Jenny always said that she wanted a two bathroom house….but I could never figure out how to swing it.

Our house was too small after I’d crammed a couple of decades worth of books into it…(and these kids?!! What is going on? Where are all these kids coming from?)… figuring out how to fit another “water closet” in somewhere was something that was a little bit out of my pay grade.

So you can imagine my pleasure to discover that the old farmhouse that sits on the land we’re considering buying came with two potties.

Finally.

Of course, one looks a little different (actually, most things connected to that old house are a little different…the bathtub’s in a separate building and has a wood heater connected to the tub that heats the water…I would probably need to move a bathtub into the house…)….and the potty that looks a little different is kind of a walk down to the barn.

I don’t know how you wash your hands after you use this one…or even how you flush. I didn’t see any kind of lever or anything to pull when you’re done and want to flush.

And why would you put a potty down by the barn? Maybe it’s for the people who work for you on the little farm? Maybe that’s their potty?

I’m really only kidding.

I know what this machine does.

Outhouses are pretty efficient…pretty simple.

A little house with a seat over a hole.

How much simpler could it get?

Unless it was a fancy composting toilet, you would not want one to be a featured member of your household. You really can’t put one of these in your house and enjoy the rest of your occupancy.

It’s something about the hole…and proper ventilation.

That’s probably why they put it down by the barn.

A long walk in midnight snow is a small price to pay to avoid having your house fill with mysterious odors.

If I built an “alternative house”…full of building code bending innovation, and Jenny kept asking, “Do you smell anything weird? I mean, it’s a bad smell for the inside of a house…a really funky smell. Do you smell it? I don’t know where it’s coming from…it smells like it’s coming from around the bathroom. Which one? I think it’s the upstairs bathroom…it smells worse than the one downstairs….”…I’d panic a little.

If Jenny made that observation, and I knew what I’d done with my lack of engineering expertise, it would be a hard thing to cover my tracks and just say, “What smell?! I don’t smell anything…”

I think that’s why they put it by the barn.

That little house is easier to move than a big house, too.

Outhouses are pretty efficient…and probably pretty “earth friendly”, too….if they’re constructed properly and sited away from water sources.

The one on this property is right by the barn.

But think about it…what a jump to go from a one bathroom home to a two bathroom home.

We’re moving on up…for sure.

This is an old TV that’s in the barn….I don’t think it works…and I do know that it’s not a third toilet.