Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1875 — Filigree Work on Farm Houses. [ARTICLE]

Filigree Work on Farm Houses.

Thk fancies of some of the rural architects (!) of this country are beyond comprehension and a good way beyond toleration by people of taste who have any regard for harmony or symmetry. Nor is it a question of bad taste simply that causes us to protest against the species of ornamentation, so-called, which shocks the wherever seen, whether in suburban towns or on pretentious homesteads. Tt is a question of economy as well.' We have known a country carpenter to spend more time and lienee involve the owner in greater expense in the manufacture of what we characterize as filigree work than in making the house convenient and filling it with labor-saving contrivances inside. It repels a sensible man or woman to see a profuse exterior decoration (intended as such), and then upon entering the home find it a bare shell with no intelligent design and no ingenuity expended in making it convenient for housework and producing contrivances for the economy of time and laoor. Often have we entered such dwellings to find them just about as inconvenient as possible. Apparently no thought or calculation had been expended in any' attempt to adapt the internal arrangement to the real wants and comforts of the family. It was a gaudy shell—a whitened sepulcher, in which all good taste, all idea of comfort, all design and adaptation for the common life and comfort was buried. Substance, not show, should be the object in the building of a farm house and home. We would not ignore chaste ornamentation, but it should be chaste and harmonious with the purpose and character of the building erected. Above all, the housewife should not be defrauded of a single cupboard, drawer or device of any sort that will lessen labor, the number of steps to be taken, or aid in the proper security and isolation of the different kinds of food that are prepared, in order that the exterior of the building may be made impressive by its ostentatious adornment. Let the surprise and delight of the guest wait until the internal arrangements and comforts of the home are realized, rather than cause the impression made by the exterior (if a favorable one is securedytb be submerged in disappointment and'disgust when the hollowness of the pretentious exterior is revealed. This is the lesson we would enforce: Don’t attempt to put on airs in rural architecture. Do make the home the cosiest and most convenient place internally that can be devised. Adorn the exterior as you can, but depend* largely upon nature to help you. Cover it with vines and climbers, and surround it with evergreens and deciduous trees and shrubs. Don’t spend money on filigree and fancy paints, but in natural decorations; but make the interior lovely.— Rural New Yorker.