Homes… Your Thoughts… Old or New?

[HawkinsHollow]

There's a unique freedom experienced when you build or remodel a house based on how you want it, without worry about future resale value, layout or curb appeal for the next owner.

It applies whether it's old or new, a 1920 bungalow, a house imbued with your Grandfather's fingerprints...or an 8'x30' hunting camp trailer!

For our "forever house", the worry about future resale value belongs to our kids - after we're gone...and we're in our real forever home.

This is how I feel about our addition/reno we did. I am thinking this will be our forever home, but who knows. Designed it that way for sure.

I was the GC/builder/designer, so whatever is there is on me. This is the first time I have ever done this start to finish and felt rushed into a few decisions but overall I feel really good about how things turned out. The attention to detail is way above and beyond what you would get with all but the most custom of custom builders and that make me feel good. Now that we have been back in there for 4 months there are very few things that I look at and am bothered by. SO that makes me feel good.

Had friends who are real estate agents or house flippers warn us against doing a few things due to resale value, nothing major though. But in the end we decided to do it our way because we aren't concerned about that for the next 20 years, maybe never. Most of the things are reversible if we ever need to sell.

 

[scootr]

The best home for you is likely the one you got. Changing location is expensive
Wife wants to stay here. We live in a Mediterranean climate surrounded by vineyards and wheat farms plus it's almost all fixed up and paid for...that's hard to argue against.

 

[JasperFrank]

How people USE a house has changed overtime. Back when looking for houses, we looked at many, many older houses, but they were designed for a different age, and different life styles then most of us do now. So we started looking at plans, to build our own new house. And we could see that good architects, really where designing for contemporary living. By this I mean, there is a media room, and the formal dining room was dropped entirely. Cause really, we all eat in the kitchen now. So design it that way as the dining space. There are TWO office spaces, and fewer bed rooms. Bathrooms are larger, as is built in storage spaces for clothing an stuff.
There are two threads here. One is a design question and the other is a build quality question. You can have a great design, built poorly, and you can have a poor design built well.
This is why I think its very important that on a new build... you have to be involved with the contractor/s, everyday, and specify what level of quality you want and hold everyone involved to that level of quality. For some reason, contractors will always revert to a "good enough" mentality, like they are doing you a favor cutting corners. And you have to be there to remind them that doing it right the first time, though it may take longer, has been factored in to the projected overall cost.

 

[WinterDeere]

How people USE a house has changed overtime. Back when looking for houses, we looked at many, many older houses, but they were designed for a different age, and different life styles then most of us do now.

True, but due to the shrinking size of modern households in comparison to our agricultural forefathers, there's often plenty of room to reconfigure these big old farm houses. My house is very old, but has been retrofitted with 3.5 bathrooms, 3 kitchenettes in addition to the main kitchen, a media room, a small billiards room, an exercise studio, a practice studio for my band, and many other things you'd normally find only in a newer home. There's even a changing room with four closets off the master suite, which I'd guess was originally a bedroom for several kids. We have three dedicated laundry rooms with washer/dryer hookups, one on each floor, due to prior owners moving the laundry more than once. We only use one as a laundry today, the other two are now reconfigured as a walk-in closet and our pantry.

The amount of square footage per member of household has gone up in recent generations, but some of these older generations were very large. Based on my research of the history of this particular house, it seems the size of household might have peaked around 14 - 15 residents at one time, here. This forced prior owners to add on accordingly, leaving plenty of space for the modern needs our much smaller family today.

The trade-off is that our bedrooms are smaller than you'd find in a modern house of similar size, something that bothered me when we first saw the place, but which hasn't really been much of an issue. We've learned to trade public space (great room + living room + den + rec room = 4 living rooms) for private space (smaller bedrooms).

I'm not trying to talk anyone into an old house, it really should be left for those who have the energy or money to maintain and do proper restoration on things like old doors, windows, floors, and moldings. But there's also no reason to think they can't be made to suit modern requirements with some reconfiguration. We and prior owners of this house have managed to keep all the original doors, windows, floors and moldings, but have admittedly moved a few interior walls, added closets, and made some corner chases to provide space for plumbing, wiring, and HVAC ductwork.

