If it cannot be made to harmonize with the other motives, it is possible that you are attempting to make a home out of a building that is not suited to your style of life. But it is because these Colonial farmhouses meet the requirements of the average American families so adequately that they are so interesting to remodel. Each house owner must decide for himself what is the main element in his existence and reclaim the house accordingly. In one family, the interests will be entirely domestic; another household will live in the open, occupied with sports; another devotes much time to music; and there are still others who are absorbed in some special craft or work that will require definite accommodations. In many cases the house can readily be adapted to these particular requirements without any essential change in its atmosphere. The success that is achieved by working with these old-time elements is due to their sincerity and honesty in solving the problems of their own day and age; they are the results of actual and real experience, and we know no better ways to meet the same conditions. So that when we have the same problems confronting us, we cannot do better than accept the successful results of others' experiments.
This does not mean a slavish copying of the old in restoration; to simply imitate old elements would be neither interesting nor commendable, except for the purposes of a museum. Each style is based upon some fundamental principle, and it should be our aim to work with the underlying idea of creating that which will best meet our special needs, not merely to reproduce the old in imitation of itself.
Nature lends itself to the remodeling and suggests many ideas that help to identify the house with the personality of its owner. Everything attempted in the way of improvements can be broad and expansive and not congested, as would be necessary in the city. You should in every particular make the house grow to fit the surroundings and do it in such a way that it will seem to have been so always. Often the house has to be moved on its foundations to meet this need, but that is not a difficult matter to accomplish, if the timbers are stanch and the underpinning steady.