Dragan,
>>But that's the great thing with the 2-by-4 house: you don't get stuck with the same old for two millenia!
The English have a sort of inverse snobbery about old houses. In the UK, very old houses receive a special classification that means that any sort of alteration, even painting, needs to go through an expensive, time-consuming bureaucratic permit process. This is regarded as a "badge of honor" rather than a burden and these houses are sought after. I know the same is true in some areas of Europe as well.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
