Plan on an Extra First Floor Room

It’s rare to find a country home plan published in an old farm journal that doesn’t have a "chamber" shown on the main floor. Folk lore says that a first floor bedroom was a "birthing room," and it was. But, it was also a children’s play room, a sick room, a bedroom for extra farm hands at harvest time, Grandma’s room, a guest room and whatever else it was needed to be for ever-changing country life.

Within the scope of building a new country home, one additional room isn’t too expensive, and it might make all the difference in how useful and enjoyable your new place is after it’s new. Use it now as an entertainment room or home office, tomorrow as a nursery, later as family den and later still as a place where your grandchildren stay when they visit. Someday you’ll tire of taking the stairs and be glad for the option of a bedroom on the first floor.