The Florida Cracker House

When I was a kid my folks house was what was called a cracker house - that had been added on to.  A cracker house is a two room house that both rooms are of equal size.  The front room was the living room and dinning room kitchen and the second room was the bedroom - sometimes with a small room on the side that looked like a large walk in closet that was a childs bedroom.

Now by the time my folks go it, a lot of remodling had gone on.  a third section had been added that became the Kitchen with a bathroom added to it.  This was the only part of the house with plumping.

This was the layout of the house: Front room - large living room (the area that had been the kitchen you could only tell because the it jetted off the main area of the house.  Next was the bedroom with my bedroom the little one to the side. (it followed what had been the old kitchen).  Then you intered into the kitchen which was a large eat in kitchen with a lot of room and a walk in pantry and the only bathroom attached.  The pantry and bathroom following the lines of the old kitchen and childs bedroom.

To me this was the way a house should be built.  When I was young there were other houses in the area that had started as cracker house, but were added on to.  Some to look more like a convental house, but others like my folks.

For the longest times I though it was weird that other people had bathrooms off their bedrooms instead of the kitchen.

Now what was nice when I became a teenager was the fact behind the house we had a wrokshop and apt.  This apt. became mine.  And was great for a teenager. 

We had a lot of property and my Dad always wanted to either build on it or enlarge our house - but it was never gotten around to.  It was a small house, but with large rooms.  And for some reason, all our relatives wanted to come to our house - most of them had normal houses - but with small eat in kitchen or small dinning rooms - we could  seat 8 or more.

My mother lived in that house from when she and my Dad bought it in 1948 until she died in 1997 - almost 50 years!  Once my Dad died she didn't want any major changes to the house.  A few had to me made, but not many.