I have lived in my little home for ONE YEAR!!!!! I can’t believe it. It feels like I’ve been here for a decade. This little house and I have been through some adventures. For anyone who wants to buy a home, I have some secrets to disclose…that aren’t really secrets, just stuff no one talks about terribly often. There are a few things I wish I’d known before I got into this happy mess, so here is a slightly “to be continued” exhaustive list of the lessons I learned over the past year and am still learning every day:
• After you make an offer on a house, you will go through a financial colonoscopy. Every deposit, large expenditure, and library fine you forgot to pay will be questioned, even if your credit is excellent. I cannot imagine what this process is like for people with bad credit.
• Closing is not scary if your team rocks. My realtor treated me like a person as opposed to a commission check and was so efficient and on top of things. My lender took time to explain every detail of my loan and answer all my questions when I was freaking out. And when I closed they were both there, along with the title guy who also was great at explaining any questionable pages in the stack of papers I had to sign. If you are unmarried, be prepared to see ugly words that rub it in your face on the documents. Assemble a good team, shop around to find the right people.
• When you close on the house you need to have the locks changed pronto since who knows how many keys are floating around out there. The guy who changes your locks might be named George and his wife might have left him and he might want to talk about that for a while.
• Every project, every single project, will cost more, be harder, and take longer than you are expecting. For impatient people like me who want to get things done, this sucks. Get used to it.
• It is best to take one project at a time, as opposed to tearing up multiple rooms in your haste to fix all that needs to be done. Unfinished messes make one come unhinged.
• You will know the people at Home Depot. The people at Home Depot will know you. You will eventually stop trying to find what you are looking for and desperately ask the first orange-apron-clad employee to point you in the right direction.
• Tools are not made for women. I need to rant about this for a minute. I’m a handy girl who enjoys refinishing furniture and fixing small things around the house. I own a little power sander and some basic tools and can get business done if I need to. The tools that I’ve had to purchase or borrow from Rob to do some of the tasks in this house have made me realize that living in a man’s world apparently also means you have to deal with using a man’s tools. I have no qualms in admitting that I’m not as strong as a man, but it would be nice to have tools that are quality and lightweight at the same time. I don’t want pink tools or tools with flowers all over them, I want Dewalt tools that are smaller and lighter. I want a gas powered weedeater that doesn’t weigh 20 pounds and have to be pulled 87 times in order to start. I want an 18 volt drill that doesn’t weigh 10 pounds and make my arm want to fall off whilst hanging curtains. Why, why on earth, hasn’t someone come up with a line of high end tools for handy women?!?!?
• I have also learned that many of the people (men) who work at Home Depot or Lowes are chauvenists. One night Rob and I were looking at trim and I wasn’t finding the exact molding we were looking for. An employee looked at Rob and said, “She can’t make up her mind, can she?” like all women who come in that store just stand around with vacant stares. I snappily replied, “I know exactly what I want, you just don’t have it.” Not two days later I went back to buy extra spray paint for the patio set I was redoing and the male cashier said, “Oh you’re buying spray paint, what’d you mess up?” To which I also snappily replied, “I didn’t mess anything up, I just need a few more cans.” Several times, I have asked a question of a Home Depot employee only to watch him turn and look at Rob as he answered my question. It’s very frustrating to feel “genderized” when your gender has nothing to do with the amount of capability you have when it comes to fixing things. The Home Depot store by my house has a very capable female store manager, so maybe it’s just a case of the company failing to address this issue when training its male employees, but it sure is annoying
• Plastic Jungle is an awesome website that sells gift cards at discounted prices. This is great for home repair projects because Home Depot cards come with a 7% discount.
• You might inherit the neighborhood skunk and lots of police might show up at your house one day with large firearms to kill said rabid skunk.
• If your boyfriend is a skilled craftsman who can do every single handy thing you need done around the house, and he has offered to do all these things for you out of the kindness of his heart, it will put a strain on your relationship. He will say he loves you and is doing these things because he loves you, and he will mean every single word, but it will burn him out if he does it for months straight.
• I love my cats. If you talk about your kids, I will talk about my cats. But as much as I love them, there is no convenient place in a small house for a litter box. None.
• Neighbors will come to say hi because they are curious to see if you’re a psycho. They might bring you zucchini bread. They might sit a spell on the porch and chat about the weather. They might tell you they knew the former owners and ask if you’re from “around here.” Inevitably, they will always show up when you look like crap, are sweating from every pore in your body, and have just mown the lawn in flip flops thus having green feet.
• Mowing the lawn in flip flops is not wise. Thus the green feet.
• You will travel less for the first couple of years. This one has hit me hard. I didn’t want to buy a house if it meant I would have to travel less, but with all the projects and adjusting to higher monthly payments on everything, sticking closer to home is a reality for a little while. Plus, when you do travel, you keep thinking of everything there is still to do at home. It will not be like this forever, but watching friends jet off to Europe is ripping my heart out.
