For the Love of Home Depot

For the last two weeks, I’ve taken at least one day out to play hookie from the bank security job. Once my boss Sandra downloads the security wand, I can sneak out for the rest of the day with no one the wiser. Normally, I would leave and go home to catch up on sleep or to take care of a tenant issue. But recently, I’ve been sneaking out of work to go to Home Depot.

I love going to Home Depot. I make sure to leave my bank card in the car so I’m not tempted to buy anything. I walk in there and just look at stuff. I think this must be the way women feel whenever they go shopping for clothes. I remember being forced by then-girlfriends to go with them to the mall and we’d stop at a clothing store. They would walk around for almost an hour just looking at clothes and shoes and whatever, but wouldn’t buy anything. It got on my nerves and I never understood why they do that until I started going to Home Depot. Standing there, in the midst of all the appliances and tools and carpentry, I start thinking about the different things I can do and how much everything would cost. Right now, I currently think about the attic apartment I want to build for myself next year. I look at the things I’ll need for the kitchen, the prices of sheetrock, lumber, electric cooktops, refrigerators, and just about everything else. I love looking at the toilets and imagining what it’d be like to take a precious dump in my own finished bathroom. To walk on a wooden floor instead of cement. To have a ceiling. To have walls. To have windows… windows! Mmmmm.

Home Depot represents possibilities, the same as the shopping scenario I talked about earlier. My early estimate is that it’ll cost somewhere around 15k for materials and appliances (financing that of course), followed by another 10k for labor. And I realized that I'll no longer have to look for a prospective property Delta with an attic. Property Beta has a nice sized one that would do just fine for a small apartment. This allows me to focus solely on profit when I do my property search next year. But as for the attic apartment? Stainless steel appliances or no? Bedroom or no bedroom? Recessed lighting or standard? A sauna?

Stainless Steel Refrigerator?

Electric Cooktop?

Recessed Lighting?

Whirlpool Tub?

The varying possibilities make Home Depot my Disneyland, where dreams really can come true.