Part 2

_Importance of Colour Schemes._--But what was the colour to be? The designers were thus brought face to face with that difficult but important problem which all who plan houses have to solve before they can hope to bring their work into harmonious adjustment with the various natural and human conditions that must be satisfied in the final product, if it be made a good example of the designer's art. The problem of the colour scheme is fundamental. Upon this depends not only the tone of the floors, the walls, and the ceilings, but also, to a certain extent, as has already been suggested, the kind of woods to be used in the interior finishing, and whether they are to be painted, stained, or left in their natural colours. It will determine the material and the colours of the portières, curtains, cushions, lamp shades, picture frames, vases; in fact, it will largely settle the decorative character of every article placed in the rooms. The consideration of movable objects, however, may be deferred till the more substantial and fixed elements are decided upon.

_Southern Exposures and Cool Colours._--In settling the all-important question of the colour scheme the first point to be considered was the location of the rooms with reference to light and to external surroundings. Rooms that have a southern exposure and nothing to interfere with their being flooded with sunlight need to be protected against the glare of too much light. For such rooms dull tones of colour are the best--dull browns, soft gray-greens, certain blue tones, and the medium grays--light, cool colours that counteract the overbrilliancy of direct sunlight and give a positively tempered feeling to the atmosphere of a room. Incidentally, too, perhaps because they are the tints associated with distant views, the cool colours make a room seem larger than it really is.

_Northern Exposures and Warm Colours._--Northern rooms, on the other hand, do not generally suffer from excess of sunlight and heat. Warm colours are needed in such rooms. Deep reds, rich yellows, and golden browns will seem to bring sunlight into a sunless room. Our designers noted the fact that many of the rooms in the house they were planning must be comparatively dark. The house was to face the high brick walls of the neighbouring school building, not more than twenty-five feet distant, and its principal rooms had a northern exposure. A warm colour treatment, therefore, was unquestionably needed. Should red, brown, or yellow be the prevailing tone? The deciding point was the location of the hall and its relations to the other rooms. It was, first of all, the hall, the place of welcome for the guest; but it was dark. Its walls must have the sunniest of all colours--a rich golden yellow. The same would serve the needs of the living room, or perhaps a brown with yellow enough in it to be well in tune. The dining-room could safely be darker and more luminous, in pleasing contrast with the golden yellow of the hall; but it must not be decidedly red. The ceilings of these three rooms, whether beamed or not, since they must be lighter than the walls, could have the same or nearly the same tint. This might well be a light corn yellow.

The colouring of the walls of the bedroom, bath room, and kitchen was not so important a question as the decoration of the three front rooms. Utility and sanitary conditions were important things to be considered. Light tints were decided upon, which in the bedroom might be relieved, in the finishing touches, by delicate stenciled figures in some warm tone.

_Interior Woodwork._--With the colour scheme settled it was a comparatively easy matter to decide what should be the general tone and character of the interior woodwork. The floors of the three front rooms, since they were to be closely associated, required the same solid colour, which could well be a walnut brown, darker than any of the walls. Fumed oak trimmings were thought desirable for the dining-room and gum wood for the living room, either of which could be extended to the hall; but ivory white for the living room and the hall, leaving the oak for the dining-room, found much favour. It was finally decided, however, to adopt for the three front rooms the combination of natural woods first suggested. The bedroom and bath room, where suggestions of cleanliness are peculiarly appropriate, were specified to be finished in white. Yellow southern pine was decided upon for the kitchen and its accessory rooms.

ORGANIZING THE WORK OF CONSTRUCTION

As soon as the chief features of design were decided upon, preparations were made for carrying them out in the actual work of building; for the house was not to be a "castle in air." The first step was to put these ideas on paper and work out the details of construction in clearly executed and accurately dimensioned drawings. These included, as the first to be used, the working drawings for the framing and other rough woodwork, blue print copies of which were to be put into the hands of the boys of the elementary vocational school, who were to carry out this part of the building plans.

