Thursday 28 April 2011

Property Porn

My favourite former magazine, Eve, had a regular feature with this title.  Bill used the term 'porn' the other day to describe what some leaflet he'd got in the post that he'd been reading.  Being rather old fashioned about my interpretation, I asked for clarification and of course he meant 'pretty, seductive stuff you shouldn't tease yourself looking at, but you do'.  It's another one of the reasons I love the internet, being able to snoop in other people's grand houses.






For example, the Bishop's house (built c. 1740) in Tynemouth village is for sale just now.  Also another of my favourites on Front Street.  


This is a great house from the outside, but I'm not fond of the modern style in which they renovated it.  And a chandelier light fixture in the front porch?  Well, OK, I'll let them, but I wouldn't do it.


On the other hand I looked at the flat available for £200K in Prior's Park and though it has sea views, I wasn't inspired to move.


I have our new house in Oklahoma City all picked out:  Edgemere Park, built 1928.


I looked for something in Salt Lake City, but even for $1.5 million, I wasn't too sure about this.  What do you think?  


The fun thing is that one doesn't need to worry about price, cause it's just looking.  I'm not really looking to move, so I can just enjoy the photos and perhaps get some ideas about what improvements we could consider.  I do have to be in the right frame of mind or I can get grumpy about what we can't afford.  The main thing for me to remember is that I live in a far nicer house than the one I grew up in and 99.9% of the time I'm well satisfied with it.


Do you like to look at things you can't buy or do you avoid them?

2 comments:

Pauline Wiles said...

I have a real thing about house porn; I will be browsing through your picks, for sure. And yes, that first Tynemouth house does seem to have some clashing styles going on.

Anonymous said...

I like the OKC house you have selected. There are many in a similar style in the KC area. I have such vivid memories of house shopping with my parents when I was very little. One such house was fully built with no roof and one could climb a set of stairs and look down into it. This "porn" thing is what sells magazines like Architectural Digest.