Turns out I’m about to become a home owner. I am however in a quandary. The loan will hopefully be approved Monday, and I have a house lined up with papers to sign next week. While I’m enjoying the fact that there’s painting to be done, carpets to be ripped up, floorboards to be sanded and polished, kitchen cupboards to be torn out, slate and tiles to be ripped up at some point, shrubs and foliage to be removed, the dilemma is this: In my wardrobe exists not a single appropriately manly outfit to wear whilst conducting all of this man work. Well that’s not entirely true; Yesterday I rocked a nice flannelette shirt and some baggy black shorts while painting the trim in the main bedroom. See, I’m buying a house that my parents are selling, so I have the luxury of getting started on this work despite not technically being the owner until the sale is complete.

I guess if I were to drill down far enough to locate the root of the problem, the real concern would be my shoes. The closest thing I have to DIY-appropriate footwear are a pair of grey hi-top Supras that I love almost as if they were my own children. I even considered naming them at one stage, particularly since my future adopted foreign children will already have names when I adopt them. Best to honour their heritage by keeping their birth-names, and instead use my pre-planned baby names on my favourite shoes. Of course, if I do that, I most certainly can’t use them as part of my renovating outfit. ‘Charlotte’ and ‘Emily’ hardly seem like the type of shoes that would be found wandering around Bunnings in search of skirting board.

This whole internal debate stems from the fact that over the past two weeks I seem to have reignited some sort of primal desire to be a tradesman. I don’t care which trade necessarily, though I’m not keen on the idea of plumbing or electrical work. But let’s not be too picky, because truthfully I just want to wield a sledgehammer and wear a tool-belt. Slap a pair of reflector sunglasses and a hardhat on me and I’m essentially the construction worker from The Village People, minus a tight pair of blue jeans and a big dirty mo.

Every so often my mother reminds me that I once seemed destined to become a builder. It began with a fascination toward Lego as a small child, supplemented by an addiction to Play School. If Noni, John, Benita and the gang were showing Big Ted and Jemima how to build a house made of Paddle Pop sticks, I too would pull out my faithful childhood teddy and build a house from whatever remotely similar materials I could source from around the house. My mother would stroll into the kitchen to find every single cupboard left open and a trail of pots, pans, wooden spoons and assorted utensils leading to the lounge room, where three year-old Mikey would be sitting cross-legged in front of the television with a castle built from a stainless steel skillet, some plastic cups, a potato peeler and a chopping board standing proudly beside me.

Though I don’t remember the Play School years so well, I do recall building elaborate forts not long after, exhibiting architectural skill well beyond my seven or eight years of age. Upon discovering the floor plans for a house when I was ten, I began drawing up designs for the mansion that I would one day live in when I started working. I’d spend hours with a pencil in hand, stroking my chin trying to decide if my last minute addition of a row of stylish linen cupboards in the hallway outside the indoor bowling alley would ruin the ambiance of the entire house, or whether they would be better suited in the east wing, beside the upstairs ballroom.

My intolerance or impatience with precision quickly ruled out architecture as a future career path, and it appeared my knack for building things soon disappeared… seemingly forever. 15 years later, I am reborn, reinvigorated and ready to go. But what of the shoes? I came to a devastating realisation last night that I had spilled several drops of glossy white paint on Emily, the left hand shoe I’d worn whilst painting the bedroom. To save Charlotte from the same fate, I must find my way to the nearest King Gee retailer and buy some work boots. I can already feel the masculinity coursing through my veins.

Further to the whole shoe debacle, I am extremely excited about this homeowner business, and when I get excited about something, the levels of estrogen in my body have a tendency to soar, causing my voice to emit higher-pitched tones than I’ve been naturally capable of making in many, many years. So as not to ruin the illusion of masculinity that I plan on exuding over the next 6 months while renovating and perfecting this house, I have decided it best to formulate a plan of attack as to how I will elevate my testosterone levels and keep my more flamboyant side under wraps. So far the best I’ve come up with is burning the following playlist to a CD, which I will then play at ear-splitting levels whenever I don my new work boots:

1. Thunderstruck, AC/DC
2. Thunderstruck, AC/DC
3. Thunderstruck, AC/DC
4. Thunderstruck, AC/DC
5. Thunderstruck, AC/DC
6. Thunderstruck, AC/DC
7. Thunderstruck, AC/DC
8. Thunderstruck, AC/DC
9. Thunderstruck, AC/DC
10. Thunderstruck, AC/DC
11. Thunderstruck, AC/DC
12. Thunderstruck, AC/DC

If anyone has further advice on how to combat the desire to pirouette around a room while simultaneously holding a paint roller and struggling to ignore the jazzy 1920′s prohibition-era beat of the “Chicago” soundtrack blaring in one’s head, I’m all ears. In the meantime, if anyone needs me, I’ll be out looking for the perfect pair of overalls.