mattress. Side handles are made by cords fastened inside with knots.
The box must be two inches larger at the bottom than at the top, and
the lid and cushion the same size as the bottom, to give it a tasteful
shape. This ottoman is set on casters, and is a great convenience for
holding articles, while serving also as a seat.

The expense of the screen, where lumber averages $4 a hundred, and
carpenter labor $3 a day, would be about $30, and the two couches about
$6. The material for covering might be cheap and yet pretty. A woman
with these directions, and a son or husband who would use plane and
saw, could thus secure much additional room, and also what amounts to
two bureaus, two large trunks, one large wardrobe, and a wash-stand,
for less than $20--the mere cost of materials. The screen and couches
can be so arranged as to have one room serve first as a large and airy
sleeping-room; then, in the morning, it may be used as sitting-room
one side of the screen, and breakfast-room the other; and lastly,
through the day it can be made a large parlor on the front side, and
a sewing or retiring-room the other side. The needless spaces usually
devoted to kitchen, entries, halls, back-stairs, pantries, store-rooms,
and closets, by this method would be used in adding to the size of the
large room, so variously used by day and by night.

[Illustration: Fig. 12.]

Fig. 12 is an enlarged plan of the kitchen and stove-room. The chimney
and stove-room are contrived to ventilate the whole house, by a mode
exhibited in another chapter.

Between the two rooms glazed sliding-doors, passing each other, serve
to shut out heat and smells from the kitchen. The sides of the