The abandoned building in the painting is overgrown by scrubby bushes; the thatched roof is collapsing in places and grass grows along the ridge of the roof. The scene conveys no symbolic message, it is merely a study of the play of light and shadow on the side of the building and the turf in front of it.

In 1882, Jurij Šubic spent six autumn weeks in Ouézy in Normandy, producing a few sketches and drawings that represent an introduction to the study of light in Slovenian painting. Šubic transformed the most important of these studies into the painting Before the Hunt, the first work by a Slovene artist to be accepted at one of the Paris Salons. Few other works resulted from the Normandy visit: as Šubic himself explained, the weather was cold and rainy, he had to spend much of his time in company and he lacked money to pay models. Not only that, but in truth he was not particularly interested in painting nature.House in Normandy is one of his few landscapes, all of which are small and sketchlike.