Good Infrastructure

Twenty years ago when Russ and I were looking for a house to buy before he was starting Kenan-Flagler Business School we could not find anything in Chapel Hill and turned to Durham.  My Dad told us to look in Hope Valley because he had fond memories of coming to the Hope Valley Country Club for parties while he was a student at UNC. They must have been some parties back then for my father to have any memory of them at all.

Being This Old House addicts we asked our realtor to show us old homes.  We had no idea that old was not so popular with her and she would show us things that were maybe five or ten years young.  I told her that they were not “old”, but merely “used” houses.  I’m not sure she ever really understood the difference.  Given that there was not much on the market we went into the houses built in the 80’s that she thought we would like.  The floors would creak, the walls were paper-thin, and the style was, well, 1980’s.  Russ and I would whisper to each other about how much we hated these homes hoping that our agent could not hear us three rooms away, but knowing it was possible.

As our Chapel Hill realtor reluctantly drove us through Hope Valley we were hopeful.  There were houses built between the wars and I mean the big wars.  We could not afford one of the really beautiful old houses, but we definitely liked the neighborhood of various styles and age of homes.  I was reading the MLS listing of our current house and said there was no reason to bother to stop and look at it because it only had two bedrooms and was split-level.  We pulled up to the front and Russ looked at the MLS and said that it absolutely was wrong, the house had to have three bedrooms and the split was due to the slope of the lot on the side and we should go in.

Thank goodness Russ was quick at finding a major mistake in the listing because when we walked in the then fifty-year-old house we immediately knew this was it.  The quality of the craftsmanship was evident.  The hallways were twice as wide as newer houses and the details in things like the molding and the windows gave us confidence in how well built this house was.

Russ, as an electrical engineer, was particularly impressed with the wiring.  I video taped our walk through of the house and when we got to the furnace room I caught Russ on tape saying, “Nice Panel,” in a way a teen age boy might admire a girl in a bikini, as he looked at the electrical system.

We bought the house that day and have loved it ever since.  When we realized we were staying in Durham we decided to add on to the house because we loved our lot and location.  Our builder Joe told us that our house was one of the best-built houses he had worked on and we asked him to match that quality in the addition.

This past week a huge maple tree in our side yard fell on our sunroom and was lying on the roof for a few days until I could get the tree guy with a crane to remove it.  After working for hours to secure, cut and lift the three foot diameter tree off the roof the tree guy reveled a practically perfect roof with only one six inch shingle out of place.  Shocked was the word he used when he told me that he had never seen a house take a hit from such a large tree and sustain so little damage.  Good infrastructure I told him.  Buying for quality really paid off.

This story of my house could be a lesson in doing the right thing for our bodies too.  A strong infrastructure, with good upkeep and high quality materials will pay off in the end.  At some point in life a tree may fall on you, but if you have eaten healthy food and created a strong body you can withstand the blow with barley a shingle out of place.