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Old farm houses

R

RalphWD45

Well-known Member
What is the American mentality, that causes us to abandon, and then tear down, our old solid two story farm houses, and replace them with either a field, or a subdivison, or a ranch type rambler? I was reading samn40's post, and remembered all the majestic old farm houses, that I don't see now. Do we have any 19 th century houses left? much less 15th century places.
 
Probably because many are just not good enough to retrofit with proper insulation, wiring, etc to make them OK by today's standards. What I find awesome are some of the old stone houses, still in good condition for a hundred years. Some of those old stone masons were very good at their trade. Must have known how to mix mortar in the proper proportions to last too.
 
The american mentality you're talking about is called American progress. Who would want to live in a 100 year old two story house that would cost an arm and leg to modernize and make liveable. In many cases due to modern irrigation systems it just has to go.
 
The ones being tore down around here are not the solid ones.

The ones being tore down have major problems that may not be visible from the outside. Most issues could be fixed such as a new foundation but may be very expensive to put money into when there are other small issues to go with the big.

Windows,siding,insulation,wiring and plumbing can cost more to rebuild then build new.

I own a house that will celebrate it's 100th birthday in 8 years. It has cost a lot to keep it up the last 25 years. If you can't rent them for a good price it becomes a money pit that is easier to tear down to eliminate the expense.

Then you have to deal with renters. I'm lucky one of my daughters rents mine.

Gary
 
As to replacing with a ranch style house, cost to upgrade is more than knock down & start over.
Most of those old farm houses had very little, or no insulation at all, poor wiring & plumbing. Labor to remove & replace siding & roofing, add insulation, new energy efficient windows, redo the wiring & plumbing, makes it not cost effective. Rooms were small, a king sized bed would cover the floor without any place to walk around it. And getting older makes stairs harder to climb.
My thoughts, others may differ.
Willie
 
I'd also recommend the movie "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" from about 1940 (with Cary Grant & Myrna Loy?).

In western Iowa many old and obsolete farm houses were torn down and never replaced because no one wanted to live at that location anymore, even as a rental properety. Eventually the entire farmstead was often torn down as farms consolidated. The big barn was often the last to go when it couldn't be used for machinery storage anymore.
 
Some were built to very high standards. And for their time, they cost a lot of money. Some were built very cheap. The same thing in cities. Detroit has some fantastic mansions, bulit by the captains of industry of the day. But most homes were built very cheaply, for working class folks who could not afford much. There is a magnificent stone farmhouse down the road from me, 3 stories high, really nice woodwork on the inside. Built about 1900. About a half mile away, there is a house, still lived in, that isn't 800 sq feet. The ceiling is only about 7 ft high. It's civil war era, looks like crap, but the owner is a older woman, divorced, and that's what she can afford. I figure when she leaves, it will be knocked down. I guess I'm tryig to say, just because it's old, doesn't make it good.
 
A big reason that people don't fix up more of the houses from back in the day is that they really aren't worth fixing up. If you have a house built in the 1800's it wasn't even intended for indoor plumbing or electricity. Bathrooms were added after the fact, and generally in some bizzare place. The structures were rarely built to last. This is where some argue that based on a few examples of quality built homes back in the day, that builders were so quality minded in those days. Those well built homes from the day were not the norm.
 
it costs more to renovate rebuild and or remodel than it takes to buld new.ask me I have almost as much in my house after siding insulation wiring and the addition than my neighbor has in his. His may not be as big but is nicer.Paul
 
The house on our place was built around 1900 probably earlier. It is a cheaply made house. A cellar was dug, and redwood 2X6 boards layed on the ground, and 4X4 posts are holding the house up. There is no cement foundation. The cellar walls are redwood with dirt on the outside. It has held up quite well. dad added some extra support under the floor. I added a cement walk arund most of the building to keep water from collecting in the bacement. The house is one of the oldest in our community. Electricity and plumbing was added in the 50's. My daughter, lives in the house, with her husband and daughter. When the place is divided she is going to get the house. Hope it stayes in the family. stan
 
The original part of the home (20x40) which is now 2 bedrooms was built in 1890, living room and bathroom were added sometime shortly thereafter. The kitchen was added in 1967, basement under the bedrooms and the kitchen, stone under the bedroom quarried 1/2 mile away. The home on another farm I rent is all stone 2 story about 30x40 and was built in 1869, a kitchen was added sometime around the turn of the century but years of neglect had left it in poor shape, landowner tore the kitchen off and built a new 40x60 home on to the old stone home. The answer to your question is twofold, laziness and materialism. Our home is 880 sq ft, we are happy and warm, the wife's only complaint is that the bathroom is smaller than most walk in closests. I'm hoping to add a mudroom/screen porch and extend the bathroom in the next few years.
 
