A Closet, A Closet, My Kingdom for a Closet

Today is a tad of background on my little cottage house. I adore my house and know all the problems inside and out. My little gem was built in 1935 as a farm house...just a tiny farm, though. The original family was a husband, wife, and 2 kids that shared one of the bedrooms. The road was dirt and about a half mile long. There wasn't a house next door, across the street, or anywhere else in sight. The closest neighbor was the Franklin Farm that was about a mile away. If you stood in the middle of the road and went all the way to the left, you'd come to the next dirt road that ran perpendicular. There was actually a sign in wood like a cross with the name of the road painted on it, "Three Chopt Rd", which came from 3 chops of the ax as a marker. Going the other way, you'd come to another dirt rd that had a sprinkle of gravel on it. It was barely wide enough for a car and in fact was used mostly with wagons, horses and tractors. Today it is a main road and 4 lanes.


We moved to this house in 1948 when I was one year old. It was truly in the middle of nowhere and people used to ask my father, who was a lawyer, why he moved so far away. Why, there wasn't even bus service! Now, we didn't have a car (or a TV)and I don't think Dad ever thought that out in advance, so someone came to pick him up in the mornings and took him "downtown" to his office every day for a year. In '49 we went all the way to Roanoke in the mountains to buy a hospital-green Plymouth, running boards and all. What a treat! ...except for that horsehair stuffing the seats. That stuff would stick the devil out of your hiney. Anyway, back to the house. The house appears to be good sized, but here's the way it really is:


Facing the house, divide the house into top and bottom and then into halves. Go through the front door and there is a staircase dividing the house in half. To the left is the living room and it takes up the entire left side of the house from front to back and has 6 windows and a fireplace. Bliss. On the right side of the stairs is the dining room with 3 windows but it doesn't go all the way to the back. It runs into the kitchen which is horizontal and goes from the back of the stairway (not the living room)to the other side -- narrow, sort of like a galley (3 windows excluding the window on the back door). That's the downstairs, 3 rooms. Now the upstairs is like this: Up the stairs and you're in the hallway with a window at the top of the stairs. To the right is the bathroom and a bedroom. Going the other way is the other bedroom. Boom, nothing else; 2 bedrooms and one bath. Do you know how hard it is at my age to bolt up those stairs a half dozen times a day to get to the bathroom? And the closets. Here's how that goes. Top hallway, one closet approx 18 inches wide and 12 inches deep. I can cram a dirt devil in there, lol. Then, each bedroom has one, count 'em, ONE closet. Each is under 6 ft tall and is 24 inches wide. It's the depth of the closets that is a killer, 14 inches. That's it. A little rod on each side, 11 inches each. A real killer. But when the house was built as a farm house, closets were only for overalls and the ONE suit and dress for Sundays. In 1935, it must have been heaven to have so much closet space. But there is an upside, sort of. In those days, women did not undress in front of their husbands, so a little "dressing room" was off the side of the bedrooms. When Dad died, Mom turned hers into a better closet. The one in my room is where this computer is and works out ok, although it's a bit cramped. Still, better than nothing. I never would have had a place other than this to even put my computer. As for clothes, well, tg for dormers in the bedroom windows. I have dressers in all of them, and trunks as well. In my room alone, I have 3 dressers and 2 trunks in use. You learn how to fold clothes very quickly in old houses. So there are pluses and minuses, but aren't there in anything. My rooms are few but they are good sized and not like the chopped up little rooms of many homes today; and the house is solid as a rock, too....oh yeah, thick plaster walls , those can be a problem, I forgot. Now there is a full basement that I forgot to mention, and that's where the washer and dryer and the furnace is. Seriously, I hate going down there. It's like a scarey cave and it floods all the time. My Lucy went down there ONE time and hasn't tried again. She came back upstairs, wide eyed like she'd seen a ghost. She must have told Sam about it because now he only peers down the steps and never tries to go down there, either. "Scaredy Cats".


Still, there were always wonderful, adventure filled days in this house. Since there was nothing close by, and back in those days everything was so safe, even at 4 yrs old, I could meander through the woods for what seemed forever all by myself, and even walk the mile plus to the Franklin's farm house. The Franklins were our closest and only neighbor. They raised cows, chickens, pigs, most things that farms have, but many mornings we'd hear a cow mooing in our yard. Mom and I kept a rope ready for this. We'd make a little loose collar for the cow and walk her back to the Franklins'. Not only was it a fun walk and I loved cows, but when we got to the Franklins', they'd always thank us with fresh hot biscuits and churned butter with preserves. YUM. That's all I have to say. YUMMMMMM.


So that's it for the history lesson of my beloved little house. I hope to be here until my last breath as this is truly home to me even though it's now not even close to being in the middle of nowhere, lol. It's still H-O-M-E, but give me a real closet, please.


XOXOXO