FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39  
40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   >>   >|  
tone chimney needed repair. It was propped up and made thoroughly safe, and the old roof was entirely-rebuilt, but the original lines were closely followed. Viewing the house as it stands to-day, one realizes what attractive apartments can be evolved from ugly interiors, and what interesting results ingenuity and good judgment can bring about. The interior showed coat after coat of vivid tint and layer after layer of atrociously colored wall-paper. The rooms, originally large and square, had been divided and partitioned off to meet the needs of growing families; many of them were small and hopelessly unattractive. But there were latent possibilities. When the house was first purchased, the owner went over the inside herself to discover the original lines. As in many houses of the kind, it was easy to restore the size of the room by following beams and knocking out partitions. It must be remembered that the usual plan in houses of that period was to construct a large, square room in the center with small rooms opening off from it which were used as chambers. The work of decorating, and, as far as possible, the remodeling itself, was done by Mrs. William Otis Kimball and her brother. Along the front of the house a screened, outdoor living-room has been added. The original building consisted of four rooms on the first floor. The front door opened into a small hall, to the right of which was the great living-room, and to the left the dining-room. Back of the former was a guest room, and back of the latter the old kitchen. [Illustration] [Illustration: Two Views of the Living Room] In the living-room, the flooring, which was composed of boards often two feet wide, was in such good condition that it was left intact, treated to a black walnut stain, and shellacked. The height of the ceiling was but seven feet; so the heavy beams of swamp oak were boxed in and painted white, and the space between whitewashed. The walls, which were covered with ten tiers of paper, each one uglier than the last, were cleared to the boarding. The last one was found to be a wonderfully fine landscape paper, which showed that an early owner of the house must have been a person of means, who probably had it brought over in one of the merchant-ships during the time of commercial prosperity, when Newburyport had a lively trade with foreign lands. The walls were treated with a water paint colored a creamy pumpkin tint that makes the room se
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39  
40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

living

 

original

 

treated

 
Illustration
 
showed
 

colored

 
square
 

houses

 

walnut

 

height


ceiling
 

shellacked

 

intact

 

condition

 

composed

 
dining
 

opened

 

flooring

 

boards

 
Living

kitchen

 
commercial
 

prosperity

 

merchant

 

brought

 

Newburyport

 

creamy

 
pumpkin
 

lively

 

foreign


person

 

whitewashed

 

covered

 

painted

 

landscape

 

wonderfully

 

uglier

 

cleared

 

boarding

 

remodeling


divided

 

partitioned

 

originally

 

interior

 

propped

 

atrociously

 
growing
 

families

 

latent

 

possibilities