Old School vs Modern; Which Do You Prefer?

Don't you love my redwork tea towel and 1940's Better Homes and Garden's Cookbook? My talented sister stitched the towels and the cookbook came from my mom. It's so fun to read those old-school recipes!  I treasure these things. They'd look silly in my friend's modern kitchen, but they are perfect in mine!

I have a  casual friend who recently built the most gorgeous new home. Her kitchen is a gourmet's dream.  The kind you see on HGTV.  She's always lived in what I call 'trophy homes'. You know what I mean. Beautiful and lavish with nothing out of place. I'll never forget the look on her face when I took her on a tour of our 'new' house. A 1970's rambler with peeling wallpaper, different colored rugs in every room, and heaven forbid...laminate countertops in 1970s colors. The backyard was beautiful, but overgrown with ivy everywhere. She fumbled for something nice to say about the place, but the best she could come up with was ,"What's that sound?" (We live in a farm community and there is a milk processing plant about 6 blocks away. The machinery there sometimes makes a humming noise. It's not a bad sound at all.) What my friend didn't see in my little home was it's character. How the kitchen is just the right size for two people to cook in, with a nice area for baking. She couldn't imagine that I would enjoy painting the old cabinets and putting new hardware on them (a project slated for this summer), and laying linoleum squares on the diagonal for an old French Country look. She left that day shaking her head. Still, every time I see her she encourages me to look into building a new home like hers. If she would just come back over, she'd  see that warm wood flooring has replaced the old carpets, and the backyard has a garden spot with a bench under the trees, and the wallpaper's been replace with a coat of fresh paint. Well, no matter.  This morning I'm sure she stood in that fancy kitchen admiring her beautifully tiled venting over her state-of-the-art cooktop and the island that seats 6 people. I, on the other hand, spent the morning spying out my kitchen window at two bluejays. They were flitting from one evergreen tree to the next and heckling Posie, my tabby cat. Poor Posie, try as she will, she'll never catch those birds!(My friend doesn't own a cat. And her dog is an expensive purebred something- or- another that is guaranteed not to shed--naturally.) Well to each his (or her) own. My friend has a wonderful talent for designing and building beautiful homes. Me; I love to fix up old ones. It's just a question of personal taste.

*** Would you prefer to build a brand new dream home; or do you like to fix up older homes?***