Thinking of the exterior appearance of this house, and remembering that 18th-century men admired symmetry, note how each entrance door is centered on its façade, even though the hall is pushed slightly to one side. And note the quiet symmetry of the two windows on the right, serenely independent, yet obviously a determining factor in the combination of installations along the interior of this wall. Further, the flue to the off-center fireplace on this wall manages to work toward the center of the wall as it rises, so that it can emerge in a chimney properly centered to balance the chimney on the other side of the house. [Illustration: FIGURE 46.] Figure 45 shows a side hall plan. It is like a center hall house deprived of one of its wings. This design was popular in fine late 18th-century city houses, where the hall was an important show-place in the house. In our diagram the stair rises in a straight run. The sketches above presented simple one-, two-, and three-room plans; then center hall plans with two, three, and four rooms. All these divisions of space were found within the basic rectangle enclosed by the outside walls of the house. Further divisions were used, too. For example, consider where the Palmer house (figure 14) fits into the plans seen in this discussion. HOUSES WITH LEAN-TO AND BIG PORCH—THE SOUTHERN HOUSE Figure 46 shows a simple rectangular house on the left; on the right the structure has sprouted a lean-to in the rear and a porch across the front. These two sketches illustrate a common development in the expansion of the simple rectangular house. A lean-to simply “leans against” the main frame of the house. The porch, often a precarious structure on its delicate posts, depends for its support upon the stable frame of the main block of the house also. While some owners of simple rectangular houses enlarged them by adding the lean-to and the big porch, other colonists, seeing the attractiveness of this plan, built the whole house, lean-to and porch, at one time. In driving through North Carolina one sees hundreds of houses similar to the one on the right. It has been called the typical North Carolina farm house. It became popular in towns as well as on farms. The big porch sweeping across the front provided very welcome living space during the hot summer months, and the porch offered a sheltered place for children to play in during inclement weather. It may be surmised that the colonists also appreciated a beauty in the design of this house. Where the earlier house on the left is boxy and stiff, the house on the right has a roof line that reaches out pleasantly from the center ridge to the front and back. The front porch looks inviting and friendly, like a room opening to the outside world. The other house, with only a stoop at the front door, is really closed to the world.