Built To Last...

You're certainly right on that, twoey. Things were built to last back in the good old days. People then took pride in their craft and understood that your product was your name. My uncle was a home builder and I learned a lot from him. I guess their house was the oldest house I ever lived in. It was built around 1920, but additions had been made to it by the time I went to live with them. Our house was always a work-in-progress because my aunt wanted to keep it modern.

I know just what you're talking about too because I've seen the same thing in an old window but I can't remember where I saw it but it was very interesting how things worked back in the "olden days" There's a show on tv that I find interesting in which is called "This Old House" which teaches people how to repair different things that go wrong or break. Back in those days things are so much different than they are today and so the repairs are different as well. I love watching the show and think you might too if you ever get a chance to see it. I love history and maybe that's why I love the show.

Happy Halloween too,,, I've live into my Grandparent's home for few years when i was young. It was build since the spanish regime and they just rebuild it and rebuild it but what i feel is that its always someone is looking at me even there is no one out there.. in the night i feel there is someone who will catch my feet while im walking ang going up-stairs...i know that is wierd but thats true so i always runs fast.

No i currently do no live in an old house now. i live in an older trailer.. lol i know its different. However we used to live in an older house when i was in highschool... there were lots of rooms, and hideaways, things were desgined so much better instead of how they are now for the "modern" day society. My room used to be in the basement and even though it was finsshed there was still a room all the way in the back that no one touched and i hated going into.. it was all wood and the ground was dirt, it lead to another room that was made out of rocks instead of concrete for the foundation. it was really neat.. i really like older houses.. i told my husband when we look for our house next year im looking into all the older victorians first.

Yep, our house was built in 1875 and we had the same sort of windows...only after the cord is broken that the weight is attached to, the window doesn't work properly anymore..lol It is very costly and extensive to remodel a house of this age. We have come a long way and still have a bit more to go to modernization. But, you have more room in the old places, and that I like :)

that is VERY cool. i like things that come up from the past, the history of things, you'd think i'd be more into antiques, but that's almost like a whole other language to me! haha! the town i went to college in had some 100 yr old houses. so cool, and so sturdy, all different, and in better shape than these cookie cutter houses they're builidng up so fast now. the old ones have character, and a certain distinction to them. love old, historical architecture.

I live in a house that is over 100 years old. It needs to be torn apart and put back with some modern stuff. One of the reasons I like old houses is that if they have stood for 100 years or so, they have to be basically pretty sturdy. I have worked on old houses before, and you do find some pretty interesting things. I think I would like french doors in the back, or at the very least, patio doors of some kind.

I don't live in a old home - well at least not THAT old but I do love them dearly. They've got so much character and charm built in them. They certainly don't do things like that anymore. I would most certainly by a house that old though. It's kind of a dream of mine to be able to bring an older run down home back to life. Every since I was a kid I've wanted too.

I was brought up in a very old house which was about 100 years old, back in Scotland, and it's the best house I've ever lived in. It belonged to my grandparents. It was built of thick stone for protection from the severely cold weather up there, we had an open black range (fire) that my mother used to cook on sometimes, and we had the old sash windows. It had a lot of character. I love old things, finding out about the history of stuff and seeing how people used to live, it fascinates me. You sent in a great pic of a lovely old house - I could live there myself!

I have never lived in an old house, at least not that old or that I remember. I lived in a little house built in the 40's or 50's back in the early 80's. The house I live in now was built in the 70's. My mom said she'd only move to Texas if dad got her central air and they built their first house in 1956, the second in 1963. The house they moved to after we all moved out was built in the 60's too, they moved in there in 1976.

My grandmother lives in a very old house it used to be a turkish motel when the turks were in macedonia and it still has lots of original things like the walls are 1m thick and wooden floors and old storage house at the back. It is a very interesting house.

Oh, and it's ot really that old but I always thought this was funny. The house my dad and granddad built for my mom and dad was an actual Sears and Roebuck "House in a Box". Yep, ya bouoght the whole house, everything, and it came in big boxes then you built the house yourself. It is still standing too, the original structure except for maintenance replacements.