I wonder if there are any builders out there that have considered building an "old style" 2 story farmhouse with modern, energy efficient material from the ground up? Would get the old BIG house country feel with the modern conveniences. Hey.... this could be a money maker.......
 
Mine is nearly 100 years old. It has new windows and wiring. I will be putting in a new kitchen in June. It has to be a labor of love. I see myself as a steward of the place and am extremely proud of my home's age and condition.

Most folks aren't like that now days. You should see the looks the first time people see the slanted floor in the living room and bathroom. The house becomes a dump in their eyes - you can see it happen. It's odd because those same folks have been talking about cracks in their foundations and their house settling in the drought. This house saw the dust bowl and NOTHING here has shifted in the last year. This is just a blip in the pages of this old house.

I know that I am rare. 100 years from now this house won't be here because there aren't many that see it like I do. I guess I just think it is neat to pull up the old floor and find Kats drugstore ads from 1939. I have even framed some color comics that I found (also from'39) under the linseed linoleum. I've spent more time thinking about what this farm looked like 100 years ago than most of those folks spent picking out the fixtures for their new house that's already falling down.
 
Wood is just not a long term material. I know you can find exceptional examples all over the world that are 200+ years old, but they are a very small percentage of the total. Sooner or later wood either burns, rots or bugs eat it.

The majority of people today are hooked on central heat and air and the old houses were designed to be as comfortable as you could be without it. You can retrofit but it's beginning to cost big dollars to heat and cool such a large volume of air, and energy is trending ever higher these days.

I believe there will come a time when brick suburban homes are untenable and we'll have to relearn some of the lessons that the old homes already knew, albeit with a little technological spin.
 
There absolutely is. Many home builders build houses that appear the shell of one built a hundred years ago. Other thinks have changed since the actual old house was built. Kitchens were much smaller, as were bedrooms. The new structures that are suppose to appear like their older counterpart, usually have updated lay outs. To be honest, the average home in 1900 was only 400 sq ft, I heard on the radio. They were usually not the two story home seen on the Waltons. These austetic looking homes are however, a nice looking romantic vision of what houses were like. Some builders even use recycled building material and fixtures from old houses to give their new houses a hint of being old. May I share a story from my childhood? As a little guy I would help my dad remodel houses. In every case a remodel included structural repairs, in many cases the house wasn"t even 20 years old. This was in the early 1970"s. As a young adult in the mid to late 1980"s homes that had been built since the early 1960"s only needed cosmetic repairs in most cases. Somewhere during the late 1950"s builders started building better homes that would realistically last longer. Prior to that homes were not well built. In some areas the air was dry enough and conditions helped preserve them anyway, but that was despite how the house was built.
 
i feel your pain ,and share your sentiment , i have rebuilt2 homes and live in the 2nd one,... all the comments are correct about it being cheaper to build new ,,and wood will not last forever , some of those great big farmhouse rooms we grew up in when we go back to visit 40 yrs later are really kinda cramped ,..but they seemed big when we were younger ...heating /cooling / modern SAFE wiring. not to mention plumbing,.,to coin a phrase from Pop when he was telling his cousins about tryin to keep the ol house warm for us babies .. "the only way to keep that ol house warm was to set it afire "
 
I live in mine. 1871 remodled many years ago very comfortable old house wouldn't trade it for a dozen of the pieces of junk they build now.
Walt
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A wet snow storm didn't help the trees much.
 
My farmhouse was built in 1907, was put on a new poured basement in early 70s.new windows,wiring insulation,warm and comfortable and the biggest reason why we love it. It's paid for!
 
I built mine in 2000, tried to design it to look like a vintage farm house. Gave it character by using recycled 100 year old doors and hardware in the interrior.
a90749.jpg
 
The others have covered the facts of old houses. I am in a house where the first two rooms were built in the late 1800's and then added onto a few times later and a partial basement too. My walls are showing more cracks all of the time and the floor over the basement has a hump in the middle. The original foundation only has a couple of limestone rocks here and there. A house is only as good as its foundation and this house with some of the add-ons being done on concrete slabs would be a nightmare to ever rebuild the foundation. It is a nice house though and is in good condition for its age but the lifespan is sure not another 120 years! With somewhat updated insulation and my very old windows, heating and cooling costs are very expensive. When the salesman asks me if I am interested in new windows I tell him "Yes, and they will have a new house around them!"

For any of the kids of today who think they have it rough, my great-grandparents had their 7 boys with them in the two original small rooms.
 
