A Sharecropper Farmhouse

A much-modified farmhouse which still recalls its roots in the age of sharecropping.

Long ago in America, the status quo was agriculture. Landowners would hire entire families to work their fields in exchange for meager pay, a share of the crop, and shelter. The final hurrah - if you can call it that - of this system came at the tail end of the second industrial revolution, as mechanized farm implements became widespread and the Great Depression pushed ever more families towards any work they could find. These families are called sharecroppers, and their modest homes have strongly informed the American imagination on what exactly that most mythical domicile - the farmhouse - should be.

Of course, it's been a long time since then, and this little farmhouse knows it. From a time of hardship through the post-war boom into the era of disco and shag carpets and still on to today's demand for bigger and better, what was once a simple two-room cabin has been expanded and rearranged into a proper, if variously dated, homestead. Not every choice has been a good one, and in comparison to a purpose-built family house this much-adapted layout is questionable, but there remains character here unattainable in this day and age.

Two/four bedrooms (of much different age), one (weird) bath. Beyond the bare necessities and plenty of character, the house comes unfurnished. No mods or unusual build mode tricks were used, so this should remain functional far into the future of Paralives. Given the simple and generous dimensions of the house, and the painfully anonymous rearmost rooms, a mid-sized family would have no trouble living a modest life here. In my experience with a house like this, the biggest headache will be the heating, but I suppose your parafolk don't really have to worry about that. They're hyperendotherms or something, atleast until the inevitable seasons/weather expansion comes along.

At about $14,500, this plot remains ideal for a budget-conscious homesteader or ambitious renovator. All this little house wants is for somebody to know its truth - that the hearth still burns with the same spirit it did when first lit, as a farmer's family gathered around for a fine supper in their new home.