The Crowpine house

A clatter of kitchen utensils rings from out of the old farmhouse up the mountain and Sam finally musters the gumption to knock on the door. He is very wet now, fall rain seeping through his clothing and chilling his skin. The door swings open. "What're ya' doin out here in the rain lad?" It's a heavyset woman with dirty brown hair and plain grey clothing. "Well lad?"
"I was told you could help me, the people in the house up on the mountainside."

— Excerpt from "A Boy Called Sam"

Appearance

The Crowpine house is a plain farmhouse comprised of the original one room mill cut lumber cabin and several extensions, all clad in pine shingling. The shingling is worn down in places but the care put toward the house is shown well in how some patches of shingles are newer than others. Lichen grows here and there and soft noise of people at work in or around the building is always present.

Layout

The main floor has nine rooms, including two small pot chambers. The first room coming in the front door is a mudroom, to store wet boots and coats away from living space, the ceiling is low, as it is all through the house, to retain heat.
The next room is the kitchen and dining room, the dining room table is simply a large rectangular table made of wood and covered in a considerate amount of wear. Inside the kitchen is everything you could need, two wood stoves on the back wall, another wood table for food preparation set in the center of the work area like a island, and wood-topped cupboards around the front and side of the house with large basins for cleaning hands, hardware, and food.
Walking out of the kitchen to the left is a hallway with a large pantry and a bedroom attached on either side and a full washroom at the end of the hall. The washroom is incredibly nice for such an out of the way location, perhaps because of the frequent visitors, perhaps because hot baths are a gift from above that should be shared with everyone. It has a large tiled bath, big enough for several people to soak in their riverwear as well as a more reasonably sized metal tub for day to day washing. The floor is tiled with jade-toned green tiling and the walls are covered in spruce slats, there is a nice porcelain wash basin and a separate space for the chamber pot.
The pantry has no window only a hook for a small lantern, it is completely lined with shelves full of jars and packets of food. A trapdoor to the basement and ladder to the attic is also in the pantry. The bedroom is as you might expect, a bed on the far wall facing the door with small dressers on either side and a built-in wardrobe to the left-hand wall, a fireplace is built into the front right corner sharing a chimney with the kitchen and living room.
Back in the main house area, exiting the hallway to the left is a wide doorway to a sitting room furnished with a mishmash of chairs, both plush and plain wood and has several rugs on the floor that don't match along with a large fireplace on the wall shared with the kitchen. There are two more bedrooms accessed by a hallway on the southside of the house; they are smaller than the one on the opposite side of the building since that one is meant as a "head" or "parent" bedroom, and thus has room for a crib and toddler bed. In between the two spare bedrooms is a small room for the chamber pot and wash basin. The attic that is accessed from the pantry has a rather heavy and well insulated trapdoor to prevent warmth seeping out of the living areas. It is mostly used for storing seldom-used-items and excess bulk foodstuffs that may be harmed by the somewhat damp air of the cellar. Occasionally, they put a guest up in the attic if it wasn't too cold and they for some reason cannot stay in the lodge. The Cellar's floor and walls are lined with stones and a single lamp hook hangs from the ceiling. It is used for storing extra jarred foods and food that may be harmed by heat and light, such as fresh potatoes and carrots.

History

According to records from the town in the valley (quite literally named Town in the Valley) the farmhouse was built around 150 years ago, around the year 7440 SE. It has held up quite well despite apparently needing to be repaired several times rather extensively over the years.

There's a story tha's been passed down from Gramma Prim's years, as a child the roof got done in durin' a blizzard and they almost didn' make it. That spring they redid the roof steeper.

— Aervel Crowpine, one of the owners and residents of the Crowpine Farm

Most of its life it has been a normal farmhouse, but the Crow, eventually renamed Crowpine, family has had a tradition of hospitality and handing out work to whoever needs some. This encouraged the expansions of the house and the Crowpine house became a stop for people looking for a place to stay overwinter that wouldn't leave them crammed in a city inn. More recently the house has gained a reputation as a place to go when troubled, or in some cases in trouble. It is unclear when it began, but at some point people that had stayed began to tell how "The people at the Crowpine house helped me be at peace with my father's death" , or that "The people at the Crowpine house helped me realize that what happened when I was a child wasn't my fault". Eventually, word spread around to the kind of travelers that frequent backroad routes and from there spread to people that just needed the help. Oftentimes they were one and the same. Soon enough some people that had nowhere else to go never left and the farm the house is on expanded, another building added here and there, more land claimed . Overall the Crowpine house had a reputation as a warm place to stay that has grown into "The clinic for your heart and soul".