228

Cost of housebuilding.

above the ground for the large one, and 23 for the small, exclusive of gables. Still smaller houses in the same way will be something less per foot.

Large houses cost more for their area and height than small ones because everything in them is done more expensively: the walls will be thicker—or at least they ought to be; the beams thicker also because longer; passages and stairs larger, and more room wasted for the sake of appearance; besides the merely ornamental features which may run to any cost, far beyond the 27. a foot which ought to be sufficient for a good house containing an area of 5,000 ft. An area of 10,000 ft. will probably approach 31. a foot. But at that size it is useless to think of estimating without a plan, because such houses depend more on the fancy of the architect and his employer than smaller ones. You may easily interpolate an approximate estimate for any other size between these limits. If the heights exceed what I gave of course the cost per foot of area will be greater. Some perhaps are done for less, either under some exceptional advantages or by building in a flimsy and unsubstantial way, if not complete scamping. But probably these estimates are oftener exceeded than excessive. Up to a very large size you need not trouble yourself for this purpose about the particular plan, but make up your mind what ground floor rooms and hall you want, and their sizes; and then, however they are put together, in any plan decently compact, the expense will be much the same. Other modes of calculation, by cubical contents, may be found in books, but I have found them no more certain as to the result than mine, and considerably more complicated; and they must all be varied by local circumstances affecting the carriage of materials and other things.

Construction of Tables.

229

Dinner tables.-Though I do not propose to speak of moveable furniture generally I must make one remark about the construction of tables on a point which affects the comfort of nearly everybody who has to sit at them. It never seems to occur to table-makers that either the legs or the framing between them which carries the table can possibly be in the way of human legs which have to sit under it, and they think it may be of any depth. Further than that, in an evil hour, some genius who knew where to strike the folly of mankind, invented what he called telescopic tables, which contain a system of elaborate sliding framework all for the purpose of doing what a couple of strong sticks or bars do just as well, and better, viz.: supporting the extra leaves for turning a short table into a long one. It seems never to have occurred to anybody that the pair of sticks or bars can be put away with the leaves when they are not wanted; and if necessary, two pairs of them of different lengths, instead of all this 'telescopic' framework, which costs more pounds than the loose bars cost shillings, and seems designed with the special object of knocking people's knees, and sometimes sticking fast when the table is wanted to be expanded for a dinner party.

Not only that, but by a proper arrangement of the table legs they may be kept entirely out of the way of human legs. Over the page is a plan of such a table, with the bars and three leaves, which I have twice had made for myself. It is convenient to have one of the leaves narrower than the others in order to obtain a greater variety of sizes of table. The pieces of frame AB, CC, are only required to keep the legs stiff, not to support the table lengthwise of the grain of the wood, and AB should be of the shape shown sideways in the

230

Construction of Tables.

section, so that they may be clear above the knees of people sitting at the table. The loose bars DE, DE, are quite out of the way, and may go through AD, BC, anywhere. These tables cost also much less than telescopic ones. The common modern form of table edges is the section m, which furniture-sellers fancy makes a thin board pass for a thick one, as I suppose the authors of all the sprawling class of mouldings do, which I spoke of at p. 96. An old form and a better one is n, at any rate for a decently thick table; and thin ones are often thickened at the edge for appearance, and this equally suits them: m has the disad

vantage of practically making the table smaller than its outline, as of course nothing can be set on it beyond the square edge: it always seems to me to give a particularly mean and scamped appearance to a table.

Library tables of all kinds should only have a very shallow drawer where your legs have to go under it, and are much better with none. Cabinetmakers pretend that they are difficult to make so, but you may take my word for it that that is nonsense, whether they are tables with 'pedestals' full of drawers down each side, or only with a single drawer in depth all round. If there would be three in the length of the table, leave

Spring seats and Chairs.

231

out the middle one if you mean to sit comfortably. If only two, you must be content with making them shallow. All drawers, especially in dirty towns, must have linings, i.e. boards right through, or between each successive drawer, if you mean the things in them to be kept tolerably clean. The quantity of dust that gets in somehow over them if they are not completely inclosed is wonderful. This is one of the many differences between bad and good furniture. The front of a set of cheap drawers is nothing but a set of rails; of good ones, it looks like the drawers themselves only without their fronts.

Spring-bottomed Chairs I consider one of the worst inventions going. It never seems to have occurred to anybody that the springs which suit light people sink down into nothing under heavy ones, and of course they are all made as light and weak as possible. In my opinion the best of them are nothing like so comfortable as a well stuffed hair seat, and as soon as they get a little out of order, as the cheap ones soon do, they are intolerable. It is also a common mistake, and especially in railway carriages, to make the arms too high. A really easy arm-chair ought to be wide enough for your arms to go down within the arms of the chair, even if they are not too high. People try chairs by sitting down in them for half a minute in a shop, and are surprised to find that after half an hour the effect is very different.

Of all the contrivances for making rooms uncomfortable and useless, except for lolling in low chairs and reading books (in every sense) light, the recent fashion of abolishing a central table is the worst. Drawing rooms have become mere places for the exhibition of what are called ornaments, mostly rubbish, and a sort

232

Spring seats and Chairs.

of subsidiary green-house. And this nuisance of abolishing useful tables for useless and uncomfortable seats of various forms is extending to clubs, under the influence of either furniture-men or professors of taste and fashion. This however is beyond the scope of building, which only extends to what is called fixed furniture, and luckily these things are not.

It is generally forgotten that flowers and shrubs in a room at night make the air unwholesome, though not by day. People sometimes feel it so much that they have to remove them. A greenhouse open to the room is liable to the same objection, and to the further one that it always keeps the room damp. This should be considered in building them.