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deadcactuswalking · 4 years ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 24/10/2020 (Digga D, Justin Bieber, benny blanco)

Internet Money’s “Lemonade” featuring Don Toliver, NAV and Gunna finally hit #1 on the UK Singles Chart, and that’s today’s #1. Anyone else find it funny that NAV has a #1 hit in, well, any country? Anyway, welcome to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

A lot of our new arrivals from yesterday are gone entirely, including “Parlez-Vous Anglais” by Headie One featuring Aitch, mostly because only the three highest-performing songs from an artist can be in the chart at one time, so “Only You Freestyle” with Drake returned at #44. As well as that, other notable drop-outs from the UK Top 75 are “Mr. Right Now” by 21 Savage and Metro Boomin featuring Drake, “5AM” by M Huncho and Nafe Smallz exiting pretty prematurely, “Over Now” by Calvin Harris and the Weeknd, “Wishing Well” by the late Juice WRLD lasting longer than I expected, and “Heaven on My Mind” by Becky Hill and Segala. The biggest fall for the week is “Laugh Now Cry Later” by Drake and Lil Durk getting hit with the streaming cut down from #18 and #42 and the biggest is for last week’s debut “i miss u” by Jax Jones and Au/Ra up from #53 to #39. The only other returning entry we have is that garbage “Papi Chulo” song by Octavian and Skepta back for seemingly no reason. That doesn’t mean we don’t have 11 new arrivals, though, so let’s get started.

NEW ARRIVALS

#69 – “Train Wreck” – James Arthur

Produced by Adam Argyle

X Factor winner and insecure homophone who somehow pissed Frankie Boyle off on Twitter in 2012 James Arthur is back with his latest single since his first comeback album which was surprisingly successful, even stateside, mostly because of soppy, unlistenable ballad “Say You Won’t Let Go”. So, what’s to be expected out of this frog-voiced adult contemporary lad today? Well, apparently this is actually not his latest single choice for that lead off of the fourth album and rather just a deep cut from his 2016 album Back from the Edge. It’s the sixth track on the album, it’s four years old and never had a single push so I can only assume... TikTok? I don’t know, I think everyone’s feeling like this year’s been a bit of a train wreck so is the song good? I don’t know, I think his belting is impressive but pretty aggravating with only the soft piano backing and it does sound like he’s straining himself a bit here. The pouring out of his emotions during the dark place he was in between 2013 and 2016 is pretty effective and admittedly I feel kind of bad for the guy but, man, you can tell this is the first song he wrote for the album as it feels pretty underwritten, with a lot of reliance on that chorus, which is powerful but not nearly enough as he wants it to be. He explores a religious angle in the first verse that goes absolutely nowhere. Looking at the comments on the Genius page and ignoring the ones saying “This is epic” or “Anyone here from Harry Potter TikToks?”, I can tell it’s helping people and if this really is impactful to his audience then all fairness to him, it does its job. I’m just not a fan.

#68 – “Heat Waves” – Glass Animals

Produced by Dave Bayley

I swear “trainwreck” and “heatwave” are usually one word. Huh. Glass Animals are an indie-pop project fronted by Dave Bayley and I’ve never felt the need to look into them, and whilst I always assumed they were big – especially this recent third album which did big numbers to mixed reception – I didn’t think they were “chart in the top 100” big, especially not too months after the album release when another single is clearly being pushed. It has got a couple remixes though, particularly a Diplo one, so I guess this is a good time to first check Bayley and co out. Maybe my definition of “psychedelic pop” is different to Pitchfork’s (who didn’t even like this album) but I didn’t expect pitch-shifted vocals put against trap instrumentals and 808s that drown out all of the musicality that goes into the watery synths and guitar picking under the pretty rough vocals here, saved by some cool melodic ideas and multi-tracking that sounds pretty good in the verses. That chorus is lazy and quickly loses its lustre though, and it is not nearly climactic enough for that point in the bridge where its cuts out and returns to work or have any impact at all. The lyrics are pretty fluffy and non-descript, apart from the refrain of “Road shimmer wigglin’ the vision”... okay, I understand why you pitch-shifted that one. Yeah, this is pretty garbage, as are these remixes, although admittedly I kind of enjoy Diplo’s future bass rendition. You can’t do much to make a badly-written song sound interesting as an EDM remixer. I listened to that “Space Ghost Coast to Coast” song out of curiosity and... just because your “ayys” sound more like “ehs” doesn’t mean your trap-rap is suddenly art pop. Also:

“Space Ghost Coast To Coast” combines bits and pieces of millennial childhood nostalgia with musings on school shootings.

