on 'building a new house'...

It seems like sometimes I am building a new house.

My manager at work today said the same thing, when I answered his question about what was going on at my house this week, work-wise.

Almost a new house. The majority of the structure is original, though, and all heart pine, its rafters, joists, studs, and exterior siding. The Flu Contractor even remarked about how strong and solid my house was, and how, other than cosmetically, my siding was in great condition.

He asked me when the house was built, and I told him 1910. He said, "If I was a hundred years old, I'd look like this and need some work, too".

But it didn't really hit me until today that my house is 99 years old. Next year, it will be 100.

The tornado two years ago lifted and threw two newer homes across the street into a ravine (no one seriously injured). But my house didn't seem to even flinch. Sure, it needed a new roof, but other than that, nothing.

There's something to be said in saving something old, of investing time and money into keeping a part of history. It may not be somewhere that a famous person slept, and may have even been a poorer person's house at the time it was built, but it was built back when things were made to last.

And it has.

It just needs a little bit of work to keep existing, a one hundred year makeover, if you will.

I'll update it for my own needs, modernizing it where I see fit. After all, I'll be living there. It might not be a replica of life a hundred years ago, or a purist's dream, but it will reflect my needs in 2009 and beyond.

But, no, I'm not building a new house. I'm saving an old one.