Back in the day, traditional farm house plans consisted of two floors with the same number of rooms on each floor, all about the same size with a front and back door and a path leading to the bathroom. While one or two bathrooms are usually included in the interior house plans in today’s homes, the basic layout has not undergone significant changes.
Envision a two-story plan in a square layout, with four equal size rooms on the first floor, with a set of stairs leading to the upper floor located in the center of the room. Typically, a kitchen is placed in the back and a dining room and living room placed facing the front of the home. The fourth room on the house plans could be used as a family room or an additional bedroom, and most rooms were connected by large open doorways. Only if the room was used as a bedroom was it closed off with doors.
The upper level usually consists of a small hall surrounding one side of the stairs with two bedrooms at the front as well as the back and possibly a second bathroom, usually facing the rear, directly above the bathroom on the first level.
A large porch on the front stretching the complete width of the house is sometimes offset by a small porch on the back of the house, treated as a mud room if enclosed, leading into the kitchen. A garage that could be attached near the rear of the side, housing the kitchen, was often placed away from the house with a connecting, covered structure depending on the climate in which the house was built.
Lot size of older farm houses usually consisted of acres instead of feet and additional functional buildings could be added at the homeowner’s discretion.
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Christine Cooney
Christine has over a decade of experience as a house plan and floor plan expert. Outside of providing her expertise to customers to help them find and build their dream homes, her passion and knowledge of the home building industry allows Christine to guide families and builders through all of the important steps from finding plans to building custom homes that meet the expectations of today’s new home owner. Christine’s years of knowledge of the diverse trends and needs of the modern homeowner has made her into an authoritative and trusted voice in the online house plan community..