ncy, the cost of the house would be so much,
was the deciding factor. In addition, he and his wife both inclined
towards something new. A house that had not been lived in by other
people, had no scars and marks of age and use, that embodied all the
newest materials and construction methods, was really what they
wanted. Had remodeling offered them an assured saving of several
thousand dollars, this couple would probably have suppressed their
subconscious leanings to be builders, proceeded to remodel, and been
only moderately pleased with the result.

The answer to the age-old question of whether to build or to remodel
is found in the preference of the individual. Some people are
temperamentally builders. They are happiest living in a home that was
constructed for them. In their eyes it possesses far greater charm
than anything that has been mellowed by years of use. There are others
to whom nothing is more satisfying than to take an existing structure
and alter it to their liking and needs. An elderly acquaintance, now a
widow and living in a sleepy New England village, is taking keen
pleasure in an old house of almost doll-like proportions. "All my
life," she said, "I've wanted to live in a really old house but until
now it has always been one new house or city apartment after another
and I never got my roots down."

Granted that building or remodeling, like cheese, is a matter of
personal preference, it is not improper at this point to set forth
some of the merits of both. With a fine old building, there is that
elusive something called charm. Time has mellowed it and the countless
feet that have crossed its threshold have worn its floors. The
blackened bricks or stones of its fireplaces bespeak the generations
that basked in the heat of the huge logs that once glowed there. All
these things have given it character.

[Illustration: ONCE HALF A HOUSE AND A HEN ROOST

_Photo by Whitney_]

[Illustration: WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH A BARN

_Photo by Samuel H. Gottscho_. _Robertson Ward, architect_]

Don't expect a new house, the day it is turned over to you by the
contractor, to look as if it had been a family home for several
generations. It can't. It has just been built. Everything is fresh and
shiny; edges are sharp and even the bricks of the fireplace are
untainted by flame and smoke. But if you have been even moderately
articulate, the architect has been able to interpret your wishes and
you have a house built as