On 07/16/2018 06:30 AM, p-0''0-h the cat (coder) wrote:
We have an old house. Most of our housing isn't wood and roofing felt,
like yours. It lasts for hundreds of years. Lead paint dust will give
you a stinking headache. We conserve at least as much as we replace.
It's a character not a cost thing. You Yanks love to come see our
history. That history is everywhere, not just in the palaces. I live
with it everyday. I'm off to do some work in the cart shed and stable in
a minute. It's 100 years older than the house. I often wonder about the
men who worked there and the horses. A little bit of them lives on in
the lime wash, the oak, the tar. You seem quite impoverished by your
view of the world and have I spotted a touch of envy?

I grew up in a house that was historic by US standards. 'square' and
'plumb' were two concepts I was not exposed to. I suppose it was good
practice cutting trapezoidal glass panes and other touches.

My father enclosed a porch and paneled it with knotty pine. It came out
well but the molding around the ceiling was unfinished when he died.
Cutting compound compound (if that makes sense) bevels in crown molding
was more than his patience could bear. It enriched my vocabulary somewhat.