I was reading the latest issue of my alumni magazine last night and kept coming across references to one or another graduate having bought a house that might likely involve a lifetime of work to restore.

Since I've gotten out of the business of old-house restoration, except, of course, for writing about it, I sipped my coffee, shrugged my shoulders and turned my full attention to another episode of Gunsmoke on digital cable.

I do sympathize, however, having spent 20 years driving nails through hot water lines, falling off ladders while painting and trying to keep ancient furnaces humming through winter.

We can make careers out of fixing up old houses. Bob Vila is just the most visible example of this, but there are millions of homeowners across the United States who fall off to sleep every Friday night making mental lists of all the projects they need to complete before the alarm sounds Monday morning.

The lists are usually too ambitious. By Monday morning, they are lucky if they've done anything.

Unless we buy shells of houses, most of us have something to work with. The plumbing may be antiquated, but at least it is indoors, for example. The electricity may not meet the requirements of all of our newfangled appliances, but at least it can be upgraded.

It usually wasn't as good for our father and grandfathers. Coming out of the Great Depression and World War II, the country was experiencing a shortage of housing, especially for returning GIs and their new families.

It wasn't until 1949, with the passage of the National Housing Act, that the government recognized that "the general welfare and security of the nation and the health and living standards of its people require housing production and related community development to remedy the serious housing shortage and the elimination of substandard and inadequate housing."

How bad was it?

According to the 1940 census, 18 percent of housing was in need of major repair. That meant that almost seven million of the 37.4 million dwellings in the United States were dilapidated.

There were 11.5 million dwellings with no running water, 13 million dwellings had no private flush toilets, and 16 million dwellings had no bathtub or shower.

Four percent of houses had a hand pump for water, 21 percent had running water within 50 feet of the home, and 5 percent had no water supply within 50 feet.

One-fifth of all housing was considered overcrowded, with almost 10 percent severely overcrowded. That was one result of the Depression.

The population had increased by about 10 million since the 1930 census, but only five million new housing units had been built.

Housing for defense workers was built during the war, but it was designed as temporary quarters. However, a lot of public housing stayed around a lot longer than it was intended.

Today, fewer than 5 percent of the country's population lives in substandard housing. While one-third of the nation's houses lacked complete plumbing systems in 1949, that figure was down to 1.1 percent by 1990.

The greatest achievement of the National Housing Act has been the substantial increase in homeownership over the last 50 years, from around 55 percent in 1949 to almost 70 percent today.

For the first time in U.S. history, more than half of all inner-city dwellers own their own homes.

Private enterprise had been the primary mechanism for achieving the act's goals over the last five decades, with government providing necessary support.

The language of the 1949 legislation clearly says that private enterprise shall be encouraged to serve as large a part of the total need as it can, and that government assistance shall be used when feasible to "enable private enterprise to serve more of the total need."

Clearly, most of the people who buy older houses with plans to remodel them don't envision themselves embarking on any crusade. They buy because these houses are initially less expensive than a new one, they are in cities or older suburbs that these buyers are finding increasingly desirable and, most importantly to my mind, they are blank slates on which the buyers' imprint can be placed.

In a sense, they have the opportunity to be creative, no matter how long it takes.

It doesn't take a lifetime, however. How long it takes does depend on the condition of the house, what the buyer wants to achieve and the depth of his or her pockets.

Just make sure it has indoor plumbing.