The Little House

I love our house. (Commonly called the little house by my family. I guess as opposed to the big house where my parents live.) Even though, its way out in the country I feel like we live in a little community. We are right across the road from the dairy barn so my dad and sister are always around. My sister stops everyday to take J with her to get the cows for the evening milking, and my dad is always going by on the tractor.

Our house is tiny. When it was built in the early 1900's it was about 300 square feet and used as a summer house for cousins from the city. Later it was moved a few hundred yards down the road and two more rooms were added. In 1971 my newlywed parents moved in after my grandfather installed a new kitchen and added an indoor bathroom. This is where my parents lived during their "Mother Earth News" period and where my family lived when I was born. After my family moved into the big farm house, the little house was where the hired man lived. Most family sized farms had a hired man whose family lived on the farm when I was growing up.

I always wanted to live in this house. I wanted it to be mine to fix up. Everything seemed so tiny and manageable. In my imagination I lived here as a young single girl, or newlywed not a mother with two children. Toys and nap times really hinder the renovation process, but we are chipping away at our long to do list.

For the record our house didn't look quite as shabby as this (although I may be splitting hairs) when we moved in. We blasted what was left of the paint off with a power washer.