We moved to Wisconsin in 1999 and bought a big old farmhouse on the edge of the village, the village had moved out and encroached the farm, we got a farm house on a city lot with city sewer, city water and natural gas. The walls were 10-14" thick, I thought it was post & beam. About a year or so after we moved there the village had its centennial celebration and a couple of old ladies in a car with Iowa tags were wandering around they neighborhood. Come to find out their grandfather built our house in 1850 and it was really log, at least the old part, it had been added onto twice in the 1930's and the 1980's. We moved up North in 2005. The 2400 square foot farmhouse was cheaper to heat and cool than our 1800 square foot 1959 ranch house. Although I think a lot of that is the power company, WE power is cheaper than WPS power. I still miss our old farmhouse.
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a90755.jpg
 
My house was built in the 50's, so it isn't real old, but its not air tight. Added another house to it in 1995 that I moved from a farm we bought. Built by the same builder the next year. New windows, sheetrock, wiring, basement all this since 1995.. Now its time for the steel roof, which the woman doesn't want, and housewrap and siding.

In truth, it would have been cheaper to doze the place, but in the end, well I guess its old. It's sort of like your old pickup. Get a new one or get rid of it and let someone else deal with it. I wouldn't wish my old house on anyone. I am saving for a lakehouse and sell this one to one of the kids. 8)

The reason I would sell it to one of my Son's is that it is semi-mental to them and it is the house they were raised in. They appear to have an interest in the place. Me not so much..
 
Biggest reason is they cost more to modernized
than they're worth.As my dad said about the house
he had that was built in 1900 after he had redone it that he sould have bulldozed the house and built a new one he'd of had a better house with 1/2 the money.I grew up in an old cold drafty frame weatherboarded
house and they don't hold any attraction for me,my house is brick and is tight and comfortable.
People that love to look at these old houses never had to live in one.
 
The main reason that old houses are abandoned or torn down is cost. It costs too much for energy to heat and cool; it costs too much to remodel and add or upgrade insulation.

Secondly, as the occupants age, they find it harder and harder to climb the stairs to the bedrooms. Even our young neighbors with kids complain about carrying kids up and down the stairs.
 
I love the old houses in England, however the only old houses left in Northern Ireland are the stately homes built by the English Landlords. Our old houses were built with what was available....mud and straw or reed thatch.....over the years in our damp climate they eventually melted! We are now plagued with what is termed 'bungalow blight' When I married 19 years ago, I moved into a rented mudwalled home, but I had to build a home near my farm, as there were no houses for sale near me( plus I could not have afforded them) So, as my wife also loved old houses, we decided to build a Victorian looking house with the mod cons. We had h3ll with the planners, but we persevered and this is what we built...not quite finished yet but I did the building myself and it does take time.....(This photo was taken 2 yrs ago, we don't normally get snow !)
Sam
a90756.jpg
 
Ralphwd45,

Ahhh, my first love - before old barns, rusted iron and junkyards - old homes. Love to see them maintained or restored - and yes, so very sad when they are not. I do not understand it either. (EDIT: Our house was built in 1916 and it well constructed. We love it.)

But when they have been abandoned they really haunt me. I love to photograph them and if allowed... peek inside, trying to imagine: the lives that were lived-out there, the sounds of the chidren laughing or squabbling with one another, the smell of the homecooked meals the wife made three times each day, the clink of the dishes being put away in the cupboard, the whump of a worn rocker as she soothed a fussy baby, the tired but proud look on the man's face when he came in from a long day of working the fields and doing chores, the wife hanging clothes on the line to dry, the basement shelves filled with jars of every size and shape, the sound of the man sighing at the dining room table with receipts and ledgers in front of him (could be sigh of distress or a sigh of relief depending on yields, prices of the day...and the bills yet to pay),the Saturday splash of water as they bathe off the week's work, the creak of the stairs as they climbed up to end another day. *This is the history that we Americans are fast and furiously throwing away!

I wish I could make it my life's work to document every old home, barn, shed, tractor, auto, truck or implement that I see. If only they could talk.

Here are a few pics of a favorite I saw a few years ago. It was close to the road so I zoomed in to get a few shots. We call it "Jason's Farm"... from an old country song (link provided if you like old country).
a90760.jpg

a90761.jpg

a90762.jpg

Jasons Farm audio and lyrics link
 
37 Chief,

On the farm where I grew up the original house was basement, main floor living space and as I understand it - back in the day, my ancestors slept up in the unheated attic. Over the generations, additions were put on and very nicely done. It still stands today and a family lives there. All the old outbuildings are gone except for the hog house though.

