Your Farmhouse: How to Plan Remodeling

1947

National Agricultural Library

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Miscellaneous Publication Number 619

So you are planning to remodel your old farmhouse! It is half a century at least since Grandfather built it. It was a good house by the standards of those days. It is probably a good house yet. Otherwise you would not want to make it over.

Age can bring out a lot of weaknesses and faults, of course, even in a well-built house. Also, your house may be too large or too small for your present family. In any case, the old house may not be suited to modern ways of living and doing things. That is why you are going to remodel.

It would be different if the old house were not sound. Defects in a house that was not well planned or well built at the start or that has not been kept repaired and painted, may make it of little value and not worth the cost of remodeling.

Look at the house on the cover. It is a good model to use in studying remodeling. It was an old house, but well built and sound. It was remodeled by the Hubbards, of Wisconsin, into the home shown. Besides Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard, the family includes a married daughter and her husband. They entertain a great deal and often have overnight guests. They changed the old house to meet their own special needs.