Joy. Next.

#67 – “PMW” – M Huncho and Nafe Smallz

Produced by Quincy Tellem

The drill MF DOOM (in aesthetic, not ability) and some nasal-voiced idiot who is not selling himself well with that stage name make a collaborative album produced by Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em. Here’s their ode to Profit Margins and Wages. Okay, it’s just them trading bars over an actually pretty damn good trap beat, with a killer choral vocal sample and some skittering hi-hats with a high enough pace that it makes Nafe Smallz seem mildly engaged. M Huncho sounds fine here, but the chorus here is pretty rough for both of them, and it just sounds really awkward. I do like Nafe’s second verse here, the flows he uses are pretty catchy and he sounds alive for once. What do you expect me to say about this though? They don’t rap anything interesting, the trap beat is good but not particularly interesting and the performances are mildly entertaining at best. It’s not nearly as amusing as the last single I liked from Huncho, “Pee Pee”. I’m not surprised this didn’t debut very high, and I guess it’ll drop off next week like nothing ever happened.

#65 – “One More Time” – Not3s featuring AJ Tracey

Produced by Eyes Adoasi and Remedee

Well, this duo have worked together a bunch of times before, and are undeniably preferable to M Huncho and Nafe Smallz, even if I’m not necessarily a big fan of either artist. This seems to be a lead-off single for Not3s’ third record as well as an interpolation of Britney Spears’ ��...Baby One More Time” with a pretty cute pitch-shifted female vocal acting as the main melody for the track... and, yeah, this is what I expect from AJ Tracey. There’s an obvious UK garage flavour to the track – it does feel like a modernised throwback – and AJ’s spitting pretty competently, even if his flow is pretty basic and at times janky. Not3s is even more janky in the pre-chorus but the harmonising on the chorus and flow on the second verse is pretty damn impressive and dare I say charming. If he wants to go into this smooth R&B-rap direction on this type of UK garage beat I approve fully and I would be excited for that upcoming album. It kind of reminds me of Jeremih, to be completely honest, and I’m not sure exactly where I get that comparison but he sounds great. The beat does feel like it stagnates, especially during AJ’s verse actually – it might be the weak link stopping this from becoming great – but it doesn’t overstay its welcome and the 8-bit sound effects during AJ’s verse do stop this from being boring, though I still prefer a fair few of AJ’s other singles, like “Kiss and Tell” with Skepta which the song immediately reminded me of. It could have actually done with no guest verse but I know Not3s needs that promo so I’m not complaining about this. I hope to see it in the top 40 soon.

#62 – “Perkosex” – D-Block Europe

Produced by Gwiz and Roki

“Perkosex”. Wow, and I thought these guys couldn’t get dumber. We have a third DBE album cut this week and I’m already impressed by the awful pun in the title and the fact that this is literally taken from a YouTube producer’s (FREE) Calboy/Polo G type beat. Classy. This is a more downbeat song for the duo, with two verses, kind of. In fact, there’s no chorus, just one verse from Dirtbike LB who actually starts off the song with some spoken word and pathetic “Ski” ad-libs – leave that to Young Adz, who fragments his verse with a pointless and awkward bridge, as if his verse didn’t fill up that quota anyway. We have an acoustic guitar, pitched-up vocal sample that comes in to waste time every so often, and actually cuts Adz’s verse in two. Both LB and Adz croon and mumble, barely staying on the beat, with Adz mumbling so much on his first part of the verse that I initially thought this was just an outro to a song that lasted one and a half minutes, but, no, there’s an extra minute to go and Adz adz nothing to the track that needed that second half of the verse. Neither of the rappers are any funny here, but at least LB compares his friends to terrorists and says he’s got shots in his mouth like a peppermint... I mean, he sounds more mentally stable than he usually does on these songs, I guess. The second half of that Adz verse starts off with either him barely staying on-topic or just a complete plot twist.

