HOUSE AND GARDEN 
August, 
I9D 
thin cement can be poured 
in between the joints, 
either filling them or else 
allowing a little space to 
remain to be filled up with 
gravel or sand or a nat¬ 
ural accumulation of dust, 
thus avoiding the bleached 
and bald appearance of 
concrete. Varied interest¬ 
ing effects in brick floors 
can be secured by the pat¬ 
tern in which the bricks 
are set. They may be laid 
on edge in twos and threes 
at right-angles, forming a 
quarry design, or set her¬ 
ring-bone, or in a dozen 
other ways, according to 
the ingenuity and decora¬ 
tive taste of the porch 
builder. 
A cement or concrete 
floor has the great advan¬ 
tage of being easily kept clean, but in certain conditions of the 
weather it will always collect surface dampness and is apt to be 
cold, so that the use of some sort of rugs or mattings is almost 
imperative. Concrete porch flooring will be laid exactly the 
same as a concrete sidewalk. 
Stone flooring is susceptible of much variety of treatment. 
According to the character of the house the stones may be rough, 
so long as they are approximately flat, with wide joints or care¬ 
fully dressed and set close. The rough stone flooring is particu¬ 
larly suitable for porches of the overhang-trellis or pergola type. 
The stones may be laid in the style the English people call “crazy” 
paving, that is, random shapes and random sizes, or rectangular 
stones of random sizes may be used, exactly in the manner of a 
paved garden path. The latter style is, perhaps, preferable. For 
a stone floor it is not necessary to prepare so deep a bed as for 
brick, concrete or tile. In fact, when used for an overhang- 
trellis or pergola porch 
the stones may be laid di¬ 
rectly on the earth with 
perfectly satisfactory re¬ 
sults. In some cases, 
however, a shallow con¬ 
crete bed may be advisa¬ 
ble. With either “crazy” 
or “rectangular random” 
paving the joints between 
the stones, of course, can¬ 
not be very close. . 
A tile floor must be laid 
in cement or mastic. 
There is no end to the 
variety of colors and pat¬ 
terns available in the dif¬ 
ferent sorts of tiling. One 
very satisfactory kind of 
floor may be made of the 
large red quarry tiles, set 
in mastic, so much in fa¬ 
vor for flooring roof gar¬ 
dens. All the tiles must 
have a carefully prepared deep bed. When the porch is above 
ground level it must be bounded by a substantial and well set cop¬ 
ing of stone, concrete or brick. 
In all cases, whether on ground level or above it, the surface 
must be given enough outward slant to insure perfect drainage 
of any water that may get on. In an intramural porch, inasmuch 
as it is an integral portion of the house, it seems more fitting to 
use for the floor some such durable material as one of those just 
mentioned, rather than wood. With a built-on porch, on the 
other hand, wood makes a perfectly satisfactory flooring, more 
so, oftentimes, than the heavier substances. Overhang-trellis or 
pergola porches, however, should be paved and not boarded, 
owing to their exposure to the weather. 
Considered from all points, the best wood to use for porch 
flooring is Georgia yellow pine. For the porch posts, if they are 
to remain their natural color and have merely a coat of oil or 
spar varnish, either cypress or Georgia 
pine will prove satisfactory. If, on the 
contrary, the posts are to be painted, 
they had better be of white pine or pop¬ 
lar, preferably the former, although it 
is becoming very scarce. The practice 
of setting wooden porch pillars on 
blocks of stone, rising an inch or two 
above the floor, is advisable for pre¬ 
venting rot. For painting the porch 
floor, deck paint may be strongly rec¬ 
ommended. 
If it is intended to utilize the porch 
as a kind of outdoor living-room in 
summer, or if it is to be enclosed for a 
sun-room for winter, it is necessary to 
have a ceiling. Tongued-and-grooved 
yellow pine is suitable for this purpose. 
It is desirable, generally speaking, to 
have a ceiling unless the aim be to cut 
down expense, under which circum¬ 
stances the rafters and under side of 
the roof can be made presentable. 
For any kind of lattice work use pine 
strips. The pattern and closeness of 
the lattice will be determined by indi¬ 
vidual taste or the necessitv of the oc- 
Separate porch roofs may be avoided in such designs as permit of the main house roof being ex¬ 
tended to cover the porch 
Wicker ware and rattan are among the materials best adapted to porch furniture. 
as they withstand exposure to sun, rain and dampness 
