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Page 73
COUNTRY HOUSES73
lane leading up to the house, or flower boxes within. Often an old wooden house, that has no porch, is doubly charming for that very reason, and its exterior design should not be disturbed. But where a new porch is definitely indicated, the flooring^may be made to imitate red tile, and its supporting columns should be of the simplest possible design. Reed or willow furniture may be used inside as well as outside; they can be mixed in a living room with almost any pieces one already has, and they add to the pleasantness of a simple place rather than detract, from it, as some mixtures do.
Nearly all old houses of the smaller variety have front doors that open directly into the center hall. A greater degree of comfort can be secured by building an extra door three and a lialf or four feet beyond the door of entrance, so as to make a little vestibule that in cold weather will take the first gust and prevent it from chilling the entire house. Through this second door one enters the house proper generally through the hall, though sometimes, very comfortably, directly through the main living room.
A regrettable point in the construction of all but the best houses of twenty-five to fifty years ago is that they are made up of too great a number of small rooms. It seems to have been incumbent upon the builder to provide a drawing room or parlor, a living room or a library and very often some extra room of the sort besides. Upon the more elaborate of these chambers the wretched craftsmanship of untutored and unskilled cabinet-makers was bestowed. The less pretentious rooms were made up of a medley of odd
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74INTERIOR DECORATING
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