You signed up for a drug dealer, not a drug user

And the next line:

And one of my toxic traits is that I love too much

Again, classy. This is crap even by their standards and just straight boring. It won’t go anywhere, but knowing my luck it might be the Christmas #1. Next.

#60 – “Someone to You” – BANNERS

Produced by KOZ

More “indie pop” debuting on the charts, although this one is directly off of the success of Love, Victor, a Hulu original series based on the film Love, SImon that used it in its soundtrack and hence it’s here on the chart. This song has been on three of this guy’s EPs and is actually all the way back from 2017 so, yeah, we have some old cuts here. I have absolutely nothing to say about the song though. Sure, I appreciate the vocal harmonies in the post-chorus and the organic drumming but the vaguely folkish guitar sounds pretty trite, as do the hand-claps and the incredibly generic mish-mash of love song clichés in all of the lyrics here. I’m reminded of a lighter Biffy Clyro that happens to be from Liverpool instead of Scotland and, you know, have no grit or interesting songwriting to back the enthusiastic vocal delivery and repetitive, exhausting chorus. I’m not into this at all, it just reeks of a lack of effort or unique character to it. And I’m safe to assume that about this next song...

#59 – “You’re Mines Still” – Yung Bleu

Produced by Nate Rhoads

This song got big because of Drake on the remix and thank God for that because this Juice WRLD rip-off could never stand on his two feet anyway. The fake attempt at a half-hearted British accent drenched in Auto-Tune is an immediate turn-off – the dude’s from Alabama and sounds like he’s vaguely imitating an Afroswing singer – but so is this incredibly low-effort trap beat with barely anything other than a Sting sample from the exact song “Lucid Dreams” sampled, and it’s not like this is an uncommon flip, coincidence or even a sample that hasn’t been used in a bunch of rap tracks before. Watch out, Yung Bleu, or else Sting will try and sue your ass on BS counts of “plagiarism” until you tragically die young or get a Drake stimulus package big enough for you to pay off royalties and fines for copyright infringement. In fact, I’m convinced that’s the only reason Drake hopped onto the remix so he and his massive bank account can settle the incoming lawsuit and pay the legal fees for this guy, because he doesn’t contribute anything worthwhile to this trash either. Jesus, this is bad.

#58 – “Happiness” – Little Mix

Produced by TMS

We don’t have that album yet, but we have another low-charting promotional single, I guess, now that the last one dropped off from the chart entirely... last week. Little Mix are now noticing that maybe they really cannot perform that well without Syco so I guess they’re just throwing as many bricks as D-Block Europe claim to be selling and hoping one of them fits into the wall. I don’t mind the song for all it’s worth, to be honest, I mean it’s more of a fast-paced dance-pop song about love I can appreciate with some pretty great vocal performances from the girls here, especially who I think are Leigh-Anne and Jade. The chorus hits pretty hard and the fusion of 808s and trap skitters on the verses with a killer UK garage-inspired drum loop on the chorus... yeah, I can actually endorse this, albeit with some hesitation, especially since the bridge is literally just like 10 seconds of vocal riffing, which makes the song feel somewhat underwritten even if that final chorus, especially the lead-up to it, is pretty amazing and genuinely surprised me on my first listen. This is good, and honestly a lot better than I expected from Little Mix, so check it out if you’re interested, although sadly I doubt this’ll stick.

#29 – “Hold” – Chunkz and Yung Filly

Produced by Ransom Beatz

I can say the same about this, now that we’re in the top 40 here (first for both artists), mostly because Chunkz is pretty much a YouTube comedian and looking at these lyrics, there are now jokes. There is some ugly Auto-Tuned crooning over a pretty flat Afroswing beat and Chunkz’s delivery is similarly flat and it’s obvious he’s a comedian. You can just tell when rappers are also comedians and this guy definitely makes that obvious in his half-hearted “upbeat” delivery that sounds like a satire, but the problem is again that there are NO JOKES. Is the “airplane mode” line a joke? The use of the word “investments”? The egregious Spanish in the second verse? This weak-sauce instrumental? If any of these are jokes or an attempt at comedy, please let me stand corrected because I don’t know if Chunkz was chuckling to himself writing but none of this is funny or even entertaining. It’s pretty telling that the Genius page gave up on trying to distinguish the two rappers as well. Next.