Oh man, please tell us that she kept those timbers to make a bookcase or something for her house.. lead sinkers.. yep, I know about those. The house I now live in was built by my granddad some 60 years ago, shortly after Hurricane Hazel dropped a tree onto their older one. He was a bit, shall we say, eccentric and believed things should be built to last the millenia. It's still strong and in good shape. Only problem is that whenever we now try to get something big done it costs us a fortune, because he overdid everything. For instance, we had the roof replaced. Contractor came down from it the very first day of work and explained it was gonna take 1-2 extra days (and of course extra pay) because instead of three 2" nails in each strip of shingles, there were EIGHT 4" nails. so it took over twice as long to remove them. We had the plumbing (original) replaced two years ago, same thing, instead of the small metal pipes, my granddad had put in pipes 6" diameter and WELDED the damn joints. Poor thing, he figured to always be around to do any work, and here we are left with the results. My last house was actually my dad's. His dad bought it in the 30s. It was built in the 1890s. There had been two bedrooms added. When Hurricane Fran hit and damaged so many homes around, it took the two bedrooms off the house and dropped them down the block. I and my cats waited it out in the living room. Except for when the rooms were actually ripping from the house, the main (and oldest) part never even wigggled. When the insurance man camae to assess all the damage, he went under to see if there was foundation damage. I had told him that we had been comfy cozy through the storm without any shaking. He told me that the house was sitting on 12" wide hand hewn supports made from whole tree trunks and that that's why it had stayed so stable. I had 9 foot high plastered walls throughout the house, hand set and mortared natural stone fireplaces with the metal arms for hanging cooking pots. I had an old coal bin under the back porch and even a well dug so that my granny could use her pump on her back porch (a very high class anemity in those days). I loved that house with all my heart. A couple of years ago, we had to sell the property to pay for my mom's medical expenses. We all cried the day the fire department burned it for us. The local paper had an article because turned out it was actually one of the oldest homes still standing in our little town. We still have two of the support columns which we use as grillside tables under our garage's extended roof. They are really cool because you can see the ax marks where they took off the bark and cut the pieces. I also have a box of the handmade wooden nails we found in the original walls when the house was demolished as well as enough of the fireplace stones to build a planned grill (and of course I kept the cooking arms, I actually used them several times while I lived in that house). Old houses are the best, I just love them. I have a tendency to like the 'regular' ones more than the fancy ones. We are in the process of looking for a new place (a long story but anyway..). The realtors look at us a bit funny when we ask them to show us the oldest houses they have that are not 'showplace' types.

I personally have never lived in an old house, i would love too though. I Admire the quality that houses used to be built with a long time ago. It makes me sad that houses now a days are put up within the span of a year and not much quality to go with it. Simply put up a wood frame, insulate it, drywall, bricks and windows. And most of them look the same, if you want your own unique and original master piece of a house you have to have deep pockets.....really deep pockets.

our house was built in the 20's. a few years back we took out a wall and found that our house had vents going through it for heating oil or propane. i have natural gas. i thought this was cool, you wonder what is hiding between the walls. we ripped out the old plaster walls in our sons room awhile back, so we wrote stuff on the beams and put a toy car in there before we sealed it up, so when the next person takes down the walls they will have something talk about.

The house my mom has was boiught by my dad in 1950 and it was 75 years old then it had a four room basement all the same size and one bedroom kitchen and an L shaped living room when we moved in in later years dad and I added 2 more rooms on the back knocked out the arch way in the fromt room to make it some bigger . But by doing that he took my hidy hole away where I used to hide in the walls . and when bought had celler doors on the outside with stairs leading to the basement.So thats the oldest one I ever lived in.

The craftmanship of old buildings are quite remarkable, considering the absence of more refined tools. I love to discover things like this, and often take tours of historical places, and living history villages. I think the oldest house I've lived in was just over 100 years, which is the one I am in now.

To me, it is depressing to see the way things were built in the old days vs. how they are built today. Cars are another thing that are not built to last the way they use to be. It seems the cheaper in quality, the higher the price. I have lived in several homes that were over 100 years old, I live in one now. I thank God for the old buildings when the earthquakes hit.

it is amazing how god houses were built in the past as opposed to how there built today people don't take much care in it these days

Our house is 100 years old and we have also done many alterations. Well, we wouldn't want to be living in it as it was built because there'd be gas lamps and only an outside toilet.. :-)