Make Mine A Farmhouse

As we drove over to the mountain Friday, I enjoyed myself looking at the homes along the roadways we took.  There were ranch homes, Mobile homes, and Victorian homes, cottages, shanties, shacks and brick Tudor.  Antebellum, Federal and Georgian...But the homes that made my heart go pitter patter were always farmhouse homes.   There's an awful lot of 'farmhouse' this and that right now and I realize it sounds like I'm just another trend follower but when I say farmhouse, I don't mean the modern trend. I mean 'farmhouse' in the way that I knew farmhouses growing up.



 It's not all grey and whites as depicted on current television shows and some popular blogs.  True farmhouse might well have a few rustic touches, but there's color, too, plenty of color.   I agree that the current trend is restful for the eyes, but after a little bit of looking at tons of just grey and white, I begin to feel a bit lifeless...oomph-less if you will.  So let me define true farmhouse 'style' okay?  This is farmhouse the way I knew it growing up.



First let's start outdoors.  The house is generally white lapped wood siding.   Though many these days have been covered with aluminum or metal siding there are still plenty of them covered in wood.    There's almost always a tin roof on the house.  A shiny galvanized tin roof to properly reflect the heat of the summer sun.  A front porch and often a side porch or back porch, as well.  The cottage home may have done away with porches but a real farmhouse always has a generous porch, large enough to serve as an outdoor living room in the warmer months, very often screened in with the prerequisite screen door that squawks open and slams with a satisfying slap of wood on wood.

Rocking chairs and a swing are generally found on porches.  Not fancy furniture but durable and comfortable enough that one could 'set a spell', as the old folks used to say.



There may be shutters at the generous sized windows.  While cottage colors appeal to me most shutters and sometimes the front doors are painted black, a  black green, or a deep green.   Any other doors are usually painted white.  Porch floors are generally battleship gray.  A few older homes might have sky blue ceilings on the porches, but not always.

Flower beds may be optional but if they are part of the landscape they are not wild and random cottage gardens.  They are nicely bordered and neat.  Edging material often is of stones, brick or blocks of some sort, perhaps even of wood.   A freshly clipped lawn and neatly trimmed trees and hedges are a must.  A generous vegetable plot, neatly fenced and rowed and well weeded is usually part of that landscape.

Indoors is a modest home.  While wall finishes may vary from board to plaster to sheetrock, and some might have wainscoting on the lower half of the wall, the walls are not typically white.  That's a bit of a shock to our modern eyes, but walls may be soft gray, blue, green, buff.   The colors are usually light.  Floors typically are wood, from medium to dark but some may have what we still refer to as linoleum..

Arrangement of rooms vary but typically two or three bedrooms, a central hallway that is quite generous in size in some and no hall at all in others, a single bathroom, a living room and a large airy kitchen. Note the lack of a dining room.  Eating was done in the kitchen, or on a side or back porch in warmer months. 


 

If it was a truly large and generous kitchen, a sitting area might also be included in the room and the 'front room' converted into a parlor for special occasions or Sunday afternoon visitors but the majority of the farm homes I knew used that living room for living.

The living room was truly a comfortable room with a good sofa, side chairs, a table near a window, good lights for reading, a TV and a radio, bookcases for books and some source of heat such as a stove or fireplace or propane heater.  A living room and kitchen both might well have a linoleum floor.  Though hard to find now, I do recall that Big Mama and Granny and Grandma Stewart all had floors similar to the one pictured below.  It looked like a rug but was more durable and more easily cleaned.

Rooms were not furnished with distressed woods.  Bedrooms often had polished dressers or chest of drawers.   A comfortable chair, usually a low armless rocker stood in one corner or near a window.  Furnishings were more minimal than we're accustomed to in this day, but occasionally there might be two full sized beds in children's rooms instead of the single twin beds we know.  Beds might be iron, painted to look like wood, or painted white.   Floors were often wood, but there would be small rugs at bedside to prevent stepping out right onto an icy floor.  Colorful quilts or chenille spreads (summer wear) often covered the beds.

 Bathrooms tended to be a bit antiseptic with their tile walls and floors.  For those unable to afford real tile, there were many plastics on the market to go on walls and some wall board was used that resembled a tiled wall though in fact it was a vinyl coated cardboard of sorts that attached to the wall in sheets, like paneling.  I think we'd all prefer to find vintage tile though...It just looks so pretty doesn't it?

Bathrooms were generally not fancy, though.  They were meant more for utility than for beauty in those days and most families weren't so very far off the days of having an outhouse as a 'second bathroom' either!

Curtains in rooms were often a lovely color, ruffled or bound in rickrack or ball fringe.  Priscilla or lace panels weren't uncommon in the living area and perhaps the grown ups bedroom, while a plainer style was used in the other bedrooms.  Kitchen curtains were always especially brightly colored and trimmed and seldom covered the full window.  The natural light was much wanted in these rooms during the day to  offset the cost of electricity.  As well windows were used to move air through the rooms.  So no heavy drapes for most of the year.


So not the houses weren't/aren't fancy in my farmhouse dreams.  They are comfortable, with color, and life and utilitarian in many ways but not cold or uncomfortable.   Yes, I'm sure....Make mine a farmhouse!