It's a tear-down...

I live in a tear-down.  Actually, more like a should have been torn down 3 years ago...  It's a California bungalow, which sounds cute unless you live in it.  When we moved in 8 years ago, I started working on the plans.  Which of course is the thing to do when you graduate from 5 grueling years of architecture school.  Every archi-torture grad dreams of building their own house.  A fabulous house.  One that is "green" and contemporary and fit for publication in Dwell.  Some of my contemporaries have already accomplished it.  Me?  No.  I'm married to and work with a contractor, but 8 years and 67 revisions to the plans later, (I counted) I am still living in the same f-ing house that we moved into, except now, the house is just plain gross.  We did the first round of fix-ups waaaaaay back when.  Painted the exterior siding and trim, painted an accent wall orange, then a pretty shade of blue, spruced up our miniscule kitchen, white -washed the brick fireplace, hung some art...  but the point was not to spend too much money because in the end, "it's a tear-down."  I should not sound so ungrateful having a roof over my head.  I am grateful...  Even though the sun baked plastic skylights leak like a sieve.  (I guess the Smurf Village mushrooms and moss growing on the 70 year old shingles can't absorb that much precipitation.)  But tonight, I have never wanted so badly to rent a crane with wrecking ball and a Bobcat to demo the damn place myself.  I would have cried tears of joy as the crushing kinetic energy from that steel ball hurtled through our domain and then I would have cackled all the way to the dump after bulldozing anything that was left. I cry a little now just imagining shards of our quaint "it's a tear-down" crumbling to the ground.  For you see, I actually put a pair of heels on for a holiday party tonight.  It was raining, (yes, the skylights leaked) so I knew my toes would be a little cold, but I owned those pretty little heels.  That is, until I stepped onto the hardwood floor and one of the 3" stiletto's punctured my termite ridden floor.  Really?  Is this what I live in?  A house that can't even support my weight in a heeled shoe?  Frick!  So I changed shoes, since the floor ruined my other pair, went to the holiday party and came home to a tell-tale hole in the floor.  The economy sucks.  I am glad that we are still in business, barely, but we are still standing.  But why oh why didn't we just tear down the "it's a tear-down" when we could have a few years ago?