Showing posts with label remodeling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label remodeling. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

NICE OLD HOUSES

As many readers know, I'll be moving to a small farm town in a few months and I'm having trouble finding a house that excites me. In desperation I considered taking a house that (possibly) nobody else wanted...something the local eccentric used to live in,  with a dining area in the hallway and a half-hidden kitchen. It had a weird vibe, too...like an exorcist would be required.

But scratch that. I'm too superstitious to live in something that needs an exorcist. I don't want to be dragged into Hell just because I tried to eat a piece of pie in the middle of the night.


That's not the house I was talking about above, but it's similar. This one is a lot more cheerful. Anyway, thinking about eccentric little houses in the woods got me thinking about older houses and how they frequently have more to offer than newer ones.


Now I'm thinking that a remodeled version of something old may be my best bet. I like this redo (above) of a traditional French kitchen. It has space for a large, cottage-style social table, and that's useful for more than just entertaining.  It's a staging area where you can lay out all your ingredients for a meal before cooking, all the while listening to audio books or music. Nice, eh?

BTW, I noticed that older French houses are frequently built a little bit lower than ground level. Why is that? I assume its an adaptation to the uneven level of the ground, but maybe I'm wrong. Doesn't rain water seep into a house that's below ground level?


Who wants to live in a modernist box? I can't imagine entertaining friends in a house like this (above).


But what am I talking about? Apart from relatives I won't have any friends. People where I'm going think Californians are freaks.