Good Construction

Mike has a good post up about well-built old structures. I especially like these quotes:

We are a middle class family, but we live in a structure that would take millions of dollars to rebuild. Why is that? Why do people abandon such places and choose cheaper construction?

For the price of a modest new house, one large aparment or sometimes a whole building can be modernized with kitchens, windows, and mechanical systems. And one of these renovated buildings can stand indefinitely. The same cannot be said for new houses.

While the home inspector was looking over our place prior to closing, I mentioned that it looked like the house had an ever-so-slight "lean" to it. I was concerned, as our plan was to make this house a very longterm residence. We plan on staying, essentially, forever, and I'd really like to not have to deal with foundation issues in the future.

With a you-silly-ignorant-guy kind of smile, the inspector said that he saw no "lean". Then he said "if this place is standing up this straight after 117 years, there's no reason to think it won't continue standing for another 117 years." He then told us about the stone foundation and the brick construction, and my fears were gone.

Well gee golly, I thought, I probably won't live another 117 years...

(Granted, we had some serious termite issues, and the house was at risk of an internal collapse, but that doesn't change the fact that this house ain't going nowhere. The interior structure has been fixed, and is basically good as new.)

If we wanted to live in a less-than-40-year-old home in a neighborhood near our parents, we would not have been able to afford a 3 bedroom cape-cod-style house. By choosing an old structure that has seen its fair share of neglect, we were able to spend less and get a 3000+ square foot living space with 10'+ ceilings and all sorts of beautiful old features, fix it up, and know that this place will stand forever unless it gets hit by a meteor or a bomb.

(And it's a pretty cool lookin' place, too, if I may say so myself.)