Our Second Farmhouse - Running in Circles!

This house was massive - 3,000 to 3,500 square feet - but because of its layout and age, the size did not resemble any grand house of a century ago or even large modern houses.  It was well over a century old but was in 3 parts and each joined in their own haphazard way without any thought to the overall flow.
 
The main entrance was through a side porch that extended along half of one side of the house.  You entered through a screen door that did little to keep the cold and snow out and 5 feet straight across the long but narrow porch from the screen door was a more solid wooden door that led into the kitchen.  This was the only door of the 2 with a lock - a bathroom lock!  I felt really safe and secure...NOT!  I also felt really cold as you could see daylight around the door.  Because the two doors were straight across from each other, the air just blew straight through into the main house.

From the porch, you walked into what was the first addition, added on in the 20's or 30's.  This contained the kitchen and back stairs that led up to an ancient bathroom and 1 bedroom.  The kitchen led into the main hallway of the original house that ended at the main set of stairs.  I always thought that old houses with 2 sets of stairs were so cool as only old houses had back stairs.  I had no idea how much fun kids could have running up one set of stairs and down the other.  Or how many heart attacks I could have worrying about them getting hurt, especially when their selectively-deaf cousins came over (not that my own kids weren't selective!). 

Just in case the two sets of stairs weren't enough fun for the kids, there was more.  When you stepped into the hallway from the kitchen, you had a choice of 3 doors - the one to the right leading to a huge living room that ran the entire length of the original house, the one to the left that led into another huge living room that was equally large and one just ahead and a little to the right that led to the basement.  Straight ahead, the hall ended as there was a closet blocking it, facing the other way.  You had to go through either the room on the left or right, as both rooms had another door.  These doors led to the entrance to the closet, to the main stairs and the front door.  Both of these rooms also had a third door, one leading to the kitchen and the other to the dining room.

So all told, the kids could run in at least 6 circles, counting the 2 sets of basement stairs.  Talk about nuts!  Later, we closed off the door to the old basement steps and just used the newer stairs in the 2nd addition.  That slowed the kids down a bit.  We closed off both doors into the living room on the right and just used the door from the dining room. That slowed them down a lot more.  We took one doorway out of the other large living room to the left and left 2 doorways in so we could turn this room into 2 rooms.  Blocking all these doorways meant that we could no longer get through to the front door or stairs unless we took out the closet.  This gave us a nice, long hallway with lots of light...and really slowed the kids down!

Too many doors.
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The old stairwell at the back of the Delaney House

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