Big house, little house

A few weeks ago on a Thursday Doors post, Denise at Fernwood Nursery suggested I read “Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn.” So, I checked it out from my local library.

It tells the history of the attached houses in old New England. I smiled the whole time I was reading through it. My grandparents’ small dairy farm had the same layout. If you click the layout photo, it will enlarge and you can see that  it all makes practical sense.

My grandparents’ big house included a dining room, parlor, bathroom (no privy in the 1950’s, thank heavens), and four bedrooms. The small house was the kitchen and attic. The back house housed a woodworking bench and tools, a mud room type area including clothes lines, and a woodshed. From this area, you walked right onto the main floor of the barn with a hay loft above and the cows down a flight of stairs. Good memories.

I liked that book so much, I bought my own copy.

I wanted to share some other examples of this type of home so I drove down the road and captured these photos.

These old New England homes just always warm my heart, but I know once they are gone that will be the end of an era.

Practical matters keep this type of home from being constructed today. There are very few farming families and not many of them would even need something this large, it is very expensive to keep up, and there are major fire hazards.

I consider myself lucky that I can drive around town and still sees these beautiful examples of days gone by. 🙂

On a totally different topic, if anyone is using a Mac and running Photos as part of OS X El Capitan, and would be open to a question, would you drop me an email. I updated last week, and I have one stumbling block I can’t seem to find a solution for. Thank you. If not, I guess it’s back to Portland and more slabs.  🙂

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