#19 – “Lonely” – Justin Bieber and benny blanco

Produced by benny blanco and FINNEAS

Why is benny blanco credited as a lead artist while FINNEAS isn’t? Huh. Well, Justin’s back and leaving whatever the hell Changes was earlier this year right behind him, focusing on more introspective and personal tracks like... “Holy”, I guess. Well, for what it’s worth, this is better than “Holy” by quite a bit. It’s a pretty minimal ballad with some nice work on the keys from benny and egregious profanity from Bieber in the chorus. I do like the content though, and how he delves into Bieber’s regrets in his past, especially in the second verse although I feel like he misses the point here or at least doesn’t go in-depth enough for me to fully comprehend his view on the situation. They criticised things you did as an idiot kid because they were insensitive, immoral and at some times illegal, not because you were a child. Sure, the media and the press can be antagonistic, especially to easy targets – hell, it’s worse here than in the US or Canada – but it’s not entirely clear in the short verse here that he’s not just deflecting blame onto the “haters”. I do like how he talks about the downs that come with having so much wealth and fame at a young age and no idea on what to do with it other than reckless leisure activities and raking in the fandom’s love whilst he continues to drink-drive and lose his pet monkey, which he shouldn’t have had in the first place. He also talks about how the paparazzi and Internet comment trolls viewed his pictures of him with Lyme disease and immediately assumed he was doing drugs, which can be similarly said for Chadwick Boseman, who died earlier this year due to complications related to colon cancer at age 43. Yeah, this one digs pretty deep but I still feel like it could have used a third verse, especially since while Bieber claims to cite his wife Hailey Baldwin as his “saviour” this is his third or fourth time painting himself as the “comeback” of Bieber but now a more mature man, and none of those attempts have really succeeded so this seems kind of desperate on his behalf. Sigh, the song’s fine and honestly I appreciate it for what it tries to do but it falls short here and lacks the real dagger in the heart moment personally revealing songs about fame like this should have, although I’d admit it gets close. Now for our final entry, which has considerably less to talk about...

#18 – “Chingy (It’s Whatever)” – Digga D

Produced by ItchyDaProducer

Chingy? As in “Right Thurr”, “Holidae Inn” Chingy? Huh. From one look at the chorus, it just seems to be another threat but hey, Digga D’s back. I’m not sure if anyone wanted him back but here he is. He released an album last year. This wasn’t on it. I can’t actually remember this guy at all; I assumed this was DigDat so I expected some quality – I mean, no drill lyric can beat “white like Peter, brown like Cleveland” – but no, it’s Digga D, who made a song with Russ Splash last year that got in the top 40. I remember reviewing it, I remember not thinking much of it at the time. I don’t think much of this one either although I do have to admit I really like that eerie vocal sample, even if it is completely drowned out by the drill beat and the inconsistently-censored sliding on the beat from Digga D. He uses a pretty standard drill flow here though, and the verses are little more than oddly specific gunplay and flexing. He does actually interpolate “Right Thurr” by Chingy in this pretty good and catchy chorus – which I imagine is the only reason this is in the top 20 – as well as in the second verse, where he interpolates his other biggest song which already interpolated a Vine. Sure, I guess.

Conclusion

Not as good of a week as the last, although there’s still a LOT of British hip hop here, mostly sectioned between some indie-pop clunkers. In fact, I’m going to give Glass Animals the Dishonourable Mention for “Heat Waves” while Worst of the Week goes to “You’re Mines Still” by Yung Bleu and Drake on the remix for just being a horrible song all around. Best of the Week surprises me but it’s going to Little Mix for “Happiness” because, well, at least it has some damn energy to it unlike the rest of these songs. I guess the Honourable Mention can go to “One More Time” by Not3s and AJ Tracey but even that would be stretching it. Let’s hope for some good stuff next time, maybe some of that new Gorillaz album... pretty please? Here’s the top 10 for this week:

Big gains for “What You Know Bout Love” there, which is interesting. Follow me on @cactusinthebank for Tory scum baiting and I’ll see you next week.

