House and Home

David and I are searching for a house to buy. Our budget requires us to be "creative" or "pioneers." With our budget, people say we need to have "vision," to be able to see not only the possibilities inherent in any given property, but also the future; i.e., trends regarding how certain areas are going to develop, or not develop. I have this type of vision, and I have intuition, and armed with these two things, I still have not found a house that turns me on. What I do NOT have is a realtor, and common wisdom tells me that this is what I really need. However, I cannot break away from house crack long enough to find a realtor.

One of the issues that divides David and me in our search for our future home is wood paneling. I am generally for it, if it's in good condition; David is generally against it. I don't mind it if it looks like this:



But David would rather it not be there at all.

I grew up with wood paneling -- pecky cedar paneling -- in our ranch house. It smelled great, but was full of these big naturally occurring holes that lizards liked to crawl in and out of while my siblings and I were sitting on the couch watching after-school cartoons. The lizards were huge, practically dragon-sized compared to the little lizards that I see in Houston. Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen ANY lizard in Houston that is larger than all the lizards that crawled in and out of our family room walls.