Making an Old Farmhouse Home

Last Updated on June 20, 2024 by Michelle

Would you like to increase your home’s value? In your own eyes? In the eyes of your children? Surprisingly, all that’s sometimes needed is a little distance…

There’s a story I love to tell about the house with golden windows. (I’m not just a crazy chicken lady and homesteading homeschool mom; I’m also a professional storyteller, so I have a few stories tucked away that tend to spill out sporadically. )

The Longing

A sweet, hard-working farm boy thinks another home, far across the long valley, is the epitome of a perfect life. Every evening he rushes to complete his farm chores, longing to lean against the barn–during those magical minutes of promise as the sun is setting–and peer north. He squints, and he quietly waits. Most evenings he is rewarded with a glimpse of a magical house that is surely filled with joy, ease, and perfection.

When he catches sight of the house with the golden windows gleaming in opulence, he longs to know what life would be like in that luxury.

The Journey

So when his father gives him a Saturday off, when he is free to spend his hours in any way he chooses, he has no hesitation. He packs some hard boiled eggs, apples, and water and tells his momma he won’t be back until long after supper.

When he reaches the place he has been desiring to see in all its glory, up close, he assumes he miscalculated his route. It’s just a homestead, not unlike his own. The fences are in need of repair, not unlike his own. The cow is complaining and mooing for her evening bale of hay, not unlike his own.

And the chicken, not unlike his own in these waning minutes of daytime, are scurrying for their roosts, across the yard that they have  scratched and dirtied all day.

The paint is peeling off of the barn’s clapboard and the home’s windows are simply made of old wavy glass, like the glass he peers out of every morning; it’s not the golden opulence he expected when he squinted toward this perfect mansion from afar.

A kind mother greets the youthful stranger on her doorstep, and an affable farm girl invites him into conversation while he helps her close up the coop and toss hay in the cow’s stall. He apologizes for being misdirected, explaining he set out this morning to find the amazing home he has always longed to live in, the home with lustrous golden windows.

The View

She tells him he has indeed come the wrong direction. She explains the opulent home he speaks of is in this valley, but it’s over on the far side, pointing over his right shoulder. He turns, looks back across the valley, and instantly realizes his foolishness of longing for something better, when indeed his home was the best of all for him. He realizes that his own home, far away, perched on the southern mountain of the lush valley, holds windows of gold when the evening sun reflects off of whatever house is across the valley from where you stand.

He realizes that his own home is shimmering in the sunset more brilliantly than any other could.

Sometimes we simply need separation from our daily blessings. A little distance changes our view. If we occasionally glimpse the value of the love and joy that we share with those whom we love, well, we occasionally see “home” in all its opulence. Only then can we understand that “home” is more valuable than other things we long for.

Hayley’s Perspective

I thought of that story when I saw my teen daughter’s recent photo of our home– our transom indeed looks golden, doesn’t it?– & read her blog post, after we recently sat down to create some Artist Trading Cards together.