T HE lure of the bargain-counter lies over us all — over you, sir, 
just as strongly as over madame, your wife. No, I’ll admit 
you don’t spend five dollars’ worth of time, temper and vitality 
to buy a yard of I2^c. stuff for n%c.; but you do chase rain¬ 
bows even more industriously, when it’s a question of building 
your house. You are going to get a home at a most wonderfully 
low cost—you are going to buy your material yourself, and hire 
your own workmen, and employ all sorts of startling innovations. 
Likewise (though you don’t know it) you are going to buy some 
very valuable experience — and pay full price for it, too! 
I have tried all ways of building; and absolutely the cheapest 
way is to have one general contract to cover everything. Make 
one man respon¬ 
sible, and then 
hold him respon¬ 
sible. Otherwise 
you’ll be met with 
the endless cry, 
‘“That’s not my 
fault!” The 
workmen make a 
glaring mistake, 
for example; to 
correct it will 
waste your mate¬ 
rial most shame¬ 
fully—but nobody 
is responsi¬ 
ble ! Some enter¬ 
prising small boys 
enter the un¬ 
guarded building, 
and merrily do a 
few hundred dol¬ 
lars’ worth o f 
damage; of 
course the fore- 
m a n ought to 
have locked the 
door, but he didn’t, and as a result nobody is responsible! 
Not so long since, I overheard two mechanics talking: 
“Say, the boss’s doin’ this here job by the day, ain’t he?” 
‘‘No, by contract.” 
“Oh, that’s a different story; we want to quit loafin’, then, an’ 
git a move on us; didn’t know it was a contract job!” 
Such a conversation is characteristic, and merely shows that 
anyone not fully familiar with the details of building is certain 
to be very much disappointed when he launches himself in the 
midst of its complexities. 
But there is a way of cutting the cost of the small house — - 
Economical Design. The saving that one can effect by proper 
care in this is sometimes very startling indeed. For instance, I 
recently planned two houses; in one I was left free to follow my 
own inclinations, but in the other I wasn’t. The cost of the first 
was $1.67 per square foot of floor area, whereas the second was 
$2.19, an increase of over thirty per cent.! 
Now, the saving wasn’t in any one large item: it was in a 
great number of small items. These are worth considering. 
Here are cross-sections through two small houses. There’s 
just about the same 
amount of space 
in each, but I’ll 
wager that the one 
at the left will cost 
fully twenty per 
cent, more than the 
other. The rooms, 
for instance, are 12 
feet wide, just 8 
inches too much 
for a 12-foot joist, 
and so the next 
size — 14-foot — 
must be used, 
thereby wasting 16 
inches. The house 
at the right is made 
a trifle narrower, 
and we use 12-foot 
joists with no 
waste at all. So 
with the rafters: 
we just can’t use 
20-foot lengths in 
the first house, and 
have to use two 12- 
footers — 22-foot rafters are very seldom carried in stock. That 
means additional labor and material for bracing and splicing, 
whereas the slant of rafters in the other design is so adjusted 
that 20-foot sticks are just long enough. 
The eaves of the first house are open, with finished show- 
rafters of 3" x 6" yellow pine; the second house has closed eaves, 
carried by rough pieces of 2" x 3". That also means the omission 
of 4 feet of brick wall. Finally, the right-hand house has sloping 
These two houses containing about the same amount of space show a considerable difference in 
cost. The design at the left cannot use stock lengths of joists and rafters as can that at the right. 
This latter shows possible saving in walls at the eaves and in construction of dormers 
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