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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Pp- well is sounds to me that you are doing good construction. There is definitely good construction out there. Certainly you could open up an old home and find a shit show of old wiring and turn of the century newspapers as insulation.
My point is that it really does come down to taste.
I could have bought a huge, new house a little further out. Commuting isn't an issue for us. I prefer something that's been around and seen some stuff.
If I had had over a million I would have looked to renovate closer in, not find new construction close in.
It's ok to prefer new things, but many people don't like the soullessness of new homes.[/quote]

Soullessness is an intangible. To some people, a house is soulless if no one has lived there before. This cannot be mitigated until a couple of generations come and go.  To others, any house located in a neighborhood they see as undesirable or lacking in substance or too remote, is soulless.  It cannot be defined in architectural, or quality-of-construction terms. What's soulless to one person is a welcome blank slate to build memories to another.   What's charming and full of character to one person is suffocating to another.[/quote]

Intangible maybe... But it's pretty universally understood that when a home has soul - it's been around awhile. Yes, some people like blank slates. They aren't the people buying and loving old brick ramblers, colonials, and cape cods. The people walking into their brand spanking new house aren't swept away by the feeling of history. Yes these two sides value exactly what the other side loathes. Its not jealousy, just different tastes.[/quote]

soul, charm, cozy etc... these are all made up terms realtors have used to make you believe that the uneven wall or crookedness of old homes is appealing. You drank the koolaide. What history? Most homes have no history unless you are talking about the 1 or 2 out of 1000s that maybe a world leader or founding father lived in.[/quote]

I'm buying a home in Fairfax County for well less than a million that has a marble hearth that was originally installed in a home owned by General George Patton.  Also the magnolia tree out front was grown from a branch removed from a Magnolia tree at Mt. Vernon, and some of the floor rafters were taken from an old warehouse in Alexandria. It's these little historical connections that make older homes compelling.[/quote]

That's no different than putting that stuff in a new home. It wasn't in the home originally.[/quote]

Good point - though that Magnolia tree is now well over 50 years old, and at least one of the oak trees on the property pre-dates the Civil War.   The original house was built in the 1920s and has been thoughtfully remodeled several times as each generation of owners decide new ways to make the home have more modern comforts without removing the nicest features of earlier owner's enhancements.  Thus, the wood staircase is original whereas the travertine bathrooms and cherry cabinets in the kitchen are clearly much newer.  The stone retaining walls and hand dug well on the property are more difficult to date.

While most old houses won't find a place in the national history books, you can't tell me that a four hundred year old Villa in Italy or a 250 year old American farm house has no history.  Only a small mind thinks that the only history that is important was written by text book writers.[/quote]

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