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rebeccahpedersen · 6 years ago

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Friday Fantasy: What I Want In A House!

TorontoRealtyBlog

Here’s something a little silly on a Fun Friday.

I get asked this question a lot by my clients – “What are you looking for in a house?”

I’m an open book, both on this blog, and in person. People know I live in a condo, and that one day, sooner or later, I’ll be buying a house.

People always want to know what I’m looking for, so I figured this would be a fun exercise…

Another question I’ve been asked lately: “What’s with this ‘Fun Friday’ thing you’re always referring to on your blog?”

I wouldn’t say “always,” but yes, I tend to think of Friday as a more relaxed day, and the topics on my blog are often more relaxed too.

Monday’s blog post is often something big and bold that I’ve pounded hours into over the weekend, as is Wednesday’s. Friday’s blog, since it’s only up for one weekday, is often a bit silly in nature. Not to take anything away from the folks who come to the blog for “MLS Musings” or “Photos of the Week,” not to mention a fun video, but that’s just the Friday theme, if you will.

When I went to Leaside High School in the early 1990’s, by the time you finished Grade 9, there were “enriched” courses available to students who, like me, enjoyed studying, had no friends, and didn’t party…

In Grade 10, they offered “Enriched Math,” which I thought would be really cool.

It’s too bad that in 2018, they’re doing away with enriched courses, in attempts to make everybody “equal,” but that’s a topic for another day…

My Grade 10 math teacher was a man named Mr. De Piezza, who offered us ways of thinking that we had never thought to explore. It simply changed the way I thought about math, and learning in general.

Most Fridays, instead of teaching from the text, or simply moving on to the next chapter or next lesson in line, he would look to do something different. And he referred to this as “Fun Friday.”

I remember one exercise where we were exploring probability, and while we know that the chances of flipping a coin and having it turn up heads, or tails, is 50%, he wanted us to see how we get to that 50%. How many sequences of ten flips come up with 9 heads and 1 tails? Or vice versa? Picture 30 kids in a classroom, with hundreds of pennies, flipping coins and scrawling down results.

For some students, “Fun Friday” was a day when you knew you wouldn’t have a test, or be stressed by the lesson, or really have to do much. But for nerds like me, it was a day you just knew you were going to learn something cool.

Anyways, that is the origin of my “Fun Friday” saying.

And when a couple of different clients recently asked me what I was looking for in a house, I figured it would be a Fun-Friday kind of blog post.

There are a lot of things I’d look for in a house, like just about every buyer. Some things I’d compromise on, some things I wouldn’t.

Some things are necessities, and some things are fantasies.

But explaining how many bedrooms I want, or whether I want a garage – that’s boring!

As a fun exercise, I thought I’d sway a little more toward the fantasy angle, especially because so many of my ideas are exactly that.

And while I could probably rattle off a dozen things I want in a house, if you know me by now, you know I’d rather spend an entire blog talking about just ONE feature.

One feature, eh?

Any guesses off the top?

A pool?

A gym?

A garage with power-tools?

A garden for my green thumb? Maybe some organic kale?

What about a kitchen island facing a Wolf range?

A steam shower? A sauna?

A backyard football field?

All good guesses, they would be.

But aside from the necessities, and if we’re just playing for fun today, one of the things I’ve always fantasized about is………

…………..a wood-paneled office.

I don’t quite know what draws me to this.

Maybe it’s the idea of having my own “lair” or “domain.” But I also want a man-cave (a close 2nd place), so it can’t be about having my own space.

Maybe it’s about efficiency? Being able to work from home, and feel like I’m still in the office? I think I might be on to something there.