_The Working Drawings._--A considerable number of detailed drawings had to be made before the work of construction could be wisely begun. This furnished an interesting set of problems for the mechanical drawing groups of the technical high school. The material for this work consisted of rough sketches in pencil, but with the correct dimensions as determined in the plan accepted as the result of the competition in design. These preliminary sketches required much study on the part of both boys and girls, under proper guidance, in order to find out what the elements of construction should be, what dimensions were required, and how the various parts should be put together. It was an experience of great value to all, but especially to those boys who were looking forward to architectural draughting as a possible vocation. They got an inside view of the importance, on the one hand, of accurate working drawings as a basis for good construction and, on the other hand, a practical illustration of the necessity of a thorough knowledge of constructive principles, in order to make correct working drawings. They saw that the efficient architect must be a builder, acquainted with all the detailed processes employed by the carpenter or mason, informed upon all the conditions to be met, and knowing the best ways of meeting them. They gained impressions which should help them, in studying the work of great architects, to look beyond the exterior, however pleasing it may be, for those elements of strength and beauty that characterize all good workmanship.

_How the Work Was Distributed._--It will be recalled that boys and girls were to be coworkers in the designing, planning, and building of the house. The boys were to be held responsible for the drawings, the decorating after designs made by the girls, and the higher grades of woodwork, including the finishing of the rooms and the making of the furniture. They were to do the wiring for the electric lights, the bells, and the interior telephones; and they were to install all the fixtures in connection with this wiring. Boys from the metal-working sections were to do the necessary piping for gas and water and some of the work of plumbing; but, since the laws regulating plumbing are strict and well enforced, as they should be, it was necessary to keep this most essential feature of the work under charge of licensed plumbers. But this requirement did not remove even the plumbing of the building from the field of public school work; for, fortunately, this city has a well-equipped plumbing school in the trades school department, under the direction of licensed plumbers of high standing, who were glad to have given them, as an exercise for their classes, a practical problem in house plumbing. The boys in the forging classes were not overlooked in the distribution of the work on the house. Many of the fixtures needed for use or ornament were designed to be made in the school forge shop. The girls designed and made rugs, curtains, portières, and cushions as a part of their school work in weaving and stencilling; and they contributed many decorative articles in clay, copper, leather, and other materials. Thus every technical department of the school was brought into service; for in the building of a house there is to be found something to enlist the interest of every boy and girl.

_Boy Foremen in Charge._--To bring about the right distribution of the work and to marshal the working forces effectually required the oversight and management of an experienced instructor. But much of the work of direction was delegated to competent boys. The preliminary tool work in the school shops had revealed those who were especially observant and capable as leaders, and those who worked best under specific directions. Thus the twenty boys of the vocational school who set the posts and framed the house worked sometimes in pairs--one being the chief foreman and the other the helper--sometimes in gangs of three or four under a foreman. The plan was varied according to the nature of the work in hand. When leaders of more technical knowledge and skill were needed, as was the case in setting the window frames and directing the shingling, capable boys from the technical high school were placed in charge of groups of younger boys from the vocational school. In this way the work was advanced in several directions at the same time; and the advantage was not all in the advancement of the house construction. It was a delightful and profitable experience for all the boys, not unlike that which some of them will doubtless repeat when school days are over and they take their place in the more serious affairs of life. In after years they may look back upon the first house that they helped to build and recall the part they took, their companions in the work, and the good time they had withal.

