The average type of brick wall showing air space 
between brick shell and plaster lining 
A plaster wall requires many more constituents — if 
hollow-tile is not used in it 
WALLS 
FROM THE 
OUTSIDE IN 
CONSIDER THE ADAPTABILITY 
AND NATURE OF EACH TYPE 
BEFORE PLANNING YOUR 
HOUSE 
O F what shall we have the walls of the new house? She 
likes white paint; you like brick, and your oldest daughter 
is just crazy about plaster covered with vines. It is hard to de¬ 
cide. The houses of white clapboards are certainly attractive, 
while brick and stone have a pleasant, substantial look, and 
plaster, even without the vines, has a charming texture and is 
most cheerful in its spotlessness. 
They all have their advantages and their adherents, but, after 
all, it is a matter that will often settle itself. If any of the his¬ 
toric styles are to be used, the wall material will not usually allow 
of much latitude. For 
instance, the New 
England Colonial will 
usually call for clap¬ 
boards a n d white 
paint, whereas this 
treatment would be a 
great solecism in any 
of the English styles. 
However, this is not 
quite so simple, for 
at the present time 
there is much excel¬ 
lent work being done 
that makes no at¬ 
tempt whatever to 
copy slavishly any of the past architectural styles. It takes toll 
of them all in a greater or lesser degree, but the result refuses 
to be pigeon-holed under any of the old accepted labels. The 
shingled-all-over country houses done in the last twenty years 
in the East come under this head, as do these charming hybrid 
houses which are so elusively suggestive of Colonial, French and 
Italian work, but which are none of them, and almost form a 
style in themselves, except that they as yet refuse to be standard¬ 
ized. 
It is then in this free house type of building that we may make 
our walls of what we 
choose, trusting to 
the restraint of a 
trained taste to keep 
the result congruous; 
which brings us to 
the conclusion that if 
one chooses to build 
in an historical style 
he must be prepared 
to accept the restric¬ 
tions which such an 
acceptance imposes. 
However, let us ex¬ 
amine a moment the 
most common walls 
Two types of walls used successfully in a farm building—shingle with an end wall of field stone that 
“ties up" with the roadside and stableyard walls 
35 
