I do: a c 1845-ish, timber-frame, 2-story, wood structure farmhouse in upstate NY.

When you look at it, it appears to be a standard four room up and four room down, center hall, two-bay, vernacular Greek Revival building. Except that at one time, is was gable-ended plan Greek Revival which had a side-hall config. - but the center hall was there first, and is there now. There is also a wing sticking off the back that is a collection, or rather an accretion, of various service areas that have been under one roof since the 1880's (I have photographs).

My house was always heated with wood or coal stoves. In this area, home to very early stove-making industries, this was not uncommon from about 1830, or so, on.
There are two original chimneys poking out of the roof on each end of the roofline. You can see where internal stove pipes traveled long, often horizontal, distances to reach the chimneys.

As for uses of the downstairs rooms: I have two large "front rooms" on either side of the central hall with the stairs to the second story. I assume both were either parlors or bedrooms. Both extend beyond the centerline of the roof leaving smaller (less deep) rooms behind them. On the right hand side the smaller room is joined by the space inside the wing. And it is in this room that a series of (now removed) staircases arose from the basement to the attic and where the middle period gable-end Greek Revival style has its front door.

The room could have been used for dining space (remember this is a farmhouse so a real dining room might not have much use) or it could have just been an entrance and hallway leading into the wind where I believe the kitchen offices have always been - though as I mentioned the wing space has grown considerably over the years, acquiring additional rooms: pantry, buttery, scullery, work rooms, wood room etc.

One of the abiding puzzles of my house is actually the single-story full-width front porch. It spans the "main center hall entry", i.e. the earliest door way. Although it appears to be an early feature, I doubt it was planned for at the same time as the doorway. The doorway has a lovely surrounding of sidelights and a full transom light which is buried inside the porch roof. I can't imagine why anyone would intentionally do the work of creating the transom window and then stick it up inside the roof overhang. At the very least there must have been some re-planning during construction!

I will know more in a few weeks when the porch (which is one the south side of the house) is torn off to let in light. It will be very interesting to see how it is attached to the timberframe.

In answer to your question about dining rooms and entrances, yes I do think it was possible for a farm family to have a nominal dining room for fancy events (and funeral collations) that mainly did service as the formal entrance. Certainly in my house the family ate most of the time in the kitchen, I believe. ...

Farmhouses were built in many styles; there will be too many differences to draw any inferences.

That said, few homes had the principal door opening into the dining room.

It would not have been that unusual to have a front door open into a dining room. I've seen several sketches of old house plans, some of which were done for fire insurance purposes, that showed a "front room" being the dining room.
I've also read descriptions that spoke of having a dining room where the family ate supper when they had company, which depending on circumstances could be pretty often. Dining rooms were not just places to eat, they often were multi-purpose rooms where you could sit and relax, catch up on your sewing, etc.
If you were farmers, your guests would probably be farm folk too. The men would most likely sit out on the porch and smoke, or go out to the barn and check livestock, etc. The women would help the hostess with dinner preparations. They'd serve dinner in the dining room, because you didn't let your guests eat in the kitchen, it just wouldn't be right. ( I'm talking 19th century mind set here)

Of course, we don't know for sure if walls and doors were moved around in your house. I've got a picture of an 1850's farmhouse here in front of me. What we would swear was the front door, was actually the side door. People in the past didn't always use their houses in the same way that we do.

Trying to visualize Molly's house, I'm guessing that the little back room where the front door and all the stairs used to be was a small entry hall and the room next to it was the original parlor. The other rooms were most likely bedrooms. On the other hand that could have been the family entrance and the back stairs, wouldn't want to muck up the front hall with muddy boots, you know.
The house I referred to before, if you just look at the plans, you'd guess would have 2 front doors, 2 side doors and 3 back doors.

Our house had three entrances when it was an active farmbeginning in the 1830's. The front door which was for formal guess which opens to the foyer and floating staircase.
The side door opened into a smaller room which we believe was a used as a recieving room for the male head of the households farm and plaster business. Off of that room was his office. The nail where his calendar once hung is still there behind the bookcase as well as the wear marks on the floor mouldings where his boots rested under his desk.
The last entrance was the servant entrance off the kitchen whhich was more or less destroyed when a previous owner added on an attached garage.
If you really want to know what the rooms were used for find out what you can about the families that lived in the house before you.

I own an 1890's classic-L farmhouse in Iowa. In the upper Midwest -- the front door of the farmhouse ususally opened to the living room. And in most cases, the houses were situated so the house faced east and south --- so the north and west winds were less of a problem.

