I grew up in a farm house built in 1850 or 51. It was a story and a half building. I froze in the winter and practically died from the heat in the summer. The living room and my parent's bedroom had 12-14 foot ceilings. The rest of the house did not maybe more like 6 to 7 feet high, the house was built on piers of limestone. The back bedroom was barely off of the ground. I lived in the upstairs room. It had only a 6 foot ceiling. A dirt floor basement. I loved living in the old house, and I didn't think it was all that weird. We had wood stoves for heat, and an oil burner stove too. The fireplaces had been removed at some point in favor of stoves. It also had the godawful wall paper on the walls. We painted it over. This was the "new" house on the farm, we had no idea how old the "old" house was on the place. The "old" house had no heat at all, no running water, but it did have an outhouse. Oddly enough the front door on the "new" house came off of a Greek Revival house with real stained glass in it. My mom was hunting in the front yard with a metal detector, and found a 3 cent piece dated 1865 about 3 feet from the front porch. Under the "old" house, we found the complete frame, engine and all of the running gear to a Model "T", including the horn, and a forge from a Blacksmith's shop, we also found many very old items in the old barn on the place. Originally the cash crop on the farm was tobacco. It was grown there until WWII. All clay soil. Many of the old houses in the area were from the 1850's, the old school houses were from the 1860's or 70's. I would not have traded the experience of living and growing there for anything in the world.