Home & Garden

Because I know you're interested in the minute details of my inconsequential life, I thought I'd pass along my latest TV obsession: HGTV.

This channel is amazing. I especially love the shows where they makeover an entire house, a room, or a yard. I'm particularly interested in this kind of renovation, upgrade and design.

I have quite a bit of experience in fixing up old houses, improving properties both aesthetically and structurally. For years, I worked with a guy during the summer helping him fix up houses. He flipped a few houses. The improvements could be nearly anything: carpentry, painting, electrical, plumbing, adding a new deck, landscaping the yard, knocking out a wall and expanding a room, replacing a light fixture, shoring up a giant beam under the house in a crawl-space... anything. We did it all.

I loved it. It was great to get all that experience. I can walk into a house now, and within 5 or 10 minutes, I can tell whether it's well-built, or whether the builder just slapped it up without much care or regard for its solidity. (Is that a word? Solidity?) I hope this skill comes in handy when eventually buying a home myself.

I also hope to put these skills to good use when I buy a home, so that I can do many of these same types of improvements myself. HGTV feeds that part of me that loves to see things fixed up, improved, remade. It's like some kind of wonderful drug. I just wish I had an outlet for it. Apartment living doesn't suit me.