This month, N and I will have owned our home for half a year! It feels like it’s flown by…
The process of buying our first house was a huge learning curve, but it didn’t stop there. Living in a place where you can’t just call on your mum or your landlord when something goes wrong has meant we have had to learn some things the hard way…
1. You have to man up about spiders, and I don’t like it.
So far, I have dealt okay with some sizes of spiders that I would never have gone near before (although this could in part be thanks to my spidey-sucker-machine…). However, there was one incident that occurred with a certain mammoth arachnid; the likes of which can only be compared to horror movies and Australian YouTube videos.
N’s mum might have had to get involved. I will say no more.
2. The social nuances of being ‘good neighbours’ are exhausting.
Exactly how much interaction is appropriate? I have no idea. And I still find it hideously awkward that we only met the lady who lives in the house backing on to ours two weeks ago. I think that probably makes me a terrible neighbour.
3. Building work & decoration is EXPENSIVE!
B&Q had a sale on laminate wood-effect flooring, so we bought some for our living room. Swiftly realising that we had no clue how to install it, we decided to get some estimates to see how much it would cost for a professional to do it instead, thinking that it would only take a couple of hours, and thus would probably cost like £60 for a local tradesman. WRONG. So, so wrong.
And don’t even ask me how much one guy quoted us for scraping the moss off our roof.
4. Curtains are the least trivial thing ever.
“But every house has curtains, so it can’t be that hard, surely?”
First off, do you realise how expensive curtains are?? If you want anything that’s going to actually block out any light you’re looking at least £40 for a pair, and that’s as cheap as I could find!
Secondly, measuring, cutting and putting up both the curtain poles and said curtains will screw your brain up. You will make costly errors.
5. You will wonder what the Hell your parents even taught you when you were growing up!
The moment when you realise you have never changed a light bulb or hung a picture up is a sad moment indeed. Dear parents: what the f**k?! I mean, thanks for doing it for me and all, but I kind of needed to know these things!
(NB: My mum taught me how to bake, sew, knit and do various other crafts, while my dad taught me a lot about computers and a bit too much about science. I am truly grateful for those!)
6. Plants and photos/artwork are necessary if you want your house to look like a home.
For months I kept looking around the house and thinking that something was missing. We had all our furniture and decorations etc. but I couldn’t work out what wasn’t right. After a trip to Trago Mills I brought back a mini bamboo plant and plonked it in the living room, and it made it so much better! Since then I’ve put at least one plant in every room and have started hanging pictures, and it feels so much more homely.
7. You will develop a love/hate relationship with flat-pack furniture.
It is so beautiful and inexpensive, yet such a b*tch to assemble. N is pretty good at it but my knack for following instructions piqued at Belville Lego.
8. Your to-do list will never end.
Home maintenance sucks. It starts out fun, but when the novelty of touching up paint and tightening door handles and fixing hinges wears off, it becomes a constant headache. I notice at least one thing each day that needs to be added to my to-do list. Just yesterday I found that the chrome handle on our new bathroom cabinet is rusting, and it’s only 2 months old!
Please share your home-owner stories and lessons learned!
We moved into a brand new build a couple of years ago and from the get go we had problems! Leaking roof, no heating, rusting door handles… the list goes on. So I can’t imagine how bad it would be in a relatively old building!
And the plus side is that you and N have managed to buy a house together! I don’t think M and I will ever be able to afford to buy somewhere! xx
Liv | http://www.maidenincornwall.co.uk
Ahh yikes that does sound bad!! :( That’s not good for a new build. Our house is over 150 years old, so I understand that I have to put up with some stuff, and considering its age it really isn’t that bad as the old owners did it up in the last 3 years. I’m not moaning, promise :P
And you’d be surprised how affordable it is; especially with the Help to Buy schemes. But some people would rather spend that money on travelling or doing cool things like that. I wouldn’t encourage anyone to rush into it; enjoy not having a mortgage! :) And just be thankful we don’t live in London or something…you get so much more for your money in Cornwall AND you get to be by the sea haha. Did you watch that Million Pound Properties program on Channel 4 the other day? It was insane to see some of the crap places in London for that amount of money.x
http://thecornishlife.co.uk
Yeah, seems like the builders didn’t put any effort it being an affordable house so everything just went wrong. Mostly ok now though thank god!
I’ve not gone travelling or even on a long holiday so will definitely be doing that first before a house! But I do eventually want a house so hopefully the Help to Buy scheme wil actually help me to buy haha! That’s very true although the houses round our way do tend to be quite expensive compared to other parts of Cornwall unfortunately. I’m literally just watching it now and it’s insane! £950k for a one be doom basement flat just because it’s near harrods?! who can justify that?! Xx
It’s insane isn’t it! I just don’t get it …
And yeah fair enough! We are on like one of the cheapest street in Cornwall, but it means we get lots for our money! :) x
S’ok I brought my house ten months ago and only had three interactions with one of my neighbours (i’ve actually talked to their dogs more because they always like to watch me when i’m gardening), the other I’ve never met. They never go outside,even the kids. DIY tasks are never just simple straight forward things I find.
Haha oh dear! xD
DIY sucks – I wish I was really handy but I’m so practically challenged it’s embarrassing x
I always get so excited to own my own house one day, but never really think about how much work it actually is! I’m sure the positives outweigh the negatives, though, right? :) Those spiders will get ya!
Brooke | brookewrote
Haha I know – I’m fine now that the weather is warm and there’s less spiders but not looking forward to autumn again!
And yeah the fact that we have an asset and are paying towards owning more and more of it each month rather than paying rent to someone else is worth it! x
Haha this made me smile so much as I can relate to literally every single point on this list! Adam and I moved into our first flat nearly 6 months ago too and we’ve experienced every single one of these problems! Especially the curtain thing and the expense of decorating (whenever I used to decorate at my parents home everything we ever needed was there already so starting out on our own was like starting from the very bottom!). I love having our own place to do with what we want to though, and its fun making the DIY mistakes together and having to teach ourselves how to fix them! Xxx
Haha so glad you can relate to it!! And yes that’s another point – tools and gardening equipment is so expensive to start from scratch! Luckily we are able to borrow a lot from family who live close by but dunno how we’d cope otherwise x3 x
We have lived in our house for 2.5 years and tbh we’re still discovering new things about being homeowners. The main thing I have learnt is that it takes time to gets things exactly as you want them, but the ride is a lot of fun.
Great point! It definitely does take time. I’m a little bit of a perfectionist, but I honestly think that I’ll never have things exactly how I want them haha, I’m just always on to the next thing! x
Curtains are ridiculously expensive and annoying to shop for! They’re so necessary for privacy, but its impossible to find anything good for a reasonable price half the time! And plants are a definite must, if you can keep from killing them lol
Good luck with your new home! You’ll survive with the help of pinterest ;)
xo, simplydavelyn.com
I know! The measurements were such a pain :( Totally necessary though I agree – and blinds are just as difficult haha
Thank you very much! Pinterest just makes me poor…haha x
Hear hear with the whole curtains thing! How on earth can a couple of bits of material be *that* expensive? Probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned with owning a home is that it’ll never feel like it’s ‘finished’ – there always seems to a list of jobs as long as your arm to do! :-) xx
Exactly! The list goes on and on…
Glad you agree about the curtains thing :) x