60 Colborne Street, Kingston

This two-bed, one-bath semi-detached downtown century home, two very short blocks from the main drag, feels a smart way to get one foot (and two hands) firmly on the real estate ladder. It's not easy to find a good, livable, right-feeling home this close to the city's beating heart for well under $500,000 (which is sad, of course, and wrong; I agree with you). You could lift the main floor carpets (although they were just cleaned so maybe best to leave them for now?) and I'm reasonably sure you'd uncover an attractive old softwood floor, same as you have up in the big front bedroom, where the pine planks glow as warmly as if melted down from decadent amounts of butter and Demerara. You'll work on the back kitchen, is my guess. It has those white melamine cupboards with oak trim (you can see them in your mind's eye right now, I bet), and while the laundry is handy in there, sure, I think I'd want them made more discreet. There are sliding doors out to a deep, private garden with an interlocking path and patio, as well as an old, low deck. There's a good shed too. Mostly (and I've thought a lot about this) I'd settle in front of the fireplace with a stack of design mags and plot my next move, the subtle (or not-so) changes that would see the house transformed, like a splendid tree coming into bud. You could also do nothing, of course, and simply rest up, stay warm, but there is the feeling of a clean slate here, a chance to build on all that history.