Look at this house:

David Spence of Good Space had to look at it for years. Years! As it is right next door to his office on West Eighth Street in the Bishop Arts District. Spence makes a living renovating and managing Oak Cliff properties, and he hated looking at this sad little house, so well located and full of potential, yet so unattainable.

He once made an offer on the house, but the absentee landlords shot him down. Then finally, finally, the house went on the market last year, and boy, did Spence swoop in to buy that sucker in a hurry.

Look at it now:

It’s what we Texans call “darling.” Spence and Good Space turned the house into an office, and they leased it to a law firm pretty quickly. Wouldn’t that be a nice place to work, even if you had to be a lawyer?

Spence started renovating old properties in Oak Cliff back in the mid-90s, when I still considered Oak Cliff the place to go for thrift stores and getting car jacked. The Old Oak Cliff Conservation League honored Spence this week with the 2011 Ruth Chenowith Conservation Achievement Award for his work on Eighth Street. And it’s well deserved.

He also renovated this darling little house on West Eighth, which is available for lease as office space:

Currently, he is working on another Eighth Street house, and it looks a mess:

Just wait. It will be as darling as the rest.