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Eve Drewelowe's journals, volumes II-III, 1950s

Page 100

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104 especially to know about details, headroom, engineering stressed and strains, the plumbing and heating systems; those internal organs of which the layman much less myself, can not possibly have a working knowledge of. I'm [illegible] normally assume that an architect is supposed to know about the above engineering feats -- and not only know about them and many more, but also have some imagination and originality in handling these things and carrying the designs and plans through to a logical conclusion. However, when it came to head-room and the first requisites on the list for obtaining his services at the very beginning, the basement steps had to be altered because not enough headroom had been allowed. There were these other matters too, that hadn't been thought through thoroughly so that when the over-all supposedly inclusive contracts finally came to be settled, several vital elements were lacking to a home completed to a point of being lived in. For instance, the tiling was not high enough around the bathtub and had to be raised; there was no plate glass window for my studio dormir; no, not even flushing around the dormirs, or tin for the deck. When the contracts had been left we not only understood but certainly expected to find ourselves possessing not only a house but a home with an entire roof over us to shelter us from the rain. But these were extras it seems in our unique case.
 
Iowa Women’s Lives: Letters and Diaries