I would have loved to buy my parents farm - but they were not ready to sell until about 12 years after we had bought our farm.

Hope your daughter keeps yours.
 
Our home is an 1890's story and a half farm house. Part is a sort of post and beam and part is plank and rafter. It's floors have settled out of level, it moves and cracks sheetrock every year. The stairs are steep and narrow, the rooms are small and the foundation needs work in one section. We're eventually going to strip the vinyl siding off, which covers the metal shingle siding which covers the plank siding, and seal it up since it's a drafty old girl. The previous owner put a deck off one section of the windward side and didn't add a water cap to the fieldstone foundation, so the water ran into the foundation and tore it up and water sat against the sill and rotted that too. The wiring isn't bad, but the leech field is a straight run of pipe from the septic tank to the ditch and culvert under the town road a couple hundred feet downhill. Even I have problems with that idea! There's not much we can do about the floors but they aren't terribly out of level except at the corners. I imagine a previous owner did some leveling somehow. I've done most of the windows over, fixed a lot of plumbing, redone both bathrooms, re-roofed it (shingles as my wife wished rather than steel as I wanted), fixed a lot of areas that had absolutely no insulation, etc. It's a giant pain in the butt. SWMBO still wants me to move the tiny galley style kitchen out into what is mow the "foyer" as she calls it (where you come into the house by the front door) and build an L shaped kitchen. The "foyer" will then go into the present kitchen and I'm supposed to move the steep narrow stairs into that section too and make them modern. The funny thing is, old timers tell us that's how the house was laid out back in the 40's!

The biggest thing that bothers me is that a previous owner added a porch, a "veranda" actually according to my wife, around half the house. The idiot made it 5 feet wide. That's too narrow to even get by someone in a chair sitting on it. So someday I'd like to rip it off and rebuild one 3/4 the way around the house about 10-12 foot wide. If you're going to have a porch, it should be wide enough to be used!

There are lots of new "old farm houses" going up here. They are 100% Amish, well built, well insulated and attractive. They don't have wiring and plumbing, but when an Amishman builds one, it's means he plans on staying for the rest of his life and passing it one to his kids. The number of new English homes is tiny and they tend to be either McMansions or double wides.
 
This is our old farm house in PA,the little house next to it is called a summer kitchen,where the PA houswives used to do canning,etc in the summer,so the farmhouse didnt get so hot,The building behind the little summer kitchen is a butcher house,There is a woodstove in there with a big cast iron kettle,that is where scrapple would be made, The house is rented out,our tenant made scrapple in the kettle a few years ago,but not lately. The brickfront on the old house is one of the last projects I did with my dad before he passed away,This root cellar is next to the old farmhouse,I was restoring it with my dad,but he never saw the finished picture of it,here it is.
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a90766.jpg
 
Larry@stines,
Really neat! Nice brickwork and I bet that full porch helps keep the house much cooler in summer. Love the root cellar too.
 
Ok now you can have good reason to dislike me. That is what I do for a living Demolition. Most need to be torn down,rot and termites. Many are just in the wrong place. $150K house on a $2M lot. Very common around here in front beach lots. I need to go look at one this morning. I once looked at a $2M house one year old very big and ornate. the owner had never spent a night in it. It had a water leak in the wall upstairs and went undetected for three months the damage was not as bad as the mold. The owner had breathing problems and had it torn down and rebuilt. I did not get the job but it happened.
Ron
 
The original part of my house was built in 1820. Main structural timber is hand-hewn with wooden pins. An addition was put on in 1850. Then I added another addition in 1990 - but matched the style of the original parts.

Plenty of old farm houses left where live in central NY. Mostly center-hall colonials.
 
RBnSC,

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, how could you??? Just kidding, a fella has to make a living. You should just call me first though - so I can come take photos before the demolition. :)
 
The reality to remodeling an old farm house is it just isn't economical. It will cost you darn near the same money to completely remodel as it will to build a new one. And when you are finished, you still have an old house that isn't square or perfectly level at a new home price. If you think about it, most old home remodels get everything new except most of the framing. That really isn't worth the savings for all the compromises you have to make in retrofitting it to your liking. I say start from scratch, built with the layout you want, and for about the same money.

The only way I would ever think about remodeling is if the home is livable, just needs modernizing, and I could do one room at a time with cash out of my pocket. Assuming I had the time to do it.
 
I'm one of those who's guilty of tearing down an old farm house and replacing it with a ranch-style house. Why? Because the old house would have required a new foundation (had a partial, dirt floor basement with crumbling field stone walls), siding, insulation, floor joists under the 1st floor, roof (shingles and a lot of the wood under them), windows, and doors... and THEN you could start with the room by room remodeling. There are things we miss about the old house, but it would have cost a lot more than the new one, and would still have been an old house that took a lot of $$$ to heat.
 