I was lucky enough to know the builder's children. Fortunately, little of the house has changed --except my husband had to eliminate a bay window in the kitchen so there could be cabinets and a laundry room. I guess I can forgive him for that ... maybe!!!

A great book about the farmhouses in the upper midwest is "Death of a dream".

Cathy

We have an old farmhouse. The dining room is the largest room in the house. It has a door opening directly into it. There is a front door opening into a tiny square "hall" that leads upstairs and to the living and dining rooms. It has an back door that opens into what was the kitchen. There is another small room that had a storm window labelled "mother's bedroom." Those 4 rooms were all there were on the main floor before the addition was built.

In the picture below, the door on the left leads to the dining room, the window next to it was the original kitchen. (No, I didn't just take this picture. There is no snow yet.)

{{!gwi}}

Previous owners, who decended from the original builders, said that the reason for the separate door was so that workers could come directly into the dining room for meals and leave without walking through all the house. I guess that it must not have been a very formal dining room.

My farmhouse is 1700 brick.It has 1 front door,right inside was a door to go in sitting room.The kitchen in that room had 3 doors,5 windows.The room did have a divider wall the big walk in fireplace was in the one part.I was told its unusual to have summer house attatched to the house.My kitchen is in the summer house .The room I call study was a birthing room,Were near Gettysburg Pa the house was 1 of 3 here during the war.I found out a Col.George Himes from gettysburg battle owned this in 1822.I have deed with his name on.

wow! i love to hear about all your houses! This is great.
My farmhouse doesn't have hallways downstairs. you basically have a door near the front and a door near the back and When you enter you go from one room to the next. The only roof "off" of another room is our library or study. It may have been a bedroom at some point.
We tore off our downstairs bathroom roof last year to repair it and we VERY surprised to find out that this roof appeared to be original to the house. It had old old nails in it. We think it used to be a side entrance door and someone added walls and plumbing and made a bathroom.
we have been doing alot of research on the house however I need to go to the city to pull out some deeds. I know who was on the land at certain times and have maps wiht the house on it but I can't be sure of who built it.
-renee

My house was/is an 1855 farmhouse. I have lived there about two years and I haven't made it to the town records yet to see if I can find the original plans. It has 3 additions. Two in the 1950's and one in the 1990's. Last week I had someone in to pick up a few rugs to be cleaned. He went on and on about how much the house has changed and that he used to do clean the rugs there 20 years ago and the front door was moved and the stairs were moved and it looked totally different.

I have been told that when they did the addition in the 90's they redid much of the house and there was a little bulldozer inside the house on the bottom floor and they ripped off the top floor and put a new one on. I would like to see what the original house looked like and the blueprints. there are a lot of strange old things around like a shed with a basement? I think it was a cold cellar? We have found a few wells(? I think) basically a cement cover over a tunnel leading down with bars built in to the "walls" like a ladder so you can climb down. A safe built in to the old foundation that has the handle broken off and supposedly the PO never opened it and it was like that when they bought it.

It is a work in progress! We had it stained and painted last year and we have been working on the inside and outside as much as we can.

I need to go to the city to pull out some deeds. I know who was on the land at certain times and have maps wiht the house on it but I can't be sure of who built it.

I want to do that too, but it'll have to wait until the end of February when I have a few days off that are not holiday-busy.

If you don't go before that, we should go together.

Heck, we'll get Mike and make it an OldHouse Forum field trip!

Vicki

if the deeds are not microfilmed they will pull them for you if you call. I guess they don't know how to use the microfilm down there because when I called with the deed I wanted them to pull they said I had to do it! I have the exact location of the deeds I would like to pull because of the abstract of title. Luckily mine goes back to about 1870!! so I only expect to have to search for 1 or 2 deeds.
I have to use my vacation time also, but it will be well worth it!!!
-renee

Pulling deeds is something most clerk's office won't do (except perhaps for your current one, which may be electronically recorded.) It takes time to go through the grantee/grantor indexes, chain the title, and locate the books with copies of the deeds and make the copies. Even if you have the abstract of title, you may miss a lot of valuable info if you only use that data. (Most abstracts are only the minimum necessary to get a mortgage or title insurance; title searchers are not paid to collect anything more.) The grantee/grantor indexes will alert you to other properties that may have been owned by the previous holders of your title. That might give you a tip on wehther or not they actually lived on the property in question, in addition to perhaps where they came from and where they went. Plus you can chain abuttors and get even more info.

Does anyone need a quick lesson in title chaining? I do it all the time and find it fascinating, but I remember how confusing and frustrating it felt at first!

