How modern houses came to be

A modern house offers far more to the occupants than houses that have been around a while. To be fair, houses that were designed and built many years ago have a certain charm. Some are grand old places. Some are charming smaller places, and some are old places, but all are interesting. Modern houses usually have much more to offer than older places, unless those older places have had a bunch of modernization work added to them. An updated older house can be pretty expensive, depending on what has been updated. For instance, updated kitchens with all the bells and whistles included in the upgrade are always expensive. A bathroom, if not already there, isn’t an inexpensive addition.

Modern houses come equipped with bathrooms, modern kitchens and areas that have prepared space for laundry. Upgrades are standard for houses built in this day and age. When I think back to the house my dad’s family lived in when he was growing up, the advances houses have made in, say, 100 years are amazing. Dad’s parents were farmers and lived deep in the country. They had no electrical power and no indoor plumbing. There was a well house, an outhouse and no central heat, though their wood stove did a pretty good job on cold days and nights. My grandmother cooked on a wood stove and had a well house instead of a refrigerator. A hand pump was used to bring water into the kitchen from a well. I liked that house, especially when my grandparents began telling stories about it. One story was about their dog who lived under the house. One morning, that dog woke up to find he had been sleeping next to a curled-up baby bear, whose large mother was sleeping next to both of them. The dog jumped up, yelping and barking at the top of his lungs, waking everybody in the house and terrifying the baby bear. By the time Granddad got out his shotgun and rushed outside to find the source of the hysterical noise, mama bear and baby were deep in the woods, safe from Granddad’s shotgun.

We kids loved that story but were disappointed that we never got to see the bears. Is that a true story? We were little kids. We remember waking up to a loud noise, but the bear involvement might be the adults making it a funny story. True or exaggerated, it was a great story, and we kids chose to believe every word.

Taller Half and I lived in a sort of modern house when we were first married. It had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a small sort of modern dishwasher-free kitchen, no laundry space and a nice front porch. There was no storage space of any kind, but since we were just married, we had little to no storage needs. Our first house was a good house, and we were happy there until we had our first baby. Suddenly, that place was too small, and a laundry room was needed. That is how the modern house arrived: need. Occupants need increased house sizes and rooms designed for specific needs. Aren’t houses smart?