HOUSE AND GARDEN 
1 5 2 
November, igog 
easy chair; the table alone or the chair alone will not suffice; 
you must provide the combination. 
Then you will want plenty of chairs, a settle or two, with 
cushions that one does not have to handle tenderly, and plenty 
of growing things. With the whole outdoors in its winter sleep, 
the presence of some real, live green will be appreciated as at no 
other time. Have some ferns, on the window ledge and in hang¬ 
ing baskets; some primroses and begonias in brass bowls or 
pottery, and some narcissus bulbs forced into winter bloom in a 
bowl of pebbles and water. 
But this is not all. If the sun room is to be of use at all times 
throughout the cold months there will have to be some provision 
for heating it. That sounds difficult, on the face of it, but in 
reality it is not such a hard thing to accomplish after all. If you 
have hot water or steam heat, it will be a matter of no great 
moment to have a couple of new radiators connected up to stand 
along the inside wall. Few hot water or steam boilers are utilized 
to the limit of their capacity in the amount of radiation installed. 
Even with hot air as the system in use, the difficulty is not hard 
to overcome; for the duct may be led from the furnace through 
the cellar wall and up through a register in the porch floor, pro¬ 
vided the distance is not over twenty feet ; if greater, a hot 
water coil may be put in the furnace and the porch heated by 
a radiator. 
If you are fortunate enough to have a chimney on the porch 
side of the house, you are to be envied, for a new fireplace can be 
built on its outside face and the heating problem solved at once 
in the most satisfactory way of all. 
Would you like to know how much it would cost to enclose 
your own porch and save that eight per cent loss year after year? 
You can readily figure it out for yourself. The under sheathing 
for the floor may be set down at one cent a square foot, including 
the labor. The sash, all glazed, weather-stripped and framed in 
place might cost about forty-five cents a square foot. A radiator 
of average size, and fitting up, would perhaps bring up the amount 
by $40 or $60. Making a connection with a hot air furnace with 
duct and register would cost, say, $25. And if the chimney 
is at hand a new fireplace could be built on and ventilated through 
an existing flue for about $50. So there you are. Add it all up, 
allow for rugs and furniture and see how long it would take that 
eight per cent loss on the cost of your house to balance the account, 
not forgetting to put on that side of the ledger the cash value of 
the enjoyment you and your family and your friends are going 
to have in the enclosed porch or sun room. 
The Making of One Country Home 
THE ACQUISITION, RECONSTRUCTION AND OCCUPATION OF AN OLD FARMHOUSE AT REDDING 
RIDGE, CONNECTICUT—WHAT REMODELING WAS NECESSARY AND WHAT IT ALL COST 
by Jeannette L. Gilder 
Photographs by author and F. P. Sherman 
ANY years ago, in the turbulent sixties, 
I lived as a small child in the hamlet of 
Redding Centre among the hills of Con¬ 
necticut. My family had moved to that 
place from a village near New York and 
it was my first introduction to the delights 
of real country life. About two miles 
from Redding Centre was Redding Ridge, 
a hamlet of much the same size but a 
little higher up in the hills. 
When we children went out for a good walk our objective 
point was more than likely to be Redding Ridge, and this for 
various reasons: one, that at a certain large and hospitable farm¬ 
house we were sure of getting generous slices of cake and all the 
milk that we wanted to drink. The daughter of the house was 
a great horsewoman. She rode and drove the horses that she 
had herself broken to harness. What she did not know about live 
stock and farming generally was not worth knowing. Naturally 
she was a great attraction to us youngsters who regarded her 
as a veritable Di Vernon. 
For only one short year did we live at Redding Centre, then 
we folded out tents, like the Arabs, and silently, and 1 may add, 
tearfully, moved away. 
One day about five years ago, and forty since the Redding 
days, a letter bearing the post-mark Redding Ridge was handed 
me with my office mail. Although I had not seen the hand¬ 
writing since I was a young girl I recognized the characteristic 
chirography of the Di Vernon of the Ridge. The letter contained 
an invitation for me to make her a week-end visit. I answered 
by return post that I would come as sure as there was a train 
to take me, and I went. 
The next day my friend drove me over the old scenes and 
to her surprise, and to my own as well, I recognized all the old 
places and noticed every detail of change. The changes were not 
many — a “lean-to” added, a barn moved back,—small thin s 
but I noticed them all and my love of this country returned 
tenfold. I must have a place up there among the hills. 1 had 
been looking for years for a little summer retiring place, a place 
where there were no mosquitoes and no malaria and on the main 
line of a railroad, for I dislike tiresome changes once I am started 
on my journey. Although on the main line. Redding Ridge is 
seven miles, five by courtesy, from the railway station at Bethel, 
but that to me was one of its attractions. I inquired about 
property and was shown farms that could then have been bought 
for a song, but they were not what I wanted. I wanted something 
on the Ridge road not too far from my friend’s farm, for 1 should 
depend upon her for “butter and eggs and a pound of cheese.” 
I did not want much land for I did not want responsibilities. 
Something inexpensive where I could be care-free, where 1 might 
loaf and invite my soul. I found just the place but 1 could not 
have it. It was not more than a pistol-shot down the road from 
my friend’s farm, a quaint old house in good repair, with four 
fireplaces and with about two acres of land surrounding it. The 
outlying land belonged to my friend, so I would be well protected. 
But alas! the old lady who lived there had no notion of selling, 
and she was wise. She allowed me to go over the house, a most 
tantalizing performance, for the place was exactly what I wanted. 
She was old and ill and that was her home; she had lived there 
