Treatment of the Staircase. 85 ard the baluster side? Toward the top a space is discernible between the wainscoting and the stair, and in fear and trembling the last few steps are mounted. Double stairs throughout make the best result, although one bent on economy cannot order them. The tread of all stairs is best made of oak. Whether the stairs are left uncarpeted or not, it is serviceable and enduring. A twelve-inch tread. is most acceptable and gives one a feeling of security in descending that can be produced in no other way. An agreeable width. from wall to baluster, allowing for the passage of two persons together, or for meeting and passing, is fifty-two inches. The height of the step has much to do with comfort in mounting; too short a distance gives a feeling of impotent effort, and too high a step is exhausting. Seven and one-half inches is the best for both comfort and efficacy. The selection of the balusters is so much a matter of individual taste that there is but little advice to be given on the matter, except a caution against all heavy effects. Simple, welldrawn newels, slender balusters and hand-rail give the effect of lightness and strength which stairs in small houses should have. Heavy details are in good taste only where the amount of space warrants them. The regal stairway, ten or more feet broad, mounting to a plateau and then dividing, with Staircase in Wadsworth House, Geneseo, N. Y. a return on either side, naturally requires totally different treatment. A detail which contributes to the beauty of the stair is the exposed construction on the under side. The old method of smoothing it over with plaster and decorating with fresco gave an effect of heaviness which is now superseded by panelling the under side with wood, following the profile of the stair. A pretty addition is the setting of a bracket under each step at the outer edge. This may be of wood or plaster, as its only function is ornamentation. A wainscoting against the wall, as high as the balusters, is a handsome addition to a flight of stairs, but almost as good about which it seems useless to exert caution. A substitute has come into the market which has the advantage of an effect can be gained by a simple hand-rail of wood, which is far less expensive. As the house progresses it will be non-combustibility. It is made of seen that each succeeding step makes ir- sheets of tin slashed in regular cuts and half pulled open like the "fish-nets" children cut from paper. It is used for protection near heater flues, and is nailed on to the joists in sheets, and the plaster takes hold in the interstices. Three coats are put on in the process of plastering. The first is of mortar, and, while still soft, is unevenly marked in long lines, and is called the scratch. coat. After this is a finer mixture put on with a smooth face, and is known as browning, from its color. The finishing coat is the white surface we all know so well and are in such haste to cover when occupying a new house. Two-coat plastering is done to lessen expense, but is not to be recommended, except in the use of prepared plaster. Rock or adamant are prepared plasters which are put on in either one or two coats. They set perfectly hard in twenty-four hours, and can be delicately tinted before applying. It is well to know that this sort of plaster is so hard that small nails and tacks cannot be driven into it for securing the light mural decorations with which walls are sometimes spotted. Mortar and plaster dampen the wood used in the construction of the house, and cause, perhaps, a twisting of the beams, cracking of the walls, opening of mitres, etc. To avoid as much as possible these disasters, a low fire should be kept in the furnace from the time the plastering is finished. After the side walls and ceiling are plastered, the running of the cove is the finishing process. The disposition of architects and artisans is to make this an elaborate feature of the room, and, if permitted, will make a series of lines Laths are the same everywhere-a which torture the eye and harbor dust, cheap necessity of every building as well as offer unrestrained opportu The Best Substitute for Inlaid Flooring. nity for some color-mad decorator. Quite the prettiest treatment is the smooth concave cove, absolutely without ornament, connecting wall and ceiling in a graceful curve. It offers no lodgement for dust or germs, and, with a picture-moulding a foot or two below, gives the effect of a dome ceiling. Anyone who has tried to have a pine floor stained for the use of rugs comes to appreciate the use of narrow boards. Every well-constructed floor has a first course of wide boards, but these serve only as a basis for the Floors. 87 to the shade of ash or natural oak. Too dark a finish is more difficult to keep in order than a lighter one. Parquet floors are best when simple. A handsome centre is lost under its covering of rugs, and an elaborate border wears less well than a plainer one. The greater the number of sections used in the pattern, the greater is the danger of springing with wear. High-cost houses adopt for some uses floors of Italian mosaic. When designed for vestibules, entrance halls, bathrooms, conservatories, etc., the stuff, two inches wide, that makes the top. A layer of asbestos paper between will be found to deaden the sound. The top layer of boards-if only two inches wide-is the best substitute for inlaid flooring, and in country or suburban houses answers quite as well if one little point is observed. For a distance of two feet (or even less) from the wall, let the boards run straight around the room, with mitred corners. This gives a neat border of parallel lines suitable for a large rug or even a square of bordered carpet. To finish the pine in its natural color would give too light an effect, so the dressing should darken it blocks are selected according to color and secured in patterns on sheets of heavy paper. These are set firmly in beds of cement and polished to an even smoothness. This process is, of course, expensive, and suitable only for the conspicuous parts of a house, but a cheaper substitute makes the best possible floor for kitchen, laundry, and servants' bathroom. A twelve-inch border is laid of blocks in one color in even rows, and the entire centre is of small broken marble, mixed with cement, as gravel is mixed with tar for concrete walks. After it is set and rubbed down it has a gray-pink mot Isolation and Concentration of Plumbing. traps and cut-offs, for individual Chamber Childs Room taste as well as individual pocketbooks must regulate the choice in porcelain and silver fittings. Every plumber has innumerable designs for faucets of basins and tubs, and various schemes for opening and closing the escape pipe and dispensing with the old chain and stopper. Choose the simplest and you will be better pleased in the end. This applies especially to the stoppers, for any intricacy in construction means a frequent disarrangement, not only an Guest Room Mantel in hall of house shown in Fig. 10. noying, but expensive. Oval basins will be found more commodious than round ones, but choose only those with the outlet in the centre, as the others are more difficult to keep clean. The matter of isolation is one which cannot be too well carried out. A stationary basin in each bedroom used to be the rule, an unsightly affair, sometimes occupying a position of honor, and sometimes restricted to a small triangular stand in one corner, but always a menace to the person sleeping in that room. Plan the plumbing, then, with a view to having its outlets as isolated as possible from liv 89 ing-rooms and sleeping-rooms, even at the risk of inconvenience. Concentration of plumbing is an outcome of the effort at isolation. Having dispensed with too frequent basins, almost all water privileges are confined to the bathroom, which must open directly on the outer air. In fact, the entire water of the house should be confined to the bathrooms, butler's pantry, kitchen, laundry, and a sink in the cellar for carrying away the refrigerator drip and supplying water for the furnace if there is no tank attachment. The number of bathrooms in a house is only limited by the amount of space the owner is willing to sacrifice and the amount of money he is willing to expend. It is not only interior space, but exterior space, that must be given up, China closet in dining-room of house shown in Fig. 10. |