[cafard]

I hear twenty years as the standard figure for an asphalt-shingle roof. But I live on a street with houses that are in some cases 80 years old and more. And the Washington suburbs are full of bungalows built in haste 60 years ago and still functioning--with a new roof, maybe, and with additions, but with an original core.

Bathrooms and kitchens don't so much wear out as go out of style. The grout gets crummy in the bathroom, the porcelain wears, and then a generation that watches cooking shows doesn't want the galley kitchen and electric stove of 1950.