I’m fighting the urge to buy a house down the street. It’s been on the market for several months now, and, after finding pictures of it online, I can see why. It was built in the mid-1970s and stands now as a testament to the design sensibilities of the era: cheap wood paneling, shag carpet, textured wallpaper, and yellowed linoleum by the yard. Potential buyers must run screaming from the place.
The problem is that I spend way too many afternoons watching shows like Flip This House and Property Ladder. No good can come from it. Every time I drive by that house, I daydream about ripping up those carpets and restoring life to neglected hardwoods, tearing out the paneling and putting up clean drywall, replacing the linoleum with tile, and selling the place for a nice little profit.
But I won’t. So, instead, I’ll keep making daily trips to House Blogs, my latest discovery and time-waster. It’s a community of blogs that monitor the progress of home restoration projects — kind of like crystal meth for wannabe-fix-it-men like me. My favorite site so far: This Old Crack House.