20 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
WITH MUCH TASTE AND LITTLE MONEY 
Lattices, Window-Boxes, Paint, Flowers and Bird Sticks with Very Slight Architectural Changes Made 
This Deserted Old Long Island Cottage Into a Veritable Picture House 
MARY K. FORD 
G IVEN the services of 
an architect and 
ample means wherewith to 
carry out his plan, the re¬ 
construction of an old 
house to suit modern needs 
and tastes is * a simple 
thing. But many who de¬ 
sire a country home have 
little beyond their ingenu¬ 
ity and taste to rely upon, 
and I should like to tell 
such people of a recent 
successful attempt at “do¬ 
ing over” a rather un¬ 
promising little cottage. 
A New York business 
woman found on the south 
shore of Long Island, out¬ 
side the commuting zone, a 
forlorn little house with 
some seven acres of land. 
Undisturbed by the dismal 
prophecies of her friends 
she bought the property 
and set to work to make 
the cottage habitable. It 
stood under two enormous 
walnut trees very close to 
the highway, with its side 
to the road, and consisted 
of the original buildings 
and a small addition. The 
main portion of the house 
was divided into two small 
bedrooms, a sitting-room 
with an unceiled attic 
above. The one-story ad¬ 
dition contained the dining¬ 
room and a minute kitchen, 
hardly more than a closet. 
The space over the main 
house served as a servant’s 
room and was reached by a rickety flight of steps leading from 
the kitchen. Not a prepossessing outlook, to be sure, and yet one 
in which lurked evident possibilities of future attractiveness. 
The first thing the new 
owner did was to have the 
foundations strengthened, 
and such portions of the 
floors as were too uneven 
were removed and new 
floors laid. 
Across the rear end of 
the cottage she built a one- 
story extension which con¬ 
tained a small store closet, 
a screened-in bricked porch 
for the servants, and a 
small elementary sort of 
bathroom with a station¬ 
ary washstand and tub. 
There was no system of 
plumbing—the water was 
brought in from the pump 
by hand, but it was al¬ 
lowed to run out upon the 
grass. 
The New Work 
At the side of the house, 
in continuation of the roof 
line from the extension, she 
built a large screened porch 
which opened out of the 
dining-room. This porch is 
about 8' x 16' and makes 
a charming open-air sitting- 
room and adds consider¬ 
able seating capacity to the 
house. The floor is of con¬ 
crete mixed with Venetian 
red, which gives it a soft 
pinkish tone. A large 
white canvas hammock of 
the Cape Cod variety was 
placed across one end of 
the veranda and was piled 
with pillows of white can¬ 
vas trimmed with linen striped in blue and yellow. The chairs 
and tables on the veranda were also painted dark blue, and 
the cushions matched those of the hammock. Quick-growing 
The soft effect of the white cheesecloth hung walls made a charm¬ 
ing background for the furniture and gay cushions 
The dining-room opened onto the screened porch floored with pale 
orange-colored cement 
Like all old houses the little cottage possessed a good, simple fire¬ 
place with a chimney closet 