• You really need two bathrooms. There have been a couple of instances where it would have been helpful to have another toilet/shower. This is on the list! I have a 6’x7′ room that will become a second bathroom. Due to the current list of “things that must be done” which grows longer by the day, I have no idea when this will occur. I can tell you this, no man will move into this house unless that second bathroom happens.
• Having friends come visit really brings joy and makes the place feel like home. My guest room is being used, I can’t believe it!
• You will need a hobby that is not house related to keep you sane and interesting. I am learning Italian. I love the people in my class. The few hours I get to spend with them each week have been a welcome relief from muscle aches and mosquito infested yard work. They were my first dinner guests at the house, and I could not think of a better way to christen the dining room than by sharing an Italian meal while chatting loudly about weird grammar rules.
• Stainless steel is really hard to clean without making it look like a streaky mess. No, children don’t live here, I was just trying to clean the fridge.
• Glass-top stoves are NOT low maintenance. Although they look like they’d be so easy to clean, let me tell you, there is a science to getting that glass to look spotless after making spaghetti sauce or splashing olive oil from a saute all over the surface. After much experimenting and many frustrating nights of trying to get the damn stovetop clean, I have discovered the secret. Clorox wipes with baking soda added sparingly to the wipe as needed, then vigorous scrubbing, followed immediately with a microfiber cleaning cloth to prevent streaks. I honestly don’t know if it’s worth the effort.
• Paint has magical powers. The tan neutrals in this house made my skin crawl, but with some expert advice from a friend on color palettes, I have discovered that paint makes a room smile. I love being surrounded by colors that cause a sigh of relief. Even whites can sparkle in the right shade.
• Built in bookshelves make everything better. They are amazing! Even if you don’t read, they add tons of storage space and look so awesome that your friends will freak out when they see them.
• Getting a home warranty when you move into a new home is totally worth it. My friend, Marcy, sang the praises of her home warranty and convinced me to get one. I’m so glad she did. My HVAC unit started leaking gas in the middle of the winter and I lost heat. The repair would have been $1500 without the warranty. Then, it broke again and needed to be entirely replaced, which would have cost $6000. The warranty doesn’t cover every cost, like disposal and certain specific parts, but I saved about $5000 with it. I could have been so screwed, so thank goodness for the home warranty!
• Yard work is totally crazy awesome exercise! Whether it be cutting bamboo, pruning overgrown shrubs, gardening, weeding, or mowing a freaking giant lawn while your neighbors’ snotty landscapers zip and glide all over their postage stamp lawns while you sweat like a pig in 97 degree heat as your mower stalls for the 10th time, bogged down by insane amounts of grass…I digress. Personally, I love getting my hands dirty and watching things grow, so this half acre is a bit of a dream come true for me. It’s a ton of work, and getting it back in shape after 2 years of neglect took some patience, but I am thrilled to see every flower that blooms and love working in the yard knowing I can pig out on cake and not feel guilty about it later.
• Storms will come. They may huff and puff and occasionally blow parts of your house off. This is cool though because you moved into a house with a 12 year old roof, so VOILA (!) new roof!!!! Things to know when a storm hits. Call a reputable roofer in your area and have them come out to your house before calling insurance. Call insurance and place a claim. Then have the roofer meet your adjuster when they come to the house. The roofer will make a case for you because the business is good for them too. I used Superior Roofing in Franklin and had an absolutely wonderful experience with them. They were so professional and went above and beyond to make sure I was informed and educated about the entire process. I am so relieved the storm came when it did because I feel much more secure with a new roof over my head.
• You can go to your local fire department and they will have stickers you can put in your windows to let them know you have pets (or kids). This is really a brilliant thing because if a crisis happens and your brain is ten sheets to the wind in freaked-outness, someone will know your babies need to be rescued.
• Money eventually runs out. It’s very important to budget and save and have an emergency fund. There will be a million projects you want to do, need to do, but it’s so terribly important to have a cushion of savings if something breaks or your roof flies off or something. As much as I hate my kitchen and am so sick and tired of hand washing dishes for lack of a dishwasher, I know it will eventually happen. It’s ok to not have a major project going on at all times. Things are still getting done, if not inside, then outside. This spring I put in a nice sized vegetable garden and that has become it’s own life-sized project to consume my resources.
If you buy a house, you will learn so much your brain might explode. It’s weird how people just don’t talk about these things sometimes, but I’ve annoyed my friends constantly by asking them lame questions about shingles, budgeting, plumbing, tile selection, and paint colors. I know some really weird things that I will probably never need to know again just because I bought this house, but I think it’s good to be informed, to know that you can rely on yourself if you need to. I still have so much to learn and in spite of all the work, I feel lucky indeed to have stumbled into this little homestead.
