Remodeled Farmhouses

by Mary Harrod Northend

City people are prone to think that the country is agreeable only during the summer months, and that winters spent there are unpleasant and dreary. This notion is fast being dispelled, as country houses are kept open longer and longer each year, and the pleasures of country week-ends during the entire winter are definitely proven. There is in reality no more delightful place to spend the long winter months than in the heart of a beautiful country. A never-ending round of interests astonishes one who has never tried it before. Each month brings a fresh phase, and it is hard to determine whether the country is at its best during the summer or winter season.

There is a fascination indescribable in watching the fall of snow, the settling of flakes on the bare limbs, the transition from brown to diamond-covered branches that glisten with every motion and are often decorated with long icicles reflecting all the prismatic colors. If you have never seen this side of country life, you will find it a wonderful world, where it is intensely interesting to study the seasons in turn, note the coming and going of birds, look for the early and late flowers, watch the melting of snows and the swelling of buds in the warm spring suns.

More active pleasures, too, await the adventurer in the winter country. There are so many sports to be enjoyed that one does not wonder the youth delights to come here for skating, snow-shoeing, or toboganning. What is more delightful than a sleighing party, whose destination is a remodeled farmhouse not too many miles from the city? Start the cheery fire in the huge fireplace, pile on the six-foot logs, draw your chairs nearer while you forget the outside world, and feel a glow of delight that you, too, have joined the throng who know the thrill of country life.

The first thing to do when contemplating an all-the-year-round country home is to look for a house in the right location. In selecting it the problem of heating must be thought of in a different way than as that for merely summer use. Then fireplaces will amply suffice for the few cool days and chilly evenings, and no better method could be desired. But for the real cold of winter, whether for continued use or the occasional week-end, more complete heating will need to be provided.

The cheapest and simplest way is undoubtedly by stoves which can be attached to the fireplace flues. But this necessitates closing up the fireplace and depriving family and guests of all the joys of the blazing logs which never seem more cheerful and hospitable than in the bitterest weather. If the house is to be used mainly for week-end parties, stoves have another serious drawback. They must be kept oiled when not in use, to prevent their rusting, and it takes nearly two days after the fire is lighted to burn the oil off. Then, when closing up the house again, the stove must be re-oiled, and this necessitates putting the fire out and waiting in the cold house until the metal is sufficiently cool to apply the treatment.

The most adequate method is by hot water or steam, and for a large country house these are really the only practical ways. The expense involved will depend upon the structure of the house. In a brick or stone building, it will cost a good deal to have the pipes built into the wall. Sometimes conditions will allow them to be carried up in a closet or partition. In a frame house that has been built with deep window jambs, as was so often done in the olden times, the pipes can be hidden within this furred framework. The great objection to steam or hot-water systems in old houses, however, is the presence of the radiator, which never can be made to harmonize thoroughly with the spirit of the old building. When it is used, some attempt must be made to disguise it. If it can be made long and low and placed in front of a window, it can be treated as a window-seat with a metal grill in front. For houses of the later Georgian period, grills can be found whose designs are not at all out of keeping with the other classical details. Sometimes a radiator can be placed entirely within the furred partition, and the heat admitted into the room through paneled doors which are thrown open when it is in use.

For small houses, the hot-air system is perhaps the most desirable. The registers are inconspicuous and bring no jarring note into the old-time atmosphere. The pipes require considerable overhead room in the cellar, which sometimes becomes a hard problem in the low foundations of old houses. The fact that it is difficult to drive the hot air against the wind raises a second objection, but if the furnace is placed in the corner of the house from which the cold winds blow, or even a second furnace is installed, the trouble will be largely overcome. And there is the great advantage, especially for a week-end house, that it can be started up or left at a moment's notice without trouble from water in the pipes or danger of freezing as in the hot-water systems.

Whatever the method decided upon, it is an interesting work from start to finish. One feels a thrill of adventure in evoking from the home of past generations one for twentieth-century living with all the comforts and appliances necessary. But to transform an old building that has never even been intended for living purposes into a residence that is not only comfortable and suited to the owner's needs but an architectural success as well, is a still more fascinating problem. How Messrs. Killam and Hopkins have accomplished this with an old barn at Dover and kept the distinctive simplicity and atmosphere of the original building is worthy of emulation.