Sunday Afternoon Open House Tour

 

120

2112

Gourmet G.

San Francisco, CA

You've read the Chronicle from cover to cover and completed all three crosswords. It's one of those rare Sundays when you have no plans, there's nothing of interest playing at the multiplex in this season of dreck, and you're looking to do something different and on the cheap. Behold . . . the unofficial do-it-yourself Open House Tour. Either check out the listings in the real estate section, or just select a neighborhood at random and drive around looking for the little sandwich board signs inviting you to browse, usually from 2 - 4:00pm. Pacific Heights and Nob Hill tend to provide the largest homes to peruse, and it's fun to find the mansions where money was no object in decorating, resulting in too much of the ornate, the baroque, and/or the hideously gilded, because wealth doesn't necessarily breed taste. I prefer the candidates for 'Sell This House,' the HGTV program in which specialists gently advise desperate housewives without a clue why their houses have been on the market for six months with nary a nibble from prospective buyers. These usually include garish colors, outdated wallpaper, overwhelming pet odors, and/or linoleum on the living room floor. My real-life favorites have featured unmade beds, laundry piled in corners, dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, velvet paintings of JFK, Martin Luther King, and Jesus (all on the same wall), filthy bathtubs, and - at one Castro Edwardian - a greasy sling suspended from the rafters in the garage. A great way to see how others live, and you have carte blanche to look in strangers' closets without fear of reprisal.

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