I love this photo of my mother in her farmhouse kitchen.
The wood stove is your first hint at what I meant by “habitable.” At the end of the restoration, and by intent, our farmhouse was not for those who loved their creature comforts. We had no electricity, no central heat, no indoor plumbing. We used kerosene lamps and had another wood stove in the living room for heat. Our “bathroom” was the outhouse, down a short trail outside the back door. The bath-time washtub eventually migrated from the yard into the kitchen. The second summer, Dad built a sink in the kitchen and installed an indoor pump. It was never luxurious, but luxury wasn’t the goal. And to a small kid from Chicago, it was heaven.
