I lived on a farm in North East Tennessee for several years. This farm had no running water, no electricity, no phones. We had three rooms. To get to each room, you could not walk indoors. To go from the room we called the living room to the room that we designated the kitchen, we had to walk out onto the wooden porch, down a set of stairs, and into the kitchen through another door. To go to the room designated as the bedroom, we had to go out of the kitchen or the living room, and depending on which location, we had to go up one or two flights of wooden stairs to the next wooden porch and in through another door.

Now, this can be very confusing, I'm sure, as you had to live there to understand what I mean by out and in. It's hard to explain. I've created a picture. And I know somewhere that I have photographs of this farm. We took a few pictures of it back in the day with a friends camera. Of course, now I wouldn't know where to look for the pictures of the house, the barn, the coops...but I know they are around somewhere. I guess digging them up would be harder than just doing a sketch. So I'll try a "sketch" instead.

Now, let me see if I can show you what is what.

1. Kitchen (rough timber floor and sanded timber walls)

2. Living Room (rough timber floor and sanded timber walls)

3. Bedroom (sanded walnut beams and rough timber floor)

4. Attic (beams in ceiling, rough wood timber floor)

5. Living Room Porch (rough wood timber)

6. Kitchen Porch (old slab foundation)

7. Bedroom Porch (rough wood timber)

8. Rough Timber Stairs (Put in after we moved in)/Old Ladder to Attic (already in)

9. Old wood stoves (Put in after we moved in)

That's about it. Now, we know a few things about the farm, but only after we lived there for a few years. We found out from family that the first house on the property was actually built way back in the holler. We found remains of a house and road way back there when we hiked the 50 acres we owned. There was a few old fencing poles up and some rocks where a foundation had been set up. But that's all there was.

The house stayed there for awhile though. The house we moved in was actually built closer to the road because it was made for the neighborhood. Or, well, the region. It was the schoolhouse for that area for some time. They built the main floor of it, two doors, with one window. It had a nice chimney, too. It operated for several years that way. The teachers, who owned the main home up the holler, charged only 5 cents for the kids for a weeks time.

A fire took the first house back in the holler. No one was hurt, but the damage had been done. So the family decided to sell the house to some loggers. A logging company moved in, made a huge road go up the mountainside, cutting into a lot of trees, property, and making a huge muddy mess the first month they were there. While that was going on they set out to make an addition onto the schoolhouse section.

They built right next to the schoolhouse, carved into it as well, and made the addition separate from the rest. So what is now the kitchen is the original kitchen. What is the bedroom was bunkhouse 2. What is the living room, which was the schoolhouse, became bunkhouse 1. There was no stairs between the main sections, but from the bedroom to the attic they carved a hidden door, cut over to the attic section with a crude wooden ladder hooked into the walls and the chimney, and into the attic area.

From what I could tell from what we found up there they hung meats and things to dry as well as tobacco inside. It stored a lot of things like wood for winter too. The wild thing, with the door hidden like it was, and things found near the chimney - stairs leading to the base of the house using the chimney as stone steps...well, we figured it was on the underground railroad. There were some papers with names, ages, and the family said none of them were students. They had an old record book from the time teachers were present. So we believe the names were slaves who passed through. We couldn't verify at the time, and I don't have the paper now, but if I did I'd look that up for sure with the internet.

When we took over the place there were no stoves, no electricity, no water, no phone. It was basically a real mess. There was an old pump house that had been put in with the loggers. I'm not quite sure when they put it in, but it barely worked at the time. There was a pump house around it, neglected as all get out. It had a lot of work needed.

There were some coops and hogs sheds and a big, huge barn that set across the creek. I felt like I was where I needed to be when I saw that old barn. I didn't mind the house or how the pump house looked, or even the old outhouse there. I loved that barn. Big, tall, old rough timber standing like a monolith in those cedar trees. It was wonderful to me.

It took a long time to get that place up to where we could live in it. Stairs were put in after knocking out walls side to side of the chimney. One set going down from the living room to the kitchen. One set going up from the living room to the bedroom. We closed off the back door on the living room, keeping the front door on the living room on it.

The back door to the old kitchen was replaced into a window. The front door to the kitchen was kept. I liked having two doors and two sections with two porches. The porch off of the bedroom was enclosed soon enough and became a closet. The front porches on the kitchen and living room remained as is.

We put in wood stoves in the living room and the kitchen. The one in the kitchen was actually the small one. The living room was the larger one. I cooked on both. The kitchen didn't have any cabinets or furniture, and the foundation was leaving it. We jacked it up as best as we could and let it be the way it wanted after that. A new window was put in the living room and the kitchen. There was an original window left though. It was still in good shape, and that was in the kitchen on the back wall. It looked out over the blackberry bushes and the garden area.

Boy that was a sight in bloom...

We whitewashed and cleaned and scrubed and painted that place up nice. It was a great thing to leave the bedroom alone though. The walnut wood of that room was gorgeous. So much so that we decided to not paint it. It was just too much to even touch it with a drop. We also let the attic be.

Once the house was alright we attacked the outhouse and the pump house. There was an old coop near the house, too close for my comfort, so we had that knocked out. We used the wood to redo the roof of the outhouse and one of the coop walls on another building. I scrubbed that outhouse till it was without any dirt or smell. Then I whitewashed it and coated it nicely with some clear coat.

I put in a magazine container with a lid, a toilet paper can that opened and closed with a simple touch of the foot, and a basket of goodies needed just in case. Things like sanitizing wipes, lotions, and a sealable garbage can to keep the trash in. We didn't want any critters visiting. There was a nice lantern hook, a extra battery pack and it's flashlight, and of course some lye to toss into the hole. I didn't like putting the lye in. I wanted something else, but at the time that's what we did and what we thought to do. I've read alternative things we could do, but back then we didn't really have a library near or a internet to get to.

I'll continue this on later when I have some rest. It's getting on here in time and I need to get to bed! Thank you for reading and visiting. Wish I could offer you some tea and cookies or something for your troubles. God bless and warm wishes. Part 2 coming later.