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Show EDITOR til another time are very apt to be left, undone. It would be far wiser to cut down in some of the hidden features that he may regard as essential, rather than to omit those which show upon the surface and which make the difference differ-ence between a box-like barracks and a home. When you stop to figure the matter out, the two or three hundred dollars additional which a man will have to borrow In order to include those items which will make his home attractive will at most add eighteen to twenty dollars a year to the interest inter-est charges which he will have to pay, while they will add fully a thousand thou-sand dollars to the price he can realize real-ize for the house, or five dollars a Mr. William -V ltri'lfonl v.i!l utiswor riu.'Htlons sum! i;iv.t iiilvieu J'RKK OP COST on :c 1 1 Hiiliii:t! pvrtairifn? to fc-.ihj.vt of buil-'ing, for Hut readers o!' litis paper. On account of his wide experience ns ICilHor, Author mid Manufacturer, lie Is, without doubt, the highest authority en all IIiphu .subjects. Address nil Inquires tn WfMlr'm A. Radford, N'o. 17S West I Jackson boulevard, Chicago, 111., anil only enclose two-cent stanin for reply. Ron! estate dealers and speculative builders in the larger cities and suburban sub-urban (owns have long realized that every dollar spent in making more attractive at-tractive the interior of the houses that they oiler will ccme back ten-fold in the Inc-e.iEC ;! selling price that can be oblained or the larger rental that can be asked.. ; This is something which the home ', builder who has but a limited amount j, to invest, or the builder in the smaller j towns, does not always realize. In- 1 deed, It really pays better in the end j to cut down the size of the house if it ; should become necessary to econo- j mize, rather than to omit any features which add to the selling value of the property. One may say that he is building a house for himself, that he has no in-, in-, tention of selling, but expects to live In the house for the rest of his life and can do without the frills if only the house is big enough to accommo date the actual needs. What, therefore, there-fore, is the necessity of considering belling or rental value? There is an old and very true proverb that "man proposes, but Gcd disposes;" and though a man may be building a home, circumstances may in time arise that make the sale or renting of the house imperative, and every feature that adds to its selling or rental value will be doubly appreciated. appre-ciated. Death may make it necessary to sell the house in order to settle the estate. Business reasons that cannot be foreseen often compel a man much against his inclinations to move to some distant part of the country; and 1 have found out by personal experience experi-ence that there is nothing more unsatisfactory un-satisfactory as an investment than j J I Bed Rm . j ( W DATH 66 W I p-'-xW HALL -52. J ' I BedRm I I 150-XIO'O- j I J ' t Ti -' Second Floor Plan month perhaps more to the amount of rent he could get for it. Attractive wall papers, while adding much to the selling value of the house that is erected as a real estate speculation, specu-lation, especially when chosen with a gooc" taste and artistic feeling "that is now possible to command even with the low-cost papers can be better left, for the future than any other item which the home builder needs to consider. con-sider. Wall paper must be renewed every few years at best, and the paper-hangers paper-hangers are no more objectionable to have about the house than the scrubwomen scrub-women that seem to be an inevitable if J ' real estate which is so far away that the owner cannot see for himself whether repairs asked for by the tenant ten-ant are really needed or not, but must be compelled to depend upon the word of the real estate agent, whose interests inter-ests seem often to be rather with the tenant than with the landlord. At such a time, the owner realizes that anything which by catching the eye and the fancy of the prospective purchaser pur-chaser makes a house sell more readily readi-ly is something decidedly to his advantage. ad-vantage. The man who is compelled to borrow bor-row money in order to build his house usually endeavors to keep the sum .. ;at he borrows down to the lowest issible notch, and will cut down -lerever he can in order to accom- h this object. But it is possible to y hls pruning too far. To the Porch I T KlTCHEJS 1 Dining Rm. a ix:ow' i'(rxi3'0- n Living RmvTI J Porch . H part of the spring and fall house cleaning. Gas or electric features are another item that can, if necesssary, be postponed post-poned till som? time in the future, provided the house is piped or wired for them, because there is no need for expensive or disturbing, mechanical work in placing them in position; -but it is the poorest kind of economy to omit the necessary piping or wiring according to the custom in the locality or both in those towns where both gas and electricity are installed. But those features which are built into the house and which form an essential es-sential part of the construction or the finish should never be put off until a more convenient season, because the mechanical difficulty and the expense of adding them later will prevent them from ever being put in. The seat at the bottom of the stairs and which forms a part of the paneling should be built at the same time the stairs are, and made an essential feature of the design; and the same thing is true of the built-in china closet in the dining din-ing room. The design illustrated here, is an excellent example of the small house equipped with all the attractive little features that are so much appreciated by the housewife and in such demand by those who are looking to purchase a home, yet, at the same time, do not cost very much when, provided for in' the original plan and put in at the same time the rest of he work is done. ' A desirable feature of this design is the arrangement of the stair hall separated from the rooms of the first floor. This Is the way it should be, in case it is ever desired to rent a room, since the rooms on the second floor are directly accessible from the front entrance without disturbing anyone on the "rst floor. The economy of this design may be seen from the fact that the house has been built as illustrated, using all first-class materials, for $2,500. The width of the house Is 2S feet, the length 25 feet 6 inches. There are three rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the second floor, besides bathroom, large clothes closets, etc. The exterior appearance of t,)jis house is attractive and up-to-daia. First Tloor Plan man unfamiliar with the cost of building, build-ing, the things which appear to be most expensive are those items of interior in-terior finish and decoration which add the touch of elegance and refinement to the house. For the sake of saving from one to five hundred dollars and often nearer the former figure-than the latter he will omit such Items as fireplaces, mantels, built-in china cloEPts, or attractive stair finish. lie thinks, perhaps, that after the mortgage has been paid off he will add these features that he has omitted; omit-ted; but ho forgets that It will cost very much more to add them later than to put th"m in at the time of building; to yny nothing of the fact that t li;! -' !:ings which we put off un- |