THE LESSONS LEARNED IN BUILDING SIX SIMILAR HOUSES APPLIED TO THE SEVENTH—A SMALL COUNTRY 
HOUSE OF MODERATE COST AND MAXIMUM CONVENIENCE—HINTS ON BUILDING METHODS AND MATERIAL 
by Claude H. Miller 
Photographs by the Author 
A PERFECT bungalow should combine all the conveniences 
of living of a modern city apartment with all the joys of 
living in the country. While our bungalow is not perfect, it 
approaches this ideal state sufficiently to impel me to tell about it. 
Every bungalow has two inherent defects. One is that, being all 
on one floor—including sleeping 
rooms—the women folks are apt to be 
timid when the lord of creation hap¬ 
pens to be detained at business or is 
performing his duties as deputy grand 
goat herder at the lodge each week. 
The other defect is that, for a given 
amount of floor space, a one-story 
house costs more than a two-story 
house. A watch-dog solves one of 
these problems and a pocketbook the 
other. 
Someone has suggested that the 
origin of the word “bungalow” goes 
back to the time when the first man 
built one of these elusive habitations 
and then tried to live in it. One day 
the worm of illusion turned, and his 
wife had just discovered that not only 
was it necessary to escort the ice-man 
through the living-room to get to the ice-box, but that the lifetime 
practice of a Saturday-night bath would have to be abandoned 
because the pump was never working, tearfully exclaimed “a 
bungle — oh !” The rest of the remark was lost in tears. 
I have built seven bungalows. Having practiced on my neigh¬ 
bors for the other six, I felt that some of the mistakes in their 
houses would be corrected in mine. The result is that we have a 
home that, after a year, does not disclose any glaring defects to 
remedy when I build the eighth. We can see lots of other ways 
that we might have arranged the rooms, but things that are dif¬ 
ferent are not necessarily better. 
To begin with, we disregarded the 
Scriptural warning, and built on the 
sand. Thus we are insured perfect 
drainage and a big hustle to make our 
lawn look as well as Jones’, who built 
on a clay subsoil. The foundation is 
of concrete. We have a cellar large 
enough for a steam furnace, coal bin 
and storage room for preserves, veg¬ 
etables and a barrel of hard cider. 
Our bungalow was intended for year- 
round occupancy, and is built on solid 
foundations instead of the customary 
piers of most small summer houses. 
We provided the frame—the so-called 
dimension timbers — from native 
chestnut which grew on our place. 
All tree lovers know from bitter ex¬ 
perience that the chestnut trees are 
doomed. We, therefore, cut ours 
down and sent them to the local saw-mill, thus obtaining all the 
framework of the house at a cost of $16.00 per 1,000 feet, instead 
of $32.00, which is the price of hemlock at the lumber yard. 
There was sufficient field stone on the place for stone founda¬ 
tions, but the cost would have been about 25% higher than con¬ 
crete, for the reason that all of the boards and 2 by 4 joist that 
Economy is attained by so placing one chimney that it serves a 
fireplace, the stove and the furnace 
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