Buy New, Vintage or Victorian Home?

[Elaina]

Victorian houses are nice, but a little too grandma usually for my tastes. The biggest problem is the floorplans were designed to have a sitting room, closed off kitchen, parlor etc and very little open space. Current trends of the great room really do seem to suit modernl living better. Of course they can be updated.

Yes, but that's what I LIKE about them. In a perfect world, I can close visitors from parts of my house I don't want you in, have the parlour with the fussy furniture my husband and children will never be allowed to sit on, dinner in a room I didn't have to cook in, room for all the odds and ends I tend to like, the little entry way couch and books when you walk in...who cares about open space? See...I can hide from my family, since they'll never know what room I'm in because the doors close!

 

[Phil]

Victorian houses are nice, but a little too grandma usually for my tastes. The biggest problem is the floorplans were designed to have a sitting room, closed off kitchen, parlor etc and very little open space. Current trends of the great room really do seem to suit modernl living better. Of course they can be updated.

To my preference, with a sledge hammer.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Back away from the Victorian house

Then please please please buy a new house when the time comes and leave the widow's walk and butler's pantry for those of us who love that kind of thing. Why my kitchen has five doors! I like renovation and refurbishing over remodelling, remaking and redoing any day.

 

[Phil]

They're all yours. Other than space, I also don't like victorian houses because there's always some sort of haunting goin on inside of it. Remember the friends I had mentioned before? My friend Luke, had me over after a band concert last spring. He warned me how his house was semi-haunted. I thought he was trying to scare me and be funny. He wasn't kidding. Freaky freaky stuff.

 

[thebadmamajama]

holla BtB!!!!

you're a kindred spirit!

 

[BegintheBeguine]

BMj. And Phil, I know what you mean. I never thought of it so clearly as now though: my 1920 housewas haunted. I say was, because it's not anymore, as I have stated in another thread. Anywho, now that I'm sitting here thinking on when the spooky stuff stopped....after my dad died here. Hm. Weird. Of course, the creepshow may start up again at any time, who knows?

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Ghosts don't cost extra, so why all the fuss?

 

[Phil]

They won't go on eBay.

 

[cookie]

Frank Lloyd Wright

Anyone have all those beautiful picture books and then read and see the plans for the prairie houses and all the stuff he designed and never got built and then dream that you had enough dough to just go out and use a design and build one he never built? Its okay the ambulance has arrived!

 

[Phil]

I know that feeling. I've been to a bunch of his homes in Oak Park. They're magnificent. I was in his home and studio and I was looking at the floor plans they had out and some of his works that were never built should be (save the mile high tower).

 

[reetpleat]

I am still waiting to find a sears mail order craftsman home in a barn somewhere ready to be assembled.

I wonder how folks here would feel about a 30s or 20s or whatever home designed by Wright or another progressive architect.

Some stuff from europe in the teens is way more far out than anything you see today. A house like Wright's iconic house he built over the river (can't rember the name) would be right up my alley, but hardly traditional vintage look.

Or what about a real swingin 50s house like Frank Sinatra's or something like that in LA. Kind of cool and kind of tacky.

 

[Viola]

Call be a barbarian but you'd have to pay ME to deal with Frank Lloyd Wright. Just my take, but I don't like what I've seen of his stuff, and I wouldn't trust it to be built with practicality in mind - leaky roofs anyone?

Victorians, Craftsman, even some of the '40s ranches are just much more appealling to me.

-Viola

 

[Phil]

Some stuff from europe in the teens is way more far out than anything you see today. A house like Wright's iconic house he built over the river (can't rember the name) would be right up my alley, but hardly traditional vintage look.

That'd be Falling Water.

 

[Lincsong]

To me it depends on the house

If you like it then great. But you have to look at what you're buying. If it's new, there's going to be some problems, but not a lot. If it's old there's going to be problems and they will be on going. Plumbing, electrical, HVAC, foundations, etc. etc. If you're lucky you may come across an old home where the previous owners took care of the place and were constantly repairing and replacing. But around this Hayward/San Leandro/Castro Valley CA area there are plenty of people who refused to take care of their homes. As result you have carpet worn down to the backing, dry rot under the roofs, some homes where not only was the linoleum worn down to the floor board but to the base board as well. Toilets and bathrooms encrusted with a brown filth. Too many homes just need a good bulldozing. Also too many people worrying about being the richest guy in the graveyard.