Decades ago when I was in my early 20's I tore down the house my Dad was raised in. The house was old and my grandmother had moved into a newer house nearby. Though the old house held wonderful memories for all of us, I, in my young ignorance decided to do away with it. Who knows why? I was just a dumb kid. Unfortunately, no one in my family tried to disuade me, though afterwards they all lamented the loss of the house. I have regretted it ever since. But on the other side of the coin, my wife and I bought 80 acres of land with an old house that had been built in 1918 on it. We lived in the house 5 years and then tore it down and built the home we have lived in for the last 25 years. I have never spent one day lamenting the tearing down of that house. It had no sentimental value to either of us and the way it was built and the later additions to it made it very impractical to live in-let alone remodel. One thing I do have a problem with is that here in the south there are numerous old ante-bellum mansions scattered around and it always pains me to see one in disrepair or being torn down.
 
I disagree. Rehabbing an older house can be much more cost effective then building new. Note I said "can be" and did not say "always." Mainly because you don't get tied to all the newest code requirements of a new house. Also because your taxes will be a lot less. I know that me, and many others cannot stand the feel of a new house.

I was in the business that specialized in older buildings at one time. Mostly specialized in retrofitting newer materials that did not look new. Funny thing is - many of our jobs were older homes that got gutted and modernized. Then some new owner would come in and want the "modernized" house turned back to look more like it did originally. We had to rip out a lot of sheet-rock out and do some plaster work. Also stripped many roofs of asphalt an put on standing seam steel or copper.

To each his own but I prefer the smell and feel of real wood and old plaster. I also really like low taxes.

Too many contractors now adays know how to do very little themselves and sub everything out to some bozo. That does make an old house too expensive at times.
 
There are other old rural structures too. I live in an old one room brick school house built in 1897. It still has the original cornerstone with the township trustee"s name on it. It happens to be my mothers maiden name too. It cost taxpayers $ 1,500 to build. I have lived in it for 40 years and remodeled it twice. Dropped the 14 foot ceiling to 8 feet to create a second floor, replaced the windows and it is totally modern in respect to mechanicals. After all this time it is still plumb and square and I expect it to last another 100 years. When I bought it there were still a few neighbors who actually attended the school so we have some cool history and some pictures of them when they were in school there. We have enjoyed the historical aspect of the house a lot. BTW, I built a barn to keep my tractors in.
 
I'm with you, Fordfarmer. I, too, tore down an old farmhouse (said to have been built in 1880) and replaced it with a ranch style house. The old house (2 floors, 11 rooms) needed just about everything replaced or remodeled...wiring, plumbing, windows, roof, siding, eaves, had no insulation, tiny kitchen, tiny bathroom, needed a new furnace, no heat on 2nd floor except what rose naturally thru the stairwell (but that had been closed up years before we arrived). Our new house is much more comfortable!!
 
I live in an old farm house that was built at least a hundred years ago the foundation has been fixed.thru the.years and I just had a new roof done this spring. It has functioning plumbing not current code but it'll work needs the old galvanized pipe replaced slowly could use a new furnace and needs insulation and windows but I love old houses and barns currently roofing the barn that has had the foundation repaired that's getting a steel roof the lady I bought it from had it rented for 20yrs but she grew up in it and it was her mother's parents farm her father's parents was just down the road they had dairy cows and this was the heifer farm when her dad was alive I enjoy living here even with all the up keep that'll need to be done my wife loves the house also and could never year it down
 
We live in a 100 plus year old house, Put a new steel roof on few years ago, over $7,000.00 just for the steel. 6 bedrooms 4 bath 3 sets of stairs. Kinda fun to live in , but like all fun ,it comes with a cost! Bruce
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After nearly 20 years of trying, Orkin et al could not get rid of the termites
in our old farm house, so we tore it down before it fell down.
Heat bill savings in the new one plus the Orkin fees would have nearly paid
for the new one in that 20 years.
A lot of memories lost, but there was really no choice and now wish it was done sooner.
 
Good quality went into this 90 year old house my grandfather had built nearly 93 years ago. Its an Eaton catalogue home. All fir lumber, hard and solid as the day it was built. Solid concrete foundation hasn't shifted or settled. Keep up the maintenance and it doesn't seem so bad. If you let it all go to ruin and then try a total refurbish it is going to hurt. I wonder if today's homes built of "chipboard panels" will still be standing 90 years from now.


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