Cambios

== Openings ==

The house could be accessed through one or two doors. When there were two entrances, the main door was used by people and the other by the animals. If there was only one entrance, that doorway was used by both the residents and their livestock. The door to the stable had to be large enough for a pair of oxen harnessed to the wagon to get through. In the past, the door was always made out of timber. Another common feature is a hole, which is usually circular and known as a cat door. It was used for the cats and hens to come and go, and the key would sometime be left there when the dwellers were away from home. The doors usually open inwards and the walls around the opening are bevelled so that the inner part is larger.

Apart from having the joint function of being the entrance and enclosing the house, the main door had other roles, which were not only artistic or architectural, but also as the building’s calling card, along with being symbolic. Certain rituals were performed there and items to protect the house and its inhabitants were and are still hung there.

The most interesting aspect of the windows in the past was there were relatively few of them and their small size. Yet this scarcity and smallness was not only the result of the climate, but also a different way of understanding the role of light and air.

Windows generally open inwards and the side windows having a side ones have chamfering meaning that the sizes of the opening on the inside wall are larger than the outside ones.

Balconies are a feature in damp and cloudy areas, where they are used as driers. When their only purpose, apart from light and ventilation, is to for the dwellers to go outside, and the balcony floor is therefore extended, in other words, the so-called lookout balconies, they were only generally a feature when the houses are on streets.