AMOXG THE FLOWERS WITH REXFOED 



231 



HOW WE BUILT A 

 By Mrs. . 



OF my man}' attempts at gardening 

 and plant raising and the calami- 

 ties that sooner or later overtook 

 them all, I will not write here. SniFice it 

 to say they were legion, and I finally cried, 

 '^If J can't have plants oi/i-doors, I will 

 t'/i/' and tried raising them in oiir only 

 bay-^\'indow, which has an eastern expos- 

 ure, sliaded by a majestic walnut tree. I 

 found it too sharly in summer and too 

 cold in winter. Xo matter how comfort- 

 able {he room was, the pots were so cold 

 T could not bear my hand on them. Xo 

 plants could thrive with such cold feet. 

 We talked first of moving the bay-window 

 out farther to get more light, but, when 

 all my plants froze solid last winter ^vith 

 a fire in the room, we gave that up. Then 

 we decided to build a place especially for 

 plants, and to build it as nearly '"right" as 

 possiljle while we were at it. 



I said I couldn't be satisfied with any- 

 thing less tban a south bay-window with 

 nearly square ends, so as to catch every 

 bit of sunshine. There are two long 

 rooms on the south side of our house — the 

 parlor and the front chamber, which juts 

 out, making an extra corner. The parlor 

 is easily heated, but, after much debate, 

 we found it would be im])ossible to build 

 anything there without m^ucli tearing 

 down and much expense, besides spoiling 

 our view. Finally we began to talk of 

 building something onto the chamber. 

 Our ideas were enlarged by this time from 

 a bay-window to a conservatory. 



My husband is not fond of planning, 

 and at last he told me that if I would 

 present to him a plan Avhich would not 

 mar the appearance of the house, and 

 would satisfy my requirements without 

 great expense, he vrould carry it out. So, 

 after much study, I prepared this plan, 

 which we followed. (See Fig. 1.) As 

 not a great amount of lumber was re- 

 quired, the windows were the greatest ex- 

 pense, and the whole cost, including the 

 extra sash for winter, did not exceed 



CO^s^SEEVATOEY 

 n Le Valley 



fifty dollars. The painting I did myself. 



I granted as much glass as possible with- 

 out losing in strength, so we constructed 

 the corners of Sx^L lumber (as seen in 

 Fig. 2). Between the windows we used 

 a 1x4 (as in Fig. 3). We made a double 

 floor, with paper between, and a double 

 roof, that is, the roof proper, and a ceiling 

 of the narrow lumber made for that pur- 



A 



FIG. I 



SHOW! NG HOW A BAY-WJNDOW WAS MADE INTO a 

 CONSERVATORY. 



pose. The window sills are a foot from 

 the floor and the base is double all around. 

 So, with the double windows, we shall be 

 very snug in cold weather. 



Figure 1 will sliow that there are nine 

 windows, with scarcely any obstruction of 

 light at the corners. I thought they 

 would furnish room for forty or fifty 



