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The first space
to think about when you plan your country home is the outdoors.
Why live in the country if you’re not planning to enjoy your
property? Plan on porches, decks, arbors and patios that extend
your new home to the outdoors.
A kitchen porch
was a common feature on old farmhouses. Build one as an
inexpensive, outdoor kitchenette. Add a sleeping porch or
balcony to a bedroom. Plan a breezeway between your home and
garage as an outdoor family room.
There’s one way that yesterday’s
buildings had an advantage in using the land. Without modern
earth-moving equipment to level hills, builders had to carefully
carve foundations into the sides of hills. That gave level
access to the ground at two or more floors of homes, barns and
backbuildings. If you have a hillside site, use it to your
advantage. Have a quiet shady patio off of an upstairs bedroom
or a basement playroom that opens to the yard. You home will
look more at one with its site, you’ll do less damage to your
land, and you’ll get more enjoyment of the nicest space you
have.
Donald
J. Berg, AIA
from the book How to Build in The Country, 1999
The
additions of porches, verandas, bay-windows, etc., increase the
effect of cottage-houses to a very considerable degree, add much
to interior convenience and beauty, and, if put on at the time
when the building is constructed, do not materially augment the
expense. We think they are always worth their full cost, and
rarely fail to make an impression upon the eye of a purchaser.
The place
designed simply for a summer residence for the citizen, who is
obliged to be at his office or counting room daily, barring the
few weeks of summer vacation, need not be so complete in its
appointments and arrangements, as the permanent country
residence. One essential condition, however, in this case is,
that there shall be room enough, with ample verandahs, and
shaded gravel walks, which will afford opportunities for open
air exercise in all states of the weather. There is nothing,
perhaps, that interferes so essentially with the citizen’s
enjoyment of the country, as the want of facilities for out door
exercise. It is too hot or too dusty to ride or walk, before the
shower, and after its refreshment has come, it is wet and muddy.
Build spacious verandahs, shaded with vines, and well-made
walks, always firm and dry, bordered with shrubbery, or overhung
with trees.
George
E. Woodward, Cottages & Farmhouses, 1867
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