I tried to post a great article here, last night, but every time I tried, it ended up showing an empty file. Trying again: Multi-generational Housing on the Rise

I've been interested in this again lately. Specifically because one of the homes in our little townhouse subdivision is for sale right now, and the prior residents turned it into a home on the main floor for the original family - and a complete "mother-in-law" apartment on the lower level.

By complete, I mean the lower level has its own living room, dining room, full kitchen, full bath, and at least one bedroom. I'm not clear if it has a separate entrance, however. I suspect that it does not, just based on the topography of the house. (Our lower level has an exterior door, but we have a flat yard, while they are on a hill.)

Before my mother became too incapacitated to travel on her own, she always wanted me to build a little "casita" for her in my back yard, so she could come visit when she wanted to -- but not encroach on the happenings in the main house.

So what do you think? Can you see yourself living in a multigenerational household?

I was raised in a multi-generational homestead, on a 200 acre dairy farm. My adoptive mother's parents lived with us; gram and gramps, mom and dad, brother, sister, and me. Three generations.
And everybody got along fabulously. It was a huge, three-story house with four bedrooms; mom and dad's bedroom covered the whole front of the second floor. Sister had the middle bedroom; gram and gramp had the back corner bedroom. By the time I got big enough to room alone, brother was in the Armed Services; so I got the little back bedroom. Grandma did the cooking; momma did the baking. They both did the washing and ironing. Gramp and daddy did the farming. I miss those days. I miss the animals; I miss my horse.

Jabber, that sounds idyllic, the way you explain it. A bit like living with "The Waltons." But large farms DO take a lot of work to manage, and your family might have even had some "non-live-in" farm hands, too, for all I know.

I don't konw a lot about farming or ranching, but I do like to watch "The Pioneer Woman" cooking show on HGTV. She lives on a large cattle ranch in Oklahoma, and her in-laws seem to also live on the property. And the food she cooks often gets hauled out into the fields where not only her FIL, husband and kids are working, but also ranch hands.

For awhile during the Depression my father and his parents lived with my grandmother's parents. But I don't think that was a happy time. I've always believed that experience is why my father has always been one to live in the nicest house he can afford, even if it means skimping on "non-essentials" like vacations, eating out, movies, clothes.

Dad employed full-time farm help; they and their families lived in a mobile home between the house and barn, situated behind the milkhouse which was also between the house and barns. Dad also employed several high school boys to help with the haying season.
I baled hay and deliver milk when I was a kid. Perhaps there are other gals out there who were raised on a farm or ranch. Some memories never leave the heart!