Molly~

I had the book number and page number so they wouldn't have to search. If you have that info they would photocopy the deed and you can pick it up, except the ones I need are too old and on microfilm. So they wouldn't do it.
-renee

I did mine, the people showed me where to look at the court house I went from there.But when we bought the farm the person in charge of estate sent me a large envelope of all deeds, land drawings over the years.That was great.Some even have tax stamps on deeds.

Molly, I'd love a tutorial, if you don't mind. I was going to throw myself on the mercy of the personnel at the clerk's office and hope I caught someone on a good day!

Vicki

If you enjoy doing a search don't forget to check the the easements. Some of the old ones are interesting. Going back far enough the laws differ. Most of the country is based on English law, the West on Spanish & parts of the South on French.

Its easy to do,I posted how a few weeks ago.On your deed theres a number It will say for instance...Book K page 36 go to that book at court house look up Book K page 36.On that deed it will be another deed,on that deed it should be another say book P page 10.There you should find a copy of your deed earlier.keep doing this till you cant go anymore.Its fun .Alot of my deeds talk about buildings etc on property at that time.They have copiers there too to copy deeds.a friend went with me to do hers .She got back about 3 deeds and the deed was not readable she had to quit.Have fun,I loved it.The book and page number is usually about 1/2 way down the deed you cant miss it.

I'll start a separate thread, so the info on chaining is easier to find, and I don't wind up hijacking Renee's OP.

Molly~

Oh, I wouldn't have minded! I am pretty easygoing!! :)
-renee

Its easy to do,I posted how a few weeks ago.On your deed theres a number It will say for instance...Book K page 36 go to that book at court house look up Book K page 36.On that deed it will be another deed,on that deed...

My deed has a book and a number, and when I looked that up, I got a copy of that deed. No reference to earlier ones. I did a name search, and that was more fruitful, but our online records in this county only go back to 1984, so I had to stop there.

I've got to get down to the clerk's office.

I started the thread last night, and spent a couple of hours working on the basic instructions, and then when I went to submit I got that "message rejected because of illegal html included" screen. Since I didn't use an HTML commands, I'll be switched on what it was. In trying to find what was wrong I lost the entire post, so finally gave up and went to bed! Sorry.... :(

I'll try again this weekend.

Molly~

Methods of recording & filing differ. Check your county/state/etc to see how it is done where your property is.

i'm up for a field trip or tutorial or both! I've heard you can get old photos at the clerks office (if you are lucky) as well. The historical society may have info as well.

My old Greek Revival farmhouse had rather interesting beginnings. The original structure had just two rooms down and three up. Downstairs the front room is very large, and the front door opens to this room. Right outside once sat 3 pillars(At some point the second owner added the fourth pillar),so what to make of this strange layout?(And the structure outside which has always been called the cobbler shed?)
It was originally built by a single minister, the large front room was his 'church', unfortunately for him he never built up a flock, hence the cobbler shed. He was forced into making shoes....which strangely enough places him in all the historical records I've read as being the best shoemaker/cobbler around. (He had quite the following:)) The next owners, a wealthy family from Philadelphia, wanted a summer home that looked like their town home. They added the 4th column, sleeping porches, bathrooms and tremendous gardens...housing the gardener in the cobbler shed. A whirlwind trip through Europe, saw the need for a 1920's addition of a "Shakespeare's birthplace look- a- like den", an italian fountain and lovely 20's era fireplaces. It also saw the drying up of funds and another(more dour) family member stepping in and buying the farm to use as an alternate rest home for their invalid mother. The gardens were ripped up because they were impractical. The fountain boarded up. Sleeping porches ripped off to build a featureless 1960's modern kitchen wing. It's been hard trying to determine how this house should be restored, but I'm trying to go greek revival as seen through a 1920's eye. If it weren't for the long memories of some neighbors and the former owners, I'm sure we would have wondered forever at the odd layout of the original structure.

This is ours. Sad to say we put it on the market today.
5 br, 3 bath, kitchen, LR DR Foyers

$128,000 in Country NC

Here is a link that might be useful: {{!gwi}}

FOR OWNERS OF GREEK REVIVAL HOMES
One of the architects who started the Greek Revival style was Asher Benjamin who wrote several handbooks that were used by carpenters all over the new nation. Greek Revival was a purely American style.
You can read and download pages from his book

THE AMERICAN BUILDERÂS COMPANION; or, A new system of architecture: particularly adapted to the present style of building in the United States of America , 1806 edition.

The book has a multitude of drawings, also floor plans for houses, etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: THE AMERICAN BUILDERS COMPANION

Thanks Kennebunker, that's a treasure trove for Greek Revival home owners!