New Homeowner

Hellooo

SERIOUSLY
Buying a house is some gahddamn work. Let me tell you!

I am going to show you some photos to describe our early experience with purchasing a home. For reference, our house falls between $50,000 to $160,000 and was built in the early 1960's... I don't want to give out too much info on here. It is a 3 bedroom 2 full bath, kitchen, living and dining space with an additional living space in the "basement".

WIN: Rumor has it that small modifications and repairs are $100 every time you do something for it. Well, before we even moved, I managed to pick up a few things to clean with which was roughly $100. I got all of these items at Target and they were all 5% and 10% off because of the target coupon app - Cartwheel. The light bulb was an impulse buy because it was on sale and it just so happened to come in handy within the first week when the light went out in the laundry room. I felt like I won so hard.

FAIL: A little blurry, I know. I am a professional photographer after all. But this mop I got at Meijer. It was the most expensive of its type - Casa Bella roughly $20. I thought it was hard win - lightweight, visually appealing, and functional. My intentions were to use it to wipe off the walls. Unfortunately, this was not exactly the right tool to use. The sponge was hard to maneuver and water dripped down the walls. Old rags and a bucket of water and vinegar seemed to do the trick instead.

WIN: Don't forget one of these. Yes that is a toilet bowl brush. 

WIN: You're going to make a bunch of these. On paper, napkins and cardboard.

GROSS: If you are not buying a new house, you may have a lot of this. Dust. (And wall paneling!)

And this:

...from your kitchen cabinets. Eww. 

But you might opt to do this in addition to cleaning:

WIN: Contact paper. It comes in a variety of patterns. White shows everything and contact paper is thin, so I wouldn't recommend it for anyone unless they are brand new cabinets. Our existing cabinets had contact paper in them with cougars and zebras... possibly from the 70s as we concluded that the current cabinets in our kitchen are not original. I was able to find contact paper at Ace Hardware ... the one location had contact paper, but the other location did not have any when I went to pick up more. The price of a roll was about $7-12. I have a million receipts and I don't feel like going through them right now. I covered 5 base cabinets and 3 upper cabinets with 4 rolls. I have two extra rolls. I saved the strips as I was cutting and used them to cover in the far back of the cabinets. It took me around 8 hours to do all of the cabinets and it is a total pain in the ass.

Overall, I would say that time and money become and extremely valuable thing when you become a homeowner. I would suggest anyone to save at least $5,000 - $10,000 for initial repairs, save all receipts.

We started with less than $1000.

The top ten things I would suggest a new homeowner to invest in (small things):

1. Bleach/vinegar (I used vinegar to clean mostly, because bleach is potent and I hate the smell)

2. Cut old shirts / pj pants for rags and wash them to save $$

3. Sponge/scrub mop & bucket

4. GLOVES. lots of these. (like 12 sets to start per person)
5. Cheap scrub sponges (like 8... $3/pack of 2) and a scrub brush to discard ($4)
6. Paper towel  - for those really nasty things you don't want to use rags on

7. Ladder/step stool

8. Flashlight

9. Scissors

10. NEW LOCKS FOR THE DOORS!

We are renovating our bathroom and I decided this will be a future topic of discussion.

- D