I’ve been in my current condo now for seven years, and save for the first six months when I worked in the “home office” I had set up, I’ve always worked from my dining room table. As I type this right now, 12:31am on Wednesday night, I’m sitting in my half-broken, much-sat-upon chair that is also seven years old, and is probably the best $150 I’ve spent in a long time.

But having my own office, in my home? That would be awesome.

The kids can come knock on the door, quietly, respectfully, and in a 1920’s voice, perhaps even with a hint of a British accent, ask, “Father, may we speak with you, if only for a moment?”

I’ll remove my spectacles, put my pen back in my ink quill, and say, “Yes, children you may, but let’s do so post-haste as father has important work to be done.”

Then they’ll ask me if they can attend the sock-hop, or box social, or whatever gathering is afoot at the local broo-ha-ha, and I’ll tell them to ask their mother.

Then, it’s back to work for me.

Yes, that’ll be the day…

I’ve accumulated a few photos from MLS of wood-paneled offices I like.

Here’s my favourite thus far:

Great colour, two windows, and I like the built-in shelves.

I have a lot of art, which you may call “chachkies,” but I need somewhere to display it.

Every piece of art I own, has meaning. Think about that painting you bought from a street vendor on your trip to South America back in 2009, and had framed in the shop around the corner from your home. That piece is special to you because you remember where you were when you bought it, who you were with, and why it appealed to you.

I dream one day of having a wood-paneled office, just like the one above, and unpacking all the pieces of art I’ve accumulated over the years, and deciding on where each piece will go, is going to be like Christmas morning for an adult.

Behind the desk in that photo above has to be home for a very strong piece.

A defining piece.

I already have mine picked out…

One of my best friends was married in 2013, and for his bachelor party, we drove to Detroit to watch the Tigers play, then Chicago to see the Cubs, then Milwaukee to see the Brewers, and then flew home.

After we left Wrigley Field in Chicago, we were walking through town, back to the car, and we saw a shop that was sort of sports memorabilia, and also antiques.

We went inside, and it was fantastic.

I’m a huge collector, as some of you know.

My brother, father, and I collected sports cards in the late 1980’s when the boom was big, and although most of that stuff is now worthless, our 1930’s and 1950’s hockey cards remain a fantastic collection. In the past four years, my father and I have started going back to the semi-annual expo to see if we can add to our sets.

In this Chicago store, there was all kinds of sports memorabilia, but also newspapers galore.

The moon landing, the Kennedy assassination, D-Day; you name it, there was an authentic, mint-condition newspaper being displayed.

I walked through the store like a kid on Christmas. I’m a sucker for anything old; anything vintage.

The store owner looked like he had to be in his 90’s, although maybe the stress of the near-1oo-years between Cubs’ World Series wins just made him seem that way.

I asked him, “What’s the oldest newspaper you have in the store?” And he thought about it for a while.

He then said, “It’s not on display,” and I figured it had to be special.

He walked over toward another counter, reached underneath, and pulled out a very large, flat wooden box. He opened up the lid and blew off the dust like something out of a Scooby-Doo cartoon, and the hinges creaked.

He pulled out a newspaper that was in plastic, and turned it around with both hands in an understated, unintentional, television-like reveal.

It was awesome.

The newspaper was from 1863, right in the middle of the U.S. Civil War.

Depicted on the top-half of a horizontal side of newspaper was the Second Battle of Winchester, which took place in Virginia. It was a hand-drawn sketch of the battle that was so incredibly detailed, I could almost see the despair in the eyes of the Union soldiers (they were slaughtered, FYI).

The newspaper was in absolutely incredible shape for something 150 years old.

But it wasn’t until I saw the date that I was really enthralled: June 23rd, 1863.

And what day were we there, in this man’s shop, in Chicago? June 23rd, 2013.

What are the chances?

Exactly 150 years later, to the day!

I immediately decided I had to have this piece.

I asked the old-timer how much he wanted for it, and he took a long inhale. “I’ve had that for……let me think now…..probably close to fifty years,” he said. “Picked it up at a flea market down south in the 70’s if I recall.”

I had no idea what this was worth, but I had pretty much decided I was going to buy it.

