The principal change
needed in the house was an additional story on the ell, which would give
a chamber eighteen by twenty-six, with closets five feet deep, to be
used as a sleeping room for the men. I intended to change the sitting
room, which ran across the main house, into a dining and reading room
twenty feet by twenty-five, and to improve the shape and convenience of
the kitchen by pantry and lavatory. There must also be a well-appointed
bathroom on the upper floor, and set tubs in the kitchen. My men would
dig the cellar, and the mason was to put in the foundation walls (twelve
inches thick and two feet above ground), the cross or division walls,
and the chimneys. He was also to put down a first-class cement floor
over the whole cellar and approach. The house was to be heated by a
hot-water system; and I afterward let this job to a city man, who put in
a satisfactory plant for $500.
We had hardly finished with the carpenter and the mason when we saw our
wagons turning into the grounds. We left the contractors to their
measurements, plans, and figures, while we hastened to turn the teams
back, as they must go to the cottage on the north forty.
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