Kevin Rose has every right to do this, but the events leading up to it left a bad taste in the mouths of his future neighbors. I don't know why anyone would want to create and move into a hostile environment.
Do you actually think it's an attractive house? I find the exterior shockingly ugly, and woodwork like that is impossible to repair if there's any decay...
These houses weren't built to last 100 years, I don't see why people insist on forcing owners to keep them up.
One of the really cool things to see here in Italy is how good they are at completely tearing out the guts of a house and redoing it. They'll strip it down to the bricks and then re-add everything they tore out. It's interesting to observe, and nice too, to see something get fixed up rather than just bulldozed and rebuilt as happens with so much stuff in the United States.
That said, I know jack about what's actually involved technically, and I bet old wood houses (as are common in Oregon) are a lot harder to do that with than old brick homes.
Well it comes down to the maintenance and repair, and brick is gonna be easier by far (if you do it right). My friends just completely stripped and rebuilt a century-old brick home in Baltimore, which if you use reclaimed materials isn't too expensive.
But who knows what kind of gigantic mess a million-plus century-old wooden house consists of? It's bad enough maintaining one that's 50 years old... If you're not doing it yourself, i'm sure it's exorbitantly pricey, and you don't gain anything by paying double for an old house when you could pay the same and get modern construction to boot.
Been there, late 1800's farmhouse. Patching or replacing plaster walls is messy and inconvenient, but the concept is pretty similar. We've not changed room layout though, so not sure how that goes. Shouldn't be much different unless you have a load bearing wall to move.
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[ 12.7 ms ] story [ 496 ms ] threadThese houses weren't built to last 100 years, I don't see why people insist on forcing owners to keep them up.
That said, I know jack about what's actually involved technically, and I bet old wood houses (as are common in Oregon) are a lot harder to do that with than old brick homes.
But who knows what kind of gigantic mess a million-plus century-old wooden house consists of? It's bad enough maintaining one that's 50 years old... If you're not doing it yourself, i'm sure it's exorbitantly pricey, and you don't gain anything by paying double for an old house when you could pay the same and get modern construction to boot.
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Which of course was utter bullshit and based on Digg's valuation being $300m+
The Oregon Live's thesis seems to be that this guy is so rich that he just doesn't give a damn.
But the reality appears to be they bought a $1.3m home, had maybe planned on a $300 - 400k remodel.
But instead likely got a $1m+ price tag to completely refurbish, and stabilize, a landmark building.
When price-per-square foot for new construction for something very nice might be $200 x 3,500 sq feet = $700,000
Not defending him, but I get it.