To my amazement, he said, “I think I’d have to have…….proabably…….one-twenty for it.”

One-twenty? Dollars? Really?

I’m a collector by nature, but this isn’t my field. I know it’s “just” a newspaper, but it’s 150 years old, and I don’t imagine there are a lot of these kicking around. I suppose just like any asset, or any home out there, it’s worth what somebody is willing to pay for it.”

“I’d be honoured to buy this piece,” I told him.

And I handed over $120 USD with glee.

We left the store, and one of my buddies said, “Dude, you could have worked him down! He’d probably have taken sixty bucks, man! You know 100% he’d have taken a hundred.”

I told my friend that wasn’t the point. I negotiate for a living. I’m sure I could have got the piece for less.

But I respected the man who owned it, how long he’d had it, and the mere existence of his store – a throwback to days past, in a world where very few people care about old newspapers, collectibles, antiques, or vintage items.

I wouldn’t dare insult this man by haggling over twenty dollars.

In the end, I got a photo of he and myself, with the newspaper, and his shop in the background.

As soon as I got home from that trip, I went up to Bayview Avenue to see my “frame guy.”

“You have a ‘frame guy,’ seriously?” I’m often asked by those in my office. But yes, I have a frame guy. A necessary ally for an amateur art collector.

To frame a piece of art – cheap or otherwise, is a job unto itself. The right mat, the right border, the right frame. Colours, thicknesses, and what type of glass?

When the piece was finished, I looked at it for a few minutes, and then put it back in the brown paper wrapping.

It’s been in storage for five years. I haven’t seen it since.

But I knew that one day, when I bought a house, and if I had a wood-paneled office – this would be the perfect piece to display on the wall behind my desk. Feel free to read into the imagery however you want; perhaps I don’t even understand the reasoning myself.

So yeah, call me crazy, but one of the things I want in a house, more than anything, is a wood-paneled office like the one above.

Here are a few others that I’ve seen on MLS over the years.

I like this one here, but I really want the window to look out front, not to the sideyard:

–

This one below is beautiful, but a little too “much,” if you will:

There’s also no window in the room, which I think is a deal-breaker.

I mean, it’s not a deal-breaker, since this is a classic case of “beggars can’t be choosers,” but that might get a wee bit stuffy.

The desk is also way too small – it’s a glass table with a few items on it. This reeks of staging.

I love the double doors though, as well as the ceiling detail.

–

This one below is more my speed.

It’s a combination of the very first office, and the one we just saw:

Ignore the colour of the wood, because I think that’s the camera.

I love the window behind the desk. In a perfect world, I’d have two windows next to the desk, like the first photo. But I don’t want the desk facing the wall like in photo #2.

I love the shelving on the right hand side. I can’t tell you how many pieces of art (aka chachkies…) I could display on those fifteen shelves.

I would absolutely love a wood-burning fireplace! That would be unreal. I’m not a fan of that gas/electric unit on the left, so I’d get rid of it. And the wall-mounted TV would be a distraction from all the really important things I’d be doing, and world’s problems I’d be solving, sitting in that chair.

–

This one below just doesn’t “do it” for me, you know?

As in I can’t quite put my finger on it, although I do like the chairs.

There’s a desk in the middle of the room, but it’s across from a built-in desk in the shelving. It doesn’t feel well-planned.

And again, the desk is sideways to the window, which I don’t like.

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I don’t even know what to make of this one here:

I showed it to a colleague of mine in the office, and he said, “Two desks? Eh? Eh???” and winked. “Business partners?”

I absolutely love the huge window though.

I think if the fireplace wasn’t there, you could move the desk in front of that space, ditch the second desk, and it would look just like the first one:

Except it would be twice as big…

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So there you have it, folks.

What’s wrong with a little day-dreaming on a Friday?

Call me crazy, but hot-damn do I want a wood-paneled office in a house one day.

I know it’s the long weekend and many of you have already checked out, but if you feel like playing along – let me know what cool, different, or fun feature you would want in a house.

And if you have a wood-paneled den, send me a photo.

Have a great long weekend, everybody!

The post Friday Fantasy: What I Want In A House! appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

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