I've talked to many people in construction-related fields over the past ten years, and they all tell the same story: Construction from pre-1970 is a fundamentally different animal from later construction. Our house is from the 1890s. Everyone says, "Uuuhhh, must be a lot of maintenance!" Yes and no. While nothing can be around that long and not have issues, I've been told again and again that we are the lucky ones. A friend who does contracting for me tells me often of the number of post-1980 vintage houses he goes to and the framing of the house is already falling apart, badly. 10s of thousands of dollars of work on some houses less than 10 years old. This post is one aspect of this. McMansions get their name for a reason...