SOME DETAILS OF CONSTRUCTION

_Setting Batter Boards, Posts, and Sills._--The first step in actual construction was to mark off the lot and set the batter boards. These were made by driving three stakes to form a right angle about four feet from the point where each of the four main corners of the house was to be located. Two rough boards, one for each side of each angle, were nailed horizontally to each of the four sets of stakes, with their upper edges all brought to the same level. It is very important to set these batter boards with accuracy, since their function is to carry the lines which mark the dimensions and level of the ground floor. In the present instance their first use was to locate the concrete posts on which the sills of the house were to rest. Twenty-two of these posts, which were 4 feet long and 8 inches square, were put in position by first setting moulds or boxes, the interior dimensions of which were those of the posts, 3 feet deep in the light soil and filling them with a mixture of concrete and crushed rock. It was not thought necessary to remove the moulds after the hardening of the concrete. In fact, the sills were framed and placed in position resting on these boxes before sufficient time had been given for the concrete to harden. The sides of the boxes, however, were scored with a saw cut so that they could be easily broken off just below the ground, exposing the projecting ends of the concrete posts for about one foot. The sills were of 6 by 8-inch first quality spruce. They were set on the 6-inch face, the two long sills being spliced over posts, using a long halved joint. Mortise and tenon joints, draw-bored and pinned, were used at the corners. The floor timbers of 2 by 8-inch spruce were gained into the sills with the top faces flush with the top of the sill and crowning (_i. e._, bending) upward if at all. The spacing of the floor timbers was taken off at the sill on a strip of furring--spruce, 7/8 of an inch thick by 2 inches wide--which was moved out to the centre near the line of bridging and lightly nailed, bringing crooked timbers into line. The bridging was then nailed in, the outside last to prevent springing the sills.

Referring to the accompanying sketch (Plan A) it will be noticed that the corner posts and centres were not mortised into the sills, but were simply butted on and heavily nailed or spiked. There was a time when carpenters would have regarded such a method as altogether wrong; but those were the days of great corner posts and heavy studding, placed two or three times as far apart as is the practice now. It was thought that placing the studs 16 inches on centres, which is the common practice in modern house framing, removed the necessity of mortising into the sill. Mortising is still recognized, however, as a good thing to do and is sometimes practised by first-rate carpenters. Plan A also shows how the outside walls were trussed over openings; and Plan B shows how the corners of the building were tied by the lapping of the double plate, and how the ceiling timbers and rafters were placed on the top of the plate.

The window frame details are shown in a series of cuts (Plan C) which for the sake of completeness are drawn to show also the interior finish, not usually represented in the framing drawings. A detailed description of these features of construction is unnecessary, since the dimensions and relations of the various elements and the technical terms by which they are known are all clearly indicated in the illustrations.

In the same series of cuts a detail of the base is shown which includes the framing, the base board, and the lath and plaster. It should be stated, however, that a substitute for lath and plaster was recommended to the student architects--a new product in paper board especially designed for walls and ceilings, which it was decided to use. The use of this material removed the necessity of the "grounds" shown in the drawings and always needed as a nailing base for the wood trim when the walls and ceilings are lathed and plastered. In the detail of the dado cap, which will be found on the page of construction drawings, the dotted lines show how the cap was to be expanded into a plate rail, requiring the addition of brackets with a bed moulding between, in the finishing of the walls of the dining-room. Among these drawings will also be found a detail showing a section of the beamed ceiling finish.

It will be readily understood that none of the finishing work called for in the detailed drawings was begun until the rough carpentry on the house was practically completed. All the rough work, which included framing, boarding, shingling, laying of the lining floors, and putting up partitions, was assigned to boys of the woodworking sections of the vocational school. This is an elementary industrial or trade school, admitting from the grades below the high school boys who have attained the age of fourteen years and wish to learn some mechanical trade. It represents a new and promising experiment in American education. The building of this house furnished an excellent opportunity for the boys of this school to show the honesty of their purpose in enrolling themselves to learn the fundamentals of a trade and thus prove their right to have the chance.

