living-room of a mountain bungalow 
