This is the house that I grew up in. It was a 1771 farmhouse – the entire single-story section on the right was a huge country kitchen with a woodburning stove inside. That section also had a saltbox style roof, which you can see in the second photo below. The historical society told us that the front room on the left side of the house was once a midwife’s birthing room. The house is painted white in these photos, which is the color it was when my parents first bought it. I remember the house being the dark blue color pictured here that my Dad later painted it to.
Below is the back view of the house. That’s a grape vine in the foreground. The white door led into what later became the bathroom, so that wound up getting sealed shut and the steps were removed. In 1771, there of course were no bathrooms, just the outhouse, which was still standing on the property. When my parents first moved in, the bathroom contained only a toilet. There was no hot water or heating system in the house either. An elderly woman was living in the kitchen with the woodstove and a space heater.
Below is a side view of the back of the house. The barrel collected rain water that fell from the gutter.
Photos of the outbuildings will be in my next post.
love that! there’s just nothing today that compares to the old houses a hundred+ years ago!
I couldn’t agree more! Old houses have such character and charm.
Oh, my goodness, this is too wonderful! Old houses are glorious and with such a big kitchen–wow! When I was a kid we lived in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Our house was pretty old (not 1771 old), but the real treat were some of the awesome old houses my friends lived in. Looks like you had an amazing place to grow up in!
Wow. What an amazing house with such an amazing story already. I cant wait to hear about it! How fun that must have been when you were growing up….to have so much history around you.
It was amazing – although at the same time, it was just “normal” to me. We moved when I was 13 (to a 1789 house that required a total restoration, where my parents still live today – but that’s a whole other story to tell) and all we had was one of those long skinny 110 film cameras back then, so there aren’t lots of photos, but I’m working on finding more. The cool part about having grown up in old houses is that I have “seen it all” in terms of what could need fixing – so when I was hunting for the home that I live in now, which needed a lot of work, none of the work it needed really phased me. I’d seen it all fixed before, and knew it could be done. I think my realtor was really surprised to have a first time buyer like that! I actually thought that my house was in really great shape compared to what I’ve seen before, but when my Mom first saw it she was horrified. Hehe… I had to remind her that she’d seen all of it before too!
How lovely to see your old home Stephanie. It is full of charm and interest. It must have been amazing growing up there as a child.
It definitely was, Cathy!
This is so lovely. I’m running a project called Project I Lived Here, it’s basically a collection of images of peoples old childhood homes, I aim to create an online exhibition of all the places we once lived. Maybe you’d be interested in taking part?
You can find more details here – http://geneabailey.wordpress.com/project-i-lived-here/
these photos are just stunning 🙂
Thank you, Genea! I love the idea & just added a photo to your Flickr pool for the project.
~Stephanie