Remembering an old farmhouse

[Don_P]

I took my first trip back to work yesterday, we aren't doing that again today  .
We passed by one of those old abandoned farmhouses that are like old friends on the morning drive to work. I have meant to stop time and again to take some pictures... she was on the ground. I'm sure there will be a mighty fine pink double wide paradise parked there next week.

While it is fresh in mind I roughly sketched the massing.

The house is ~16'deep, the porch is ~6'. It was ~36' long. Notice how the roof launches from about a 24' width giving a large attic/upper floor. The concept can be used on a single story. But at 2 stories it can easily be added on to several ways. This had a full length single story lean to shed wing of rooms along the back. Or, another 1 or 2 story wing can T into the back. Porches or sheds can step off of those if it needs to grow more. The roof more often  launched from the 16' width, this was one of this house's modifications I liked.

Using the concept a 24-26' cantilevered attic truss atop 8' walls with a beam over the porch posts would give a nice amount of room above a relatively small core.

[MountainDon]

The house I grew up in (age 2 through 20+) was built sometime just prior to WWI. It was a story and a half. Going by the lot size I think it was twenty feet wide. The roof was launched similar to what you illustrated; about a 2 foot horizontal overhang on each side. That was framed rafters and ceiling / upper floor joists that hung out over the side walls. Upstairs had a shed dormer on each side, one for the bathroom and the other for the staircase to make a U-turn. Sloped ceilings in the two upper bedrooms, one at each end, and short inner sidewalls about three feet high. A strip of flat ceiling ran down the center; almost 4 feet wide. No insulation other than wood shavings in the small attic and newspapers in the walls. Newspapers were supposed to stop drafts I think. They also made interesting reading when various remodeling occurred over the years.

Mom stayed in it years after dad died and didn't sell and move until she was seventy-something.

[Davegmc]

Don: Question for you. What if there was a full basement under the house, including the area under the porch. This is the way many Craftsman Bungalows in the Northwest were built in the 20s and 30s. How would one keep the basement dry? It is not really possible to hermetically seal the porch deck (or basement ceiling under the porch).

[Don_P]

Good question, I hope the other Don can answer it 
I've had a few poured caps over rooms beneath porches to my knowledge they are still dry. The porch roof above does shed the majority of the water.

[MountainDon]

The house on my uncle's farm where I first learned to drive on a John Deere model M had a cistern that was at one end of the house. It was concrete capped, about a foot above ground. That was an adjunct to the original cistern that was in a corner of the basement. The  was added after their well ran dry and the family grew. There was a bolt on access hatch. It had a slightly sloped surface. I assume it kept the water falling on it out. The concrete walls retained the water fine as far as I know. The plan had been to add on to the farmhouse above it but that never happened.

[Davegmc]

I've got a Model M Don. Been in the family for about 50 years. I also learned to drive on it.

Dave

[John Raabe]

Nice small house design Don_P. That plan has a lot of options that would be easy modifications. Some of the porch areas could be enclosed, and as you mention, lots of options for extensions and additions.

One choice would be whether or not the porches are inside or outside space. You could have a full basement or sealed crawlspace foundation with the floors continuous from inside to outside over the full width. This would mean a waterproof deck at any exposed porch floors and the choice requires diligence to keep everything dry. Optionally screens and storm windows could be installed to protect it. The advantage of this is that rooms can expand into the porch space more easily.

More traditional would be to have the porch structure built with its own foundation of either pier and beam or a vented crawlspace. Then the deck of the porch floor can drain below and the porch level can be set below the interior floor plane for natural drainage. This would then mean building up the floor level in enclosed rooms.

[alex trent]

I lived in one built in 1892 outside Princeton NJ for 23 years. Put up with a lot of inconviences as hard to keep up with all that needed to be done over the years. Spent a lot of money to make it sound and it really felt like home.  I was never tempted to build a big new one, although they sprung up like weeds all around the area. Managed to keep them at bay as i had some land around me.

It was sold and a few months later it was pushed in and now there is a pinkish brick 4,000 sq ft monster...back to the road and just 5 windows to be seen.  Two Benzes in the driveway and people from the city in it. Wall street.  The 1%, I guess. I'd be sorry I sold it, but was the last hold out anyway in what 10 years ago was a refuge from suburbia.

Progress, I guess.