There’s something special in the cramped claustrophobia of a Victorian house. Tiny, slanted staircases warning you of their structural instability with a barrage of creaks just seems so much more comforting to me than some stable post-modernist thing. What’s a hardwood floor without a few thousand aged scratches?

I want to buy a little old dilapidated house off in an overbearing forest, struggling to retake the cold discrepancy of civilization back to its shaded chaotic glory. I want to fill it with old leather books, teetering in piles, falling from old shelves and leaning precariously off the backs of chairs with beaten upholstery. Books that smell good – crumpled brown pages with faded black words.

The siding needs to hang off the front of the house, threatening those who approach with a swift blunt force to the back of the head. I won’t replace it. I’ll encourage it with ivy, make the ivy crawl up the porch and to the roof.

Who doesn’t want a house with towers? Balconies, porches, old antiquated windows. You can live in a castle without feeling fake. Those new imitation houses are so sterile — so clean and free of scratches — if I go into a house like that it makes me wonder if anyone has ever lived there.

A Victorian house is somewhere you can make French food and feel good about it. It’s somewhere you can listen to classical music off of vinyl and feel sincere.