Houses: Two-story HousesThe single-pen building block could be stacked one-over-one or two-over-two to create two-story houses totaling two or four rooms. With an average floor measurement of 24 feet long by 18 feet 9 inches deep, the one-over-one house was similar in dimension to the single-pen. The dimension of the typical two-over-two was 36 feet by 20 feet. Placement of doors, windows, fireplaces and chimneys, and interior staircases are similar to that of the single-pen house, except that in the two-over-two, each first-floor room had a staircase to the sleeping loft. "In a number of cases where I was able to examine the interior of [a two-over-two] house, there were two staircases to the second floor, one in each room, and there was no door in the partition separating the two rooms on the second floor. If one were in one of the bedrooms on the second floor and wanted to get into the other bedroom, he had to
go downstairs and go up the other staircase. I was unable to enter any of these two-story, four-room houses because many of them are still lived in and because the owners were not home when I visited the houses. I cannot, therefore, offer figures as to how many houses use this seemingly awkward arrangement, but it does seem to be common in southern Indiana." |
one-and-a-half story