 

[ultrarunner]

I had thought lessons learned from previous aluminum wired homes would have solved the aluminum problems…

Shrinking insulation is a new one on me.

 

[MossRoad]

Square and Plumb!

Didn't they open for Flatt and Scruggs?

But seriously, my dad, among other things, was a HUD inspector as a side job. He'd carry a large marble around with him, and set it in various places on the floor and see where it rolled. When my wife and I were looking at houses, he set it down in a living room, it rolled through a doorway into the next room, around a corner, and into a closet!

Our current home had a 2" dip along a wall between the dining room and living room. There was a heating register in the wall right at the dip. We went in the basement and found that the previous owner had cut out 6" of the 2X10 floor joist to fit the duct for the register into the wall, leaving just about a 2x2 at the bottom to span the gap!

Dad said no problem, so we bought the house, got some temporary column jacks on each side of the gap under some bracing to the adjacent joists and jacked it back up until the floor was level. Then we removed the duct and used fish plates to span the gap. Removed the jacks and all was well. Re-routed the ducting appropriately.

 

[MossRoad]

... I really dislike the current "open concept" fad with one big combination kitchen/dining/living room.

...

While I don't care for that too much, I will say that my parents had a pretty open house, and some friends of ours have one as well. They both entertain(ed) a LOT! Done correctly, it's a great space for large groups to move around, grab some snacks and beverages, play some cards, move outside to the fire pit, etc...

It helps if you have smaller, quieter spaces in the house to retreat to, like a den or finished basement, or shop in the garage works, too!

 

[MossRoad]

I have installed central vacuum piping twice, one in the previous house and one in our current house.

They were both weekend projects due to full time working for living at the time, and took me couple of weekends to complete.

The first house had an unfinished basement which made it pretty easy to install the piping, the current house is a two story and it was all 100% completed which made it little more challenging project.

They are not so common for some reason in USA but are lot more common in Canada.

Glad I did it.

I think central vacs didn't take off around here is because of the impression that it's easier to move around a vacuum cleaner with a short hose (or even no hose) VS a long hose that has to be dragged around. Cordless vacs are even easier.

I did see a cool feature on a central vacuum in a friend's house... it was a built in dust pan on a kick plate under the kitchen cabinet. So if you broom swept the kitchen, you just swept the floor over to that kick plate, pushed the kick plate with your toe, a door would open, the vacuum would start, and you just swept the pile into the door. SHWOOOP! It was gone. Then you kicked it again, the door would close and the vacuum would turn off. Neat! Quiet, too.

They also added dim LED lighting under the kitchen cabinets toe kicks, so you could be guided to the fridge for a midnight snack without blinding yourself. Neat simple addition but made a huge difference in comfort.

 

[MossRoad]

A few I know boxed themselves into a corner with no permit or a remodel permit by deciding to scrape Im and rebuild saying it was foolish to work with existing once they got into it.

The result in each case was new setbacks applied so no possibility to reclaim square footage removed.

This is especially an issue with setbacks from water…

We used to have some strange rules around here. If you knock a house down, it's considered a new house, and you have to build everything to modern code, taxes, etc....

If you leave just one exterior wall standing, it was considered a remodel, and none of that applied. LOTS of people did that.

Not sure if it applies anymore.

 

[JasperFrank]

We used to have some strange rules around here. If you knock a house down, it's considered a new house, and you have to build everything to modern code, taxes, etc....

If you leave just one exterior wall standing, it was considered a remodel, and none of that applied. LOTS of people did that.

Not sure if it applies anymore.

Its the same in Maryland, which leads to some funky designs especially on water front properties. The original houses were weekend retreats, and the families had their bigger houses in the cities. These weekend "cabins" got encapsulated by new additions, but the original house is still there..... inside the newer house....

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Maybe someone can answer a question I have. Within the last few years most houses around here have changed the front to look like this picture. Regardless of years built and a lot with stonework also. Two houses 1/2 mile away were built in 1900, a typical 2 story Virginia farmhouse. Many look like the second picture...then they add that front with the wood beams.
Curious as to why?

 

[WinterDeere]

No answer to your question, but the second one is prettier, esp. with a little fresh paint. But I'm an old house junkie.

Your roof pitches look alarmingly low for anyone who's used to snow. Ours here are all 10:12 or 12:12, on houses of that age.

