We’re looking at houses at the moment. Yes, slowing becoming one with the capitalist homogeny. But they’re so nice and pretty. Of course, we also live in an area that was set on the road to gentrification already, and all the fancy new construction coming to the centre of Durham is helping to increase house prices considerably. Also, I have quite a bit of stuff, enough, one might say, to almost fill a shipping container. Plus, the books, which grow at an unbounded rate (Durham County Library book sale this weekend people! Is it wrong I’m going to try and leave work an hour early on Friday in order to get to the early opening? I do not have a problem, honest). Despite being on rather decent wages (and I’m underselling that), we’re slightly restricted on what we can buy with money down, and we don’t want to extend ourselves too far.

So we’ve looked at houses. One was by a main road and too noisy to even have a conversation on the front steps, and another looked fabulous in the pictures, but in person it turned out that the photographer was amazing and the house less so.

And then there’s 648 W Club. I’m not too fussy about my houses - I can take old or new. I do absolutely love Mid-Century Modern homes, mind you, but I’m not enough of a programming rock star to stretch that far. Though there is one out by Rho that would be amazing…but no, cast it from your mind, Ian! Too far out, and just tantalizingly enough out your price range - back, back, I say! Back to W Club, a house from 1940 that has had its entire attic/loft space converted into a master bedroom suite, making it seem like a huge amount of house for a very good price.

But there’s always a ‘but’. There’s a few cracks in the walls, and the foundation has had to be reinforced with steel beams (though at least it has them). The downstairs bathroom would need to be ripped out, fencing would need to be completed, and most jaw-droppingly expensive of all, it needs a complete renovation of the ground floor’s heating and air conditioning. It is not exactly walk-in ready.

The potential, though. Already you can imagine how great the kitchen would be after a remodel, how the bare wooden floors would shine after being sanded down and polished. How we could turn the huge basement into either more rooms or even a chocolate warehouse underneath the main house. Bookcases lining the walls and secret blackcurrant bushes growing in the back garden…

…and then the cracks in the house pour open and the basement floods, or the ceiling collapses on the ground floor. Or the crack sucks Amy Pond through the Time Vortex. Dreaming is one thing, reality is a touch more expensive. We’re going to get more expert advice on the house and see where to go from there, as well as looking at other houses in the area. So, if you’re selling a house in the 27701 zip code, do let us know!