Few people realize how much thought should be put into the remodeling of a farmhouse, and many fail to keep the simple country atmosphere; they endeavor to establish in suburban surroundings a home that is better suited to city life. A house reclaimed in this way is necessarily a misfit and must always seem inharmonious in its setting. It never carries out the idea for which we are striving: that a house should be typical of the life of the people who live in it. It should express individuality, be a house to live in, to grow in, to become identified with your life; this is a most important fact that cannot be too carefully observed, and it becomes all the more essential if the home is to be an all-the-year-round one and not merely a summer residence where but a few months are passed.
To-day it is a far more difficult matter to select an old farmhouse of sufficient distinction to remodel than it was even ten years ago. The most desirable ones have already been bought, since the pleasures of living in the country have been realized by so many former dwellers in the city. There are many personal matters to be thought of in the selection of a house for remodeling; one must consider his individual needs in its relation to his daily pursuits. The business man must select a house near enough to the city to allow traveling back and forth every day; but the man whose occupation does not require city life during the time he wishes to be in the country can establish himself wherever he chooses. There is no doubt that the latter is able to find a far better farmhouse, for he can go farther away, where the best types have not been reclaimed, owing to their distances from the large cities.
It is to be taken for granted that a person has a definite purpose when he leaves the city for a country existence, and it is necessary that he educate himself to the point where he makes his ideas practical. This cannot be done without study beforehand. In making a house suit individual requirements, one must follow along its own lines. Do not attempt to transplant into it features from some other house you admire. An Elizabethan gable or a craftsman living-room may have been very interesting in the friends' houses in which you saw them, but they would be quite out of place thrust into a Colonial farmhouse. If you have a real need for the features that you find in some other house, you should adapt them to the spirit of the building you are remodeling.
If it cannot be made to harmonize with the other motives, it is possible that you are attempting to make a home out of a building that is not suited to your style of life. But it is because these Colonial farmhouses meet the requirements of the average American families so adequately that they are so interesting to remodel. Each house owner must decide for himself what is the main element in his existence and reclaim the house accordingly. In one family, the interests will be entirely domestic; another household will live in the open, occupied with sports; another devotes much time to music; and there are still others who are absorbed in some special craft or work that will require definite accommodations. In many cases the house can readily be adapted to these particular requirements without any essential change in its atmosphere. The success that is achieved by working with these old-time elements is due to their sincerity and honesty in solving the problems of their own day and age; they are the results of actual and real experience, and we know no better ways to meet the same conditions. So that when we have the same problems confronting us, we cannot do better than accept the successful results of others' experiments.
This does not mean a slavish copying of the old in restoration; to simply imitate old elements would be neither interesting nor commendable, except for the purposes of a museum. Each style is based upon some fundamental principle, and it should be our aim to work with the underlying idea of creating that which will best meet our special needs, not merely to reproduce the old in imitation of itself.
Nature lends itself to the remodeling and suggests many ideas that help to identify the house with the personality of its owner. Everything attempted in the way of improvements can be broad and expansive and not congested, as would be necessary in the city. You should in every particular make the house grow to fit the surroundings and do it in such a way that it will seem to have been so always. Often the house has to be moved on its foundations to meet this need, but that is not a difficult matter to accomplish, if the timbers are stanch and the underpinning steady.
If the owner's ideas are carried out, the house in its finished condition will be but an expression of his taste and understanding. In it we will be able to read his likes and dislikes. Unity should be the keynote of it all and should permeate not only the house itself in all its details, but its gardens, lawns, stables, and every aspect of the estate.
Three Acres, from the Main Road