Susan in KY Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 Thanks for this thread. We decided last night after reading it to run far, far away from an old place we were considering. The floors made me dizzy anyway. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Runningmom80 Posted April 3, 2013 Author Share Posted April 3, 2013 Thanks for this thread. We decided last night after reading it to run far, far away from an old place we were considering. The floors made me dizzy anyway. :) I'm glad it helped. We are still going to look at ours. Lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Runningmom80 Posted April 3, 2013 Author Share Posted April 3, 2013 I got the seller's disclosure. "Dampness" in the basement and various roof leaks. :-/ Electric is circuit breakers. Plumbing is copper. Heat is natural gas. We are looking at it tonight, just for fun, but damp basement and leaky roof doesn't sound appealing. Lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 I got the seller's disclosure. "Dampness" in the basement and various roof leaks. :-/ Electric is circuit breakers. Plumbing is copper. Heat is natural gas. We are looking at it tonight, just for fun, but damp basement and leaky roof doesn't sound appealing. Lol LOL - our basement is damp. Sometimes there are puddles. Meh - doesn't actually bother me that much! It's not tall enough to stand up in anyway, so it's not like we could put a room down there. And we just put shelving a few inches elevated off the floor... :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xixstar Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 Answer. No. I would build a new "old house" before buying one again. This from someone who loved old houses and we got a 140yo house that really didn't have any real charm in the end. Yes, it is old but not one of those cute old homes. And turns out we don't have the time or funds to do updates or repairs like we wanted. I was way too caught up on HGTV shows and the house is a major disaster waiting to happen and not my dream home with a little love and polish. We had it inspected but falsely assumed some sag issues were "old sag" and not "new sag". So very wrong and major foundation work will be needed eventually. The second floor will need redone because of cuts made to joist for plumbing. And basically all updates need to come after foundation work so we are on major hold and just hoping it doesn't fall down before we win the lottery. It is cold in the winter and we just deal with cold versus spending $1k/month on heat. But does have updated plumbing and electric, oh la la. Romance is so gone on my old house fantasies. Oh and the mice in winter cause the place is never ending available holes and a dirt basement anyways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pippen Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 Romance is so gone on my old house fantasies. Oh and the mice in winter cause the place is never ending available holes and a dirt basement anyways. I would hear them in the wall next to my bed and scampering in the attic. There was no such thing as being alone in that house. Once I even had a hummingbird fly into my room. I'd not bothered to put the screen in... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Runningmom80 Posted April 3, 2013 Author Share Posted April 3, 2013 Well, it was actually on a busy street and the layout was not great. Oh well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitestavern Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 I got the seller's disclosure. "Dampness" in the basement and various roof leaks. :-/ Electric is circuit breakers. Plumbing is copper. Heat is natural gas. We are looking at it tonight, just for fun, but damp basement and leaky roof doesn't sound appealing. Lol Damp basement is nothing...only an issue if you wanted to finish it off. Ours is spooky, although we keep a freezer down there, and there's a wine cellar, although we don't use it. Circuit breakers are good :) Natural gas is good :) Not sure about copper plumbing...would have to ask dh. Leaky roof...well, even relatively newer homes will need roof replacements. I'm finding it so funny to hear the complaints about uneven floors and the other quirks about old homes, because those are some of the things we like about our home! Also, I'm really glad that someone piped up about the fact that really, all homes need upkeep and work. We're the only ones in our family who have an old home, but our siblings all have projects going on at any given time: painting, installing new furnace, replacing windows, etc. It's all part of homeownership. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 Circuit breakers are good :) Natural gas is good :) Not sure about copper plumbing...would have to ask dh. Leaky roof...well, even relatively newer homes will need roof replacements. Yes, copper pipes are good. I'm finding it so funny to hear the complaints about uneven floors and the other quirks about old homes, because those are some of the things we like about our home! :iagree: Also, I'm really glad that someone piped up about the fact that really, all homes need upkeep and work. We're the only ones in our family who have an old home, but our siblings all have projects going on at any given time: painting, installing new furnace, replacing windows, etc. It's all part of homeownership. Yep. We moved into our old farmhouse the same year my friend moved into her brand-spanking-new million+ dollar home. Seven years later, guess which one of us had to replace every single window in the house because all the sills rotted because they were pitched wrong? One nice thing about an older home - you know the construction was good enough to have already lasted a century. New homes can be very shoddily built these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrissiK Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 Maybe. Quite possibly. If I didn't have kids. I love homes with lots of charm. There's nothing that old here in California. The Spaniards didn't start settling here until the late 1700's, and even then, nothing really took off until the Gold Rush. The Native Californians were the only ones here, and when their houses got too gross, they just burned them down and built new ones. (Can you tell we're studying Calif. history this semester?) but I love old houses. The only thing is, they are not convenient. And right now, I value convenience and energy efficiency more than anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starr Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 I have to ask! Lol I love our house but we just aren't the people to keep working on it. When dh has free time he picks up his guitar. :coolgleamA: You really have to have them well inspected. We had a contractor look ours over before we bought it. He was able to tell what needed to be done and how much it would cost. And they keep getting older. lol I never expected to live in it this long. Heat is our major money pit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom@shiloh Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 Been there, done that and about to do it for a third time. The first time was in upstate NY and the house was begun in the late 1700's and added onto... um, more than once. My dh had to totally rebuild that foundation, however it was 24 inches thick, amazingly solid. Also, when we tore off old plaster in the second floor we could see the exterior sheeting. That stuff was at least two inches thick, three feet wide and over 20 feet long. They just do not make wood like that anymore. The next house we did was an abandoned farm house that was about 100 years old. That one turned into my dream house. We moved it and put a new basement under it, and that was the best of both worlds. With new windows and new siding, no one could ever tell if that was a new house or an old one. Most people thought it had just been built. House #3 -- just bought it a month ago. One hundred years old, three-story brick and needs TONS of work. Yes, I am certifiably crazy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 I would not. Our last home before this one was built in 1910. It was a really cool Craftsman home, but it always needed a lot of work. Electrical needed rewiring, the entire house needed to be retrofit, and new just about everything. We wouldn't buy a lot of the new construction being slapped up these days either. Our current home we spent a lot of time looking for. It is a 1989 home that was built by a builder to actually live in (our neighborhood is not a subdivision, each original property owner purchased the land and had a house built by their own builder.) Because ours was built by the owner himself, it has some added features that make it a very well built home. I wouldn't want to go through dealing with a whole house reno again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pehp Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 I grew up in a house that was built in the 1700s. It was charming, unusual, beautiful. I could stand at the dining room door in my roller skates and roll down to the kitchen with no effort--that's how slanted the floors were. We loved it there and it has forever informed my 'home aesthetic'. BUT--I can say is that there is a reason my mother eventually built her own house brand-new. :) Old homes have some 'quirk.' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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