 

[Tourbillion]

My current Edwardian shack is probably one of those that needs to be bulldozed. Although it was NOT built to last, so it will probably fall down eventually and save my landlady the trouble of razing it.

It was cute, but it's getting on my nerves, and since I am renting, I can't remodel. The crystal doorknobs are cute. I like the casement windows, even though they sometimes blow upon during storms and have to be nailed shut (can't do much about water coming in though). The built ins are cute, but it would be nice to have a closet or two.

All the same, I am waiting to fall through the bathroom floor, it will happen one day, I just know it. The roof and porch are new, but it needs all new plumbing, floors, carpets, linoleum, cabinets (don't stay shut, probably because it is no longer level).

I'd like to move, and there are some great craftsman houses in my neighborhood, but I lack the 1.7 million that it takes to buy one.



Still I like this place better than some of the new homes that I lived in growing up. My parents never bought a "used" house and I they moved about every 2-3 years the whole time I was growing up. Some of them were nicer than others, but despite the problems of older places they just are more comfortable for me.

I love the Victorians for many of the same reasons as Elaina (minus husband and kids), but I don't' want to think about what they cost around here.

I went to the new home of a friend in the Glendale area that was really nice, circular entry area, "home office", kids computer nook, a master bath that is bigger than my current living room, restaurant sized kitchen with fancy kitchen stuff, classy gingerbread, a linen closet bigger than my current bathroom etc etc. It was nice and I wouldn't mind living there, but nah, I think I'd rather move into a place like GOK's thatched house. Well here in SoCal that would be a 300-400 year old adobe, which are WAY cuter than fake 50's "Spanish Mission" crap.

 

[Haversack]

As far as houses designed by famous golden age architects here in the San Francisco Bay Area go, you can usually count on seeing one or two houses by Julia Morgan, Bernard Maybeck, or Willis Polk come on the market every year. For example, there is currently a 1937 house which Maybeck had a hand in up for sale here in San Francisco.

Haversack.

 

[Viola]

If you like it then great. But you have to look at what you're buying. If it's new, there's going to be some problems, but not a lot. If it's old there's going to be problems and they will be on going.

I dunno. At least here on the East Coast old houses (lets say 70+) are often built out of much better materials and with much more craftsmanship. And masonry lasts a really long time with NO maintainance, a whole lot longer than newfangled vinyl and EIFs and PVC.

EIFs is the devil, I swear.

My uncle bought a new house - thank goodness it had a warranty, the first day in there the shower fell from the 2nd flr. to the 1st.

Vivat Victorian!

-Viola

 

[Haversack]

One of the heritcal questions I asked while I was in architecture school was, "What is the life-span of the glues used in building plywood?" and "What happens to the US housing stock if they begin failing after 75 years?" The answer to that, of course, is that most buildings today are built with a 45-year life-span in mind.

Haversack.

 

[cookie]

Green and Green

One of my great moments in the USA was visiting the Ivory soap guy's house in Pasadena designed by Green and Green in the early Arts and Craft style (USA version). Awesome timber detailing and total cosiness for caving away from the Mondo Cane. Vita bella!

The Richard Neutra house in Palm Springs that he designed for Edgar Kaufmann (he of Falling Water fame) is also a beautiful example of the Euro-influenced USA Moderne style.

I read a magazine years ago where two guys did up Cranky Frankie's old house. It was when he famously left Ava drunk and she said "where are you going??? and he said "to..to ....(visit)... Lana Turner! Similar to the Neutra style if I remember.

 

[Phil]

I think the big problem with newer structures are that the arhitect or engineer, or both, don't have enough common sense to put walls on top of walls for support and large, heavy fixtures (i.e. a shower) on top of a wall or support beam. My friend Sean, who's in my drafting class, always forgets to do that. Another part is the workmanship. If the contractor cuts corners, that cuts the life of the house shorter and shorter.