How to Go About Planning Your Home 
THE PROCESS OF GETTING YOUR HOUSE PLAN TO FIT YOUR REQUIREMENTS—A SERIES OF PLAN 
STUDIES WHICH WILL INDICATE VARIATIONS IN PLAN AND WHICH SHOW DESIRABLE FEATURES 
BY C. E. ScHERMERHORN 
Drawings bv the Author 
A I 'HERE are no hard-and-fast 
A rules to govern the planning 
of a house ; personal habits and ideas 
are all-important factors ; what might 
be inadequate for one, might be 
perfectly satisfactory to another. 
In your contemplated house you 
likely have pondered over and con¬ 
sidered that certain requirements 
are essential. Try to formulate and 
express these ideas in such a manner 
as to obtain an intelligent compre¬ 
hension of how they will fit together; 
in other words “live in the plan” be¬ 
fore it is caused to exist in material. 
V ith simple lines, as suggested in 
the accompanying cuts, sketch out 
your ideal plan, correcting it until 
it typifies every required convenience 
adapted to every-day use for all 
those who have anything to do 
with the house, so that owners, 
guests, servants and trades-people 
shall find what they want with¬ 
out too many steps, trouble or 
conflict in the working of general 
household machinery. Study 
over these plans; various features 
are typified and can readily be 
reasoned out, thus avoiding the 
impossible and impractical. Con¬ 
sider the diverse points between 
which the most traveling is done; 
bring them together without con¬ 
flicting, so that you get directness, 
with each room in natural rela¬ 
tion to the other, with the object 
of avoiding passing through one 
room to reach another. Provide 
for direct but independent means 
of communication 
between kitchen and 
front door; if pos¬ 
sible the pantry or a 
lobby should inter¬ 
vene, in order to ef¬ 
fect privacy and the 
prevention of kitchen 
odors permeating the 
house. 
Avoid irregulari¬ 
ties in floor levels, 
the confusion as to 
the “hand” of doors 
when hung (that is, 
whether they should 
open right or left to 
A typical example of a small, one-chimney, four-bedroom house with 
bath. It provides a front porch with side terraces, stair hall, large 
living-room with fireplace in an ingle nook. The kitchen is isolated 
from the house proper by means of two doors, thus also permitting 
the owner to go to cellar without going through kitchen. The want 
of a pantry backstairs and a laundry is to be noted, but the gen¬ 
erous-sized bedrooms, with closet space and admirable main stair 
location, is considered a compensation 
A good example of a “large-small" house with three bedrooms and a bath, hav¬ 
ing a center hall, a pantry available to hall and dining-room, and a wing 
containing kitchen and pantry. All bedrooms are convenient to the hall, 
and there is a room for use as either a study or a dressing-room. The rear 
chimney could be eliminated if a gas range were used in lieu of the coal 
range, hot water coming from a generator located in basement 
Many square feet of house area can be saved by means of a plan having the staircase in a semi-center 
hall; causing independent backstairs to be immediately available from the service portion of the house. 
This type of plan has many other economical features, bathroom over pantry and in close proximity to 
hot-water source, permanent refrigerator location opening on a rear porch, outside cellar-way, a sewing 
nook in second floor, hall and bedrooms of generous proportions and very accessible to the hall 
avoid interfering with closet doors 
or projections), introduction of 
windows in staircases, any chimney 
not being perpendicularly continuous 
from its foundation and incon¬ 
sistent in its location to provide 
for heater, range and fireplace flues. 
Place the main stairway in the most 
advantageous position, consider its 
accessibility, its ventilation-affording 
possibilities, the head room under the 
floor construction, provisions for a 
turning space on landings, also easy 
step risers and generous treads. 
Express your desire for an out¬ 
side cellarway, the rear or other 
porch, the outside toilet, facilities 
for introducing ice to a refrigerator 
either from outside or so located as 
to eliminate the necessity for a 
journey with dripping ice through 
the kitchen or other apartment. 
Plan to be orderly in arrange¬ 
ment, consider convenience of, 
position for, and light on sink, 
range and laundry tubs. Locate 
your kitchen or other dresser, 
cold room, grocery closet, 
your exterior wash-paves and 
hydrants. 
The importance of the veranda 
or porch should not be lost 
sight of; it should be of a generous 
width and judiciously roofed so 
as not to darken, too much, the 
rooms upon which it encroaches, 
as it is easier to shut out the 
light than to let it in. 
Consider exposure to sun or 
light, direction of prevailing 
breezes and the gen¬ 
eral outlook or pros¬ 
pect from the house; 
the type of artificial 
light and heating, 
keeping in mind lo¬ 
cation and height of 
outlets and radiators 
for effectiveness and 
furnishing. Realize 
that plumbing econ¬ 
omy is dependent on 
the close proximity 
and directness of 
supply and soil pipes, 
therefore endeavor 
to group fixtures on 
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