So the house was built by the combined efforts of the boys and girls of the public schools of this New England city, unassisted by professional architects or paid labourers. How they carried out with their own hands the designs for decorating and furnishing the house is told in the succeeding chapters of this book, which also suggests wider applications of the principles of household decoration as possible to be made in the homes of clever boys and girls throughout the country. To carry out these suggestions will mean work--but work of a kind that gives pleasure to the worker and to many others. It was work for the young designers and builders of whom this story tells, but they said it was "great fun," and there really is no pleasure quite equal to that found in doing with one's own hands an exceptionally good thing. The true craftsmen of all time have found it so. One of these master workmen, Stradivarius, the violin maker, so George Eliot tells us, made his confession thus:

" ... God be praised! Antonio Stradivari has an eye That winces at false work and loves the true, With hand and arm that play upon the tool, As willingly as any singing bird Sets him to sing his morning roundelay, Because he likes to sing and likes the song."

II

DECORATIONS AND FURNITURE

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful--_William Morris_

The decorating and furnishing of a house have their true beginning in good architectural design. It is a mistake to proceed upon the theory that decoration necessarily implies something added for its own sake--something beautiful in itself but selected and applied without regard to the lines, spaces, and colours of the room in which it is to be placed and without considering the relation of this room to neighbouring rooms and to more remote surroundings. The truth is, a decorative object may or may not be intrinsically beautiful; but however beautiful it may be in itself, it finds its truest beauty in an appropriate setting. And the decorator who is actuated by the true spirit looks to the architect for inspiration and finds his greatest successes in acknowledging that leadership. To attempt to lead when one should follow is neither good art nor good sense.

There is danger, perhaps, that this truth may be taken too seriously. It would also be a mistake to run to the other extreme and adopt at the outset a rigid plan of decoration and furnishing, specified like contract work to be carried out and completed on a certain date soon after the house is built. The problem is one of growing interest, especially as regards furniture, pictures, and the smaller objects of use or beauty, and for its best and happiest solution requires time and study. Only the broad and fundamental features can be settled in advance. The important thing is to have the main lines, dimensions, space relations, and colour schemes settled with due regard to utility and appropriateness and, as the work of construction proceeds, to keep all details in harmony with this general plan.

THE FLOORS, THE WALLS, AND THE CEILINGS

_Colour Harmony in the Model House._--It will be remembered that the colour scheme of the hall, living room, and dining-room of our model house was settled quite early in the development of the design. Standing near the centre of the living room and looking through the hall into the dining-room, one may see at a glance how some of the details of decoration were worked out in keeping with the general treatment. The walnut brown stain of the floors gives a good foundation of colour. It flows easily into the lighter browns and yellows of all the lower wall spaces. The suggestion of olive green in the frieze of the living room offers a pleasing contrast with the prevailing browns and harmonizes well with the woodwork of this room, which, it will be remembered, was designed to be finished in gum wood. This beautiful wood, when properly treated, presents a surface of satin-like texture and soft colour tone. In the dining-room a corner of which is shown in the frontispiece, the frieze lends a warmth of colour where it is needed and is in keeping with the fumed oak trim. The wide openings into the hall from the rooms on each side of it, together with the long, unbroken lines of the beamed ceilings, give the impression of generous width. The plain wall spaces, though varied in tone and relieved of monotonous spacings by the location of the necessary doors and windows, are of great assistance in increasing the apparent size of the room. Plain walls are also the best of backgrounds for pictures. _Redecorating Old Houses._--It is, of course, true that the decorating and furnishing of a house or an apartment cannot always have a new and original architectural design as the basis for the solution of the problems involved. As a matter of fact, in the great majority of cases, the houses in which homes are made are already built and have been previously occupied. Often they are very old houses, presenting difficult and even impossible tasks for the decorator. Sometimes, however, such houses are all the more desirable if they bear the marks of age that suggest a past of dignity and charm. But the spirit which inspires the artist in decorating and furnishing a house already built is the same as that which controls his thought when he can begin with the foundation of a new and original design. His first thought is to discover how beauty may be enhanced and at the same time unity of purpose and harmony of treatment be preserved. His constant care is to avoid incongruous elements, however beautiful they may be in themselves or however appropriate in other houses. His general aim is to use his art to develop the design as it is, if there be any design at all, and make the most of it.