German Style House Plans

¶ A very neat and lively look has this home; and we think we may say, without being accused of self-laudation, we scarcely know of a plan in which so much convenience is united with an equal amount. of picturesque, village beauty. It was devised for the accommodation of such families as may be composed of but few members, yet are desirous of keeping pace with the modern fashionable modes of conducting household affairs.

German Style House.

Interiors

¶ Fig. 165 exhibits the divisions of the principal floor. The hall containing the staircase is 10 feet wide and is entered from without through a Gothic porch. This hall has a rear door with side lights by which it communicates with the back piazza; it has also a side passage branching off at the rear end, containing the private stairs. On the right of the entrance hall is the drawing-room A, 28 by 18 feet, with a bay window of octagonal form: the apartment B is designed for a library; it is 15 by 18 feet, and has book-closets in three corners, while the fireplace occupies the fourth, by which, except for the recessed window, the plan would be reduced almost to a regular octagon.

Plans.

¶ C is a very fine dining room, 26 by 20, with a rectangular bay window, which greatly increases its amplitude. E, 17 by 18 feet, is the kitchen: it will be observed that a very commodious butler's pantry is placed between the kitchen and dining room, which may either have communicating doors as represented, or be fitted up with a slide, to prevent as much as possible the scent of cookery from entering the dining room, a point upon which some people are much more sensitive than others. We think it certainly desirable to exclude everything that betokens the proximity of the kitchen, but there are those who look upon it as a matter of indifference.

Plans.

¶ An out-kitchen F, 9 by 16, completes the plan of the first story. Fig. 166, the second floor, corresponds with the divisions of the first. A bedroom K is placed over the kitchen, a bathroom over the pantry, and bedrooms over the other principal apartments.

Building

¶ This German style house would look better perhaps built of the lightest shade of Trenton brown stone than of any other material. This house, in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, would cost about $5000 (1861 price).

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