Random thoughts... - by Tocky
heywood on 15/8/2023 at 23:12
I needed a good laugh.
[video=youtube_share;0sbggLX4qKo]https://youtu.be/0sbggLX4qKo[/video]
mxleader on 17/8/2023 at 12:46
I woke up at 3 AM (U.S. Best Coast time) this morning. Unfortunately I'm still awake a couple of hours later. It was strange when I woke up because I had these terrible feelings of dread. I normally only had those when I was working at my last job before I got laid off. I'm not broke by any means right now so it's not a financial issue. I did replay most of The Haunted Cathedral last night so maybe that was part of it. Maybe it's a part of getting older and the partial uncertainty that comes aging. One thing that is steady and still holds true though is death and taxes. So that's not it. Maybe it's suddenly being unemployed and having a certain freedom that I'm not used to having. I'm free to do whatever I can figure out at this point and that can be scary at times.
Azaran on 18/8/2023 at 04:01
Quote Posted by Tocky
What is the thing that all city people do when they move to the country? They try to make a place look like the sterile landscape they came from
Something that also bugs me is people who buy nice older houses, with attractive features (nice wainscoting, ceiling/wall trim, sconces, chandeliers &c)...only to mercilessly gut them.
In with the white everything, recessed lighting, and greige floorboards.
If you want to live in a modern style house, please buy a modern house.
mxleader on 18/8/2023 at 04:06
Quote Posted by Azaran
Something that also bugs me is people who buy nice older houses, with attractive features (nice wainscoting, ceiling/wall trim, sconces, chandeliers &c)...only to mercilessly gut them.
In with the white everything, recessed lighting, and greige floorboards.
If you want to live in a modern style house, please buy a modern house.
I grew up in a Victorian era house built in 1890 and when my parents decided to remodel we spent many days removing leaded paint from all the windows that were originally stained. Over the years, idiots painted over all of them. It was one hell of a chore to remove all that paint but totally worth it.
Pyrian on 18/8/2023 at 04:12
Quote Posted by Azaran
If you want to live in a modern style house, please buy a modern house.
The ratio of cost to buy a plot versus the cost to rebuild has swung so far towards the plot that people just buy whatever land they can get and then build their dream house.
Tocky on 18/8/2023 at 14:08
My thing is don't build your dream home when you are seventy. You aren't building your dream home at that point anyway. You are building for whoever can afford it when you die in ten years. Likely it won't be a young couple looking to start a family. I would love that. Somebody who needs my help with plumbing or electrical and I can share a beer with every now and then would be great.
And maybe I'm wrong. I really enjoyed the old couple who got the victorian the other side of a copse of woods out back. But then, they didn't denude everything like trees carried disease or something. Mr. Henry would sit on the porch and play guitar and Ms. Sally would bake a batch of brownies (the good kind you better not eat a whole one of) and we all would sit and talk. Every now and then I would help with some repair on the old house. When you are old you should not be looking to change everything. Leave that to the young. Just settle in to ride out your years and enjoy your hobbies. It's what I plan on doing.
This guy has made it so I can't go to the door and let the dog out in my boxers in the morning because somebody driving by on the main road might see me. And forget about peeing in the front yard anymore. No, I don't get a good feeling about him at all.
heywood on 18/8/2023 at 14:24
Unlike California, the economics here still favor a gut job over a tear down.
Large Victorian style homes built in the mid-late 1800s are abundant around here, and the more original they are, the more work they need. They're relatively cheap to buy, which makes them attractive to younger couples without kids who can sink some time into the property. And they like living in an older home with history at first. But then they get their first mid-winter oil bill and it's $2000! The interior walls are cold, the windows leak, the boiler is ancient, the steam pipes and radiators leak, there aren't any good electrical outlets, and doing anything that requires a permit turns into a much bigger job because of all the other things you need to bring up to code. The floor joists are sagging and the doors aren't square anymore, but if you try to fix that you'll crack the plaster walls. Besides, the kitchen is too small and out of the way, and they really wanted a master bath. That's how gut jobs happen around here. I have a BIL and a few friends who have done it.
In contrast, modern residential architecture is very rare here, outside of the seaport district of Boston which is full of new luxury apartment buildings. If you want a modern style single family home, it will be a custom build, and you'll have to look outside the area for an architect and builder who can do such a project because nobody here builds them. And it will cost you at least $500/sf.
mxleader on 19/8/2023 at 00:52
Those old houses were definitely cold in the winter as most had no insulation whatsoever. The one I grew up in was built in 1890 and my parents bought in 1970 for the large sum of $13,000. Most of the old houses around that town were so expensive to heat that they often times were less valuable on the market then smaller and more modern houses. Then came along Bob Vila and Norm Abram with the show This Old House and suddenly there was a remodeling boom in the Pacific Northwest. Of course back then a 2x4 cost less than a quarter a piece and there was still a lot of logging going on that kept material cost low.
We spent a lot of summers cutting wood for the fire place during winter. My grandparents had a couple of small houses in a coal mining town and we would even haul some coal down from there and burn it. The house was so drafty that during wind storms there was a breeze in most of the rooms and the house would sway slightly. The house was fairly close to the Puget Sound so the winds could be pretty strong at times. Late summers were just the opposite with the upper rooms turning into ovens but the summer heat was always short back then.
There's an old joke about a native American talking about the difference between indian fires and white man's fires. It goes something like this: Indians keep warm by building a small fire and gathering around very close. White man keeps warm chopping wood.
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Tocky on 19/8/2023 at 03:01
Did you burn the coal in the fireplace or in an iron stove? I remember my grandmothers iron stove glowing cherry red with a belly full of coal on a cold winter morning. And just look at that house. That is worth a draft or two. That has character and character is everything. Character is life.
My little house I built in the early eighties and though I built it for seven thousand and had it paid off in seven years I wish I had an old home to restore instead. Still, it was all I could do at the time and I had kids to raise. Compromise and compensations.
That is a cool old place though. Is it still in your family?
