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I woke up on Saturday morning and all I wanted was a cup of coffee and a box of nails.

It was the sort of need any reasonable person living in a reasonable neighbourhood might have on a Saturday morning. Since moving into an old house a year ago, my pictures have lived leaning on the floor. Call me middle-class and boring, but I prefer them hanging on the wall.

So I got up and went to search for coffee and nails. The latte I found within minutes of rounding the corner of my street onto Queen West. It was a good one: locally roasted beans and hot foamy milk with an almond croissant on the side. I ran into a short-filmmaker I know and made small talk about "funding" for upcoming "projects." A copy of the Herald Tribune was hanging around so I skimmed an article about cricket. It was, all things considered, shaping up to be a very pleasant Saturday.

Looking for a hardware store, I quickly became distracted. The new Philip Roth was for sale at my local bookstore, along with some beautiful stencilled notepaper my sister would love. There were $300 throw cushions for 20 per cent off, vintage designer belts, handmade Japanese wrapping paper and gluten-free brownies. There were calla lilies, Eames chairs, plush dolls and art installations with blinking neon lights.

There were all of these things and more, but not a single nail that wasn't already hammered into a merchant's expensively rented wall. Nails, it seems, are as difficult to come by in my new neighbourhood as a bloody Caesar in Rome.

You probably think this is because I live in a "nice" area, and on a certain level that's right. Relative to the rest of the country, it costs a stupid amount of money to buy a tiny house on my block. The people on my street are friendly. The parents pulling their children in red wagons always nod hello. As do the hookers, who stand at the top of my street shivering in their miniskirts. The drug dealers who walk the perimeter of the park in their hoodies are not so chatty, but I don't mind. In a way it's nice to know where to buy drugs in case I ever become a junkie - a fate that seems only slightly less likely than becoming the owner of a $300 throw pillow. The point is, you can buy anything your heart desires in my neighbourhood - unless it's a box of nails.

The funny thing about gentrification is that it doesn't seem to happen in stages any more. Back in the day, a skeezy area would move up in the world by increments. First, the pothead musicians would move in, followed by intrepid young parents in search of "family homes." Real-estate values would inch up a couple of percentage points a year until one day a Starbucks sealed the deal. These days, it's an accelerated process resulting in an awkward cultural mélange.

In my 'hood, the doggy spa set up shop before the bike thieves had time to get out. Panhandlers root through recycling bins in front of million-dollar houses. Apart from the occasional stabbing, hipsters and the homeless co-exist in bliss. They call it a "mixed neighbourhood" and, indeed, it often mixes me up. Check out that guy in the park with the grey beard, trucker hat and cane walking along the path and rapping to himself. Is he a hobo or a haute bohemian?

It's all very whimsical and idyllic, except for one small problem: From the fancy Victorians to the hourly rate hotels, everybody's pictures are leaning against the wall.

Call me a middle-class bore, but a neighbourhood cannot subsist on scented candles and crack cocaine alone. Somewhere between the squeegee kids and the graphic designers there is a woman in her early 30s longing for a litre of milk, a bag of mulch, a broom, a bucket or - and I'm sorry to harp on this - a box of nails.

As I walked further and further down Queen West, I remembered a nice yet boring woman I met at a party. She and her family had recently sold their house in the city for a place in the suburbs. When I asked why, she looked at me smugly. "It's so much easier to get to Home Depot on the weekends," she said. "When you have kids, you'll see."

I don't have children and am more likely to end up a junkie with a expensive pillow collection than a suburban mall lover, but walking along a busy street, miles from my house, feet sore and sweaty, I was beginning to see her point.

Just as I was about to give up, a hardware store rose up in front of me like a mirage in the desert. I had left the gentrified area and crossed the boundary into skeezeville - a neighbourhood where people still, thank god, have a need for middle-class implements. I went into the store and asked a clerk if he could show me to the nails.

"Perhaps you'd like to upgrade to our premium picture hangers?" he inquired. I shrugged and relented. Resistance seemed futile. My needs might be middle-class, but my taste is aspirational.

lmclaren@globeandmail.com