Beside the vestibule, with its connected entrance hall, the first story of this Craftsman House contains three rooms.
Of these the living room occupies the most prominent position in the plan.
It is large and well lighted, sufficiently divided from the entrance hall to assure a desirable degree of privacy, and yet so easily communicating with the other portions of the house as to remove all impression of isolation.
Note – This photo is not representative of the floor plan shown below. See Craftsman House Plan for exterior view.
The interior “trim” of the lower rooms is of chestnut, a wood chosen for its susceptibility to a satin-like finish. It is stained here to a color quite resembling the shell of its own fruit.
The living room is wainscoted to a medium height and paneled, having above it a plaster frieze and ceiling left rough and tinted: the frieze showing gray-green and the ceiling a lighter shade of the same color.
Against this quiet background, the chimney piece of dark burned brick projects with strong accent.
Above the fireplace, a narrow wooden shelf is supported upon brick corbels, and, at either side of the chimney, there are wide, long settles.
These, like all the remaining cabinet-work contained in the room, correspond in shade with the wainscoting.
They have leather cushions of a rich water-green; this color being strengthened by proximity to the ruddy brick of the chimney.
Within easy reach of the settles, there are inviting book-shelves, above which the rather small mullioned windows produce a distinctively English effect.
The chimney piece, with the bookshelves and window at either hand, occupy the entire end facing the wide entrance from the hall; then, another neighboring and single window pierces the side of the room forming the front of the house; while, farther toward the main entrance of the house, there is a series of four of the same pleasing windows, joined together, and having the upper half mullioned and the lower half left in a single large pane to allow the free passage of light.
The textiles suggested for use in the living room are pleasing, simple and comparatively inexpensive. A Scotch rug, occupying a large area of the floor space, shows a scheme of warm browns and greens, heightened with yellow. The door hangings are of plain green canvas with hemstitched borders in self-color, and the curtains are of natural linen, hemstitched with green linen floss.
The Craftsman Style dining room, as is observed in the plan and in the interior shown, differs from the ordinary treatment in having a series of windows cut high in the wall on one side.
This device serves to diffuse the light, and, at the same time, to give the room an old- time air, suggestive of many pleasant trains of thought.
Here, the wainscoting reaches the same height as in the living room. Above it, the plaster frieze shows a mellow pomegranate tone with the ceiling differing from it only in being lighter.
The furniture of this room, in common with all the movables of the first story, is made from brown fumed oak, so treated as to present a surface exquisite by its sheen, and its “watered” fabric-like patterns resulting from the care taken to preserve the grain of the wood as Nature has left it.
The pieces comprise a large round table with simple, squared legs; a number of equally plain chairs with rush seats; a serving table, and above it a precisely corre- sponidng plate-rack.
The textiles are again unobtrusive: among these is a rug in tones of red, having here and there its pattern defined in contrasts of green and tracings of old-ivory. The windows are hung in the same Craftsman linen fabric, suggested for use in the living room, and the electroliers are again in copper, to which an iridescent surface has been given by a special process.
In the house plan of the second story, much thought has been exerted to assure the comfort and to maintain the order of the house. As, for example, large storage closets have been secured by economizing for this purpose the spaces under the eaves, which, owing to the pitch of the roof, are unusually large.
The “trim” of the second story is the same throughout, being of Carolina pine. In the bed-rooms this wood is stained green, while the wainscoting of the bathroom, three feet high, is enameled in white.
The colors of the walls in the various bedrooms vary from warm to cool, according to the exposure. The furniture should be severely simple in structure, and set in the positions indicated in the plan, so as best to utilize the given space.
The textiles advised are linens in plain colors for curtains, counterpanes, covers and pillows, or nearly plain cotton fabrics for the same uses. The rugs should be small, repeating the colors used elsewhere in the room, but not too pronounced in pattern, or “spotty” in effect.
Several important details remain to be noted. Among these, that the floors throughout the first story are of Georgia pine, stained to a dark brown, and that the woodwork of the kitchen and its dependencies is of the Carolina variety of the same wood.
The walls and the wainscoting of the kitchen, both of Portland cement, are painted in warm yellow, in order to place the domestic workers in surroundings suggesting sunshine, and thus to lighten the depressing effect of fatiguing and exacting labor.
It must not be omitted that the ceilings of the first floor are eight feet six inches in height, and those of the second story eight feet precisely, these moderate dimensions favoring economy of heat.
Making Authentic Craftsman Furniture: Instructions and Plans for 62 Projects
