This month Ben and I celebrated six months of home ownership the only way that made the most sense to us: dinner at Pattaya. It’s our favorite Thai restaurant in Clearwater. We talked and laughed about the ideas for this post to sum up what we’ve learned so far from owning a house. Homeowners (old and new) can you relate to these?
Moving in, unpacking, settling in, and establishing new routines took A LOT of time. Our place definitely didn’t feel like “home” for a while. I struggled with it immensely sometimes wondering if we even made the right decision buying this house. It didn’t help that Ben and I were traveling so much for the first half of the year. When we finally took a few months to settle in and establish new routines – my overall mental state felt WAY improved. As the months went on, the house started feeling more like ours. I’d pickup things here and there from Target for cute touches in different rooms. I think we just needed some time to start making the house feel like a home. Our home.
Some house issues were not as major as we thought they were. Ben fixed our sink garbage disposal in under five minutes thanks to a YouTube video he found. He also fixed our AC this summer thanks to my grandpa’s advice. Holla for a handy hubs!
Having our own washer, dryer, and garage is AMAZING. Ben and I came from a community laundry situation at our condo (it was HASHTAG AWFUL). Having our own machines to do laundry in has been a freaking blessing. No more worrying about having quarters to run the machines. No more waiting on others to take their laundry loads out. It makes me wonder how we ever survived doing laundry community-style. A garage has been an appreciated part of homeownership for two reasons: extra storage, and when it rains you don’t have to bolt for your car worrying about your hair, shoes or makeup. You just get in your car, pull out of your garage, and you’re off on your merry little and (most importantly) dry way.
Hosting your friends and family for a party is the best feeling ever. Definitely outweighs the feeling of having to cleanup after.
We’re still wondering how the heck our grass grows so fast and requires almost weekly mowing. Seriously. Ben and I are still trying to figure out if our grass is taking biotin supplements behind our back.
We didn’t paint before moving in, and we still haven’t six months later. Oops. One thing I wish we did was paint before moving in, but our circumstances were a little whacky. Currently, we have different shades of paint in random spots on our bedroom walls. We heard doing that would help us decide on the right color and might motivate us to get painting done sooner rather than later. I’m still waiting on the “sooner” rather than “later” part to happen.
Decorating is fun, but it’s hard to know where to start. With multiple rooms and more space to decorate, my Pinterest boards are overflowing with ideas. The hard part is knowing where to start. Do you pick one room? If so, which? Ben and I initially thought our bedroom made sense to start with, but from the above lesson you can see how that’s going. Do you just buy one item you love for any room then base the rest of the decor around that item?
There always seems to be something in the house to change, fix, or do. I’ve said this to multiple homeowners, and apparently it’s just the truth of owning your own house. You’ll always want to change, update, fix, rethink, or reorganize something.
It’s nice to have neighbors. Especially ones that don’t live above us or share a wall with us. Our new neighbors have been enjoyable. Ben and I will talk to some of them when we walk Nash around the neighborhood. A month into living at our house one of our neighbors actually let us know that one of our sprinkler heads was leaking. It’s nice to know you have someone to look out for your house as you would for theirs.