Many many years aog I was playing around with mods for The Elder Scrolls Obivion and I came acorss a wonderful mod. This mod added a small farm house with the following.

• A massive garden
  
• Boat For Fishing
  
• Farm Animals For Products
  
• Old Grey Mare (A horsey)

Yes, that was a small list and the full list if I was to type it would be massive and very long! But you could make your own food from things that grew around the farm in the garden. You could make soap and then take a bath. You had an amazing effect where if it was dark outside (Night time) the cottage inside was dark with only light sources being the candles. Then in the day time it was light inside the cottage, but weather also effected the lights within the house as in whether it was dark inside or not!

You had a fox which you could feed and make follow you around the house and it could defend your house from pests and fools wondering around the Nibenay valley! Fire making was also allowed and you could gather firewood and then chop it up to make firewood, which you could then place within a hearth and then light it. The ashes could be garthed up to make the soap!

Want to take that bath? Well you need to head on outside with a bucket so you can collect the water! Warm water, light the fire.

You could also spin and weave clothing and garments and even make your own drink as well. Paper was needed to be made for loo paper and writing, if you used the loo outside the house without having paper in your inventory would could get an illness.

Sounds in the mod played a massive part and really draws you into the mod so much more than if it didn't have custom sounds. You could play a lute and relax and read a book while the dinner was cooking. Or sit outside and enjoy the sounds of the water wheel twirling around.

So that is this mod I hear you cry! Or some of you cry! Well it is called "Millstone Farm" and is composed by "Korana" and is for Oblivion Patch 1.2.0.214.

Information In Detail Can Be Found Here: http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/29126

I'm afraid Korana's mods will be pretty much unbeaten by any other housemod in Skyrim for quite some time, unless Korana herself publish something. They're just superb (in fact, thx to them I learned to create static objects to decorate a house without worrying about Havok at all).

Thanks for posting - I'll be sure to check this mod out!
I have no idea if Skyrim and/or Hearthfire took any inspiration from a mod, though. I guess it's possible, if these sorts of mods were popular during Skyrim's development.

A similar crafting system to Skyrim's can be found in Emma's 'Red Rose Manor'. This was inspired by Skyrim's crafting system (the mod was released/updated after Skyrim), but it's still worth taking a look at: http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/37842