 

[ultrarunner]

Current house has central vac but I still need my Electrolux for odd jobs…

Current house is the newest and was owner builder and owner was telecom engineer.

It’s extremely quiet with triple glazed windows Spanish clay tile roof and thicker insulated exterior walls.

6 kW array supplies all the kW used annually.

The more I think about the troubles my friends have with their new homes it’s majority build quality not meeting minimum standards.

 

[BackRoad]

Post and beam has been trendy for a while Mr. Fuddy...this too will change! And it's comparatively expensive to build. I'm like Mr. Winterdeere, finding old farmhouse styles being very welcoming!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...and lots of somebody's wanted this in 1975...

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

No answer to your question, but the second one is prettier, esp. with a little fresh paint. But I'm an old house junkie.

Your roof pitches look alarmingly low for anyone who's used to snow. Ours here are all 10:12 or 12:12, on houses of that age.

Exactly right! Our thoughts also, it ruins the 1900 look...but everyone does it.
Our friends & closest neighbors have a c.1978
split level. A nice house then I have a horse stable built. Within weeks they had all their bedroom doors replaced!!!

 

[etpm]

I love the look of old houses. Century old or older. I love the worn wood floors. The attention to detail. So when we were going to need a house about 20 years ago I looked into buying an old house and having it moved to our land. For very many reasons, good reasons, I abandoned this idea. Either I had to move into an old house situated where it was built or build my own new house where I owned property. We had a house built and even though our contractor turned out to be a thief the bones of the house are great. I did have to re-hang EVERY door in the house, had to remove the front doors completely to fix the installation, and fix other problems. Still, the house is what I wanted, 3/4" thick maple floors, solid wood 1 3/8" thick doors, all bronze hardware, 9 foot ceilings, Craftsman style trim, etc. We love our house and will live here until we are dead. We often get spontaneous compliments on our home. After about 18 years of living here the floors have dents and the house is starting to get that old house look that I love, that lived in look. By the time we die I think it will look pretty good. Our last house was built in the early 70s and was a piece of crap. No insulation in the walls, about 2 inches of blown in insulation in the attic, wiring in the garage and basement that was wired backwards, with the white wires hot and the black neutral, missing grounds, etc. I could go on and on. I was happy to sell it.
Eric

 

[Jstpssng]

When my sister was house shopping they found an 18 year old house which they thought was perfect. The inspection proved otherwise though.
Among other things the septic had never been pumped. Not a deal breaker except that the tank had been installed backwards. I'm no plumber or mechanical genius yet even I know that the outlet needs to be lower than the inlet.
That was just one of many things and even though it was in a good location, they decided to pass on it.

 

[ericm979]

If you leave just one exterior wall standing, it was considered a remodel, and none of that applied. LOTS of people did that.

Also it's often easier to get permits for a remodel, which can be a big deal in places where permits take a lot of time and money. I used to see this a lot in parts of the SF bay area.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

I ran service calls for 43 years so I went to thousands of places. The nearby city in the late 1800s was known for one of the wealthiest in America. There are parts of downtown area homes are incredible. One I was remarking to owner how beautiful, all the hand carving, etc. He said this is the walnut room. Through this door is an identical room, the oak room. That door was like 2"-3" thick, half walnut one side, oak the other.
I looked at one for sale in 1980. $5,600! It was gorgeous, a large foyer with double staircases going upstairs, French pocket doors that had etched glass of grape vines and four marble fireplaces, 2 up, 2 down. One pink, a blue, green and yellow. A slate roof.
If it could have been moved out into the county it would be worth a fortune. Downtown you wouldn't want to live there.

 

[Oaktree]

I love the look of old houses. Century old or older. I love the worn wood floors. The attention to detail.

By "attention to detail" are you referring to fussy stuff like carved woodwork, embossed tin ceilings, gingerbread outside trim, etc? Not all old houses were built that way.
In the almost 50 years I've been a homeowner, my current house is only the second one (I tend to stay put! ). Both houses were built in the 1800s, and both were pretty plain jane. Current one just an old farmhouse. Other than the basic bones, neither house had much that was original, both had been remodeled substantially over the years (don't think they had drywall in 1830). Solidly built, but no time/money was "wasted" on frills.