Our first week as home owners

So I’m typing this from the sofa in our new living room, which is currently the only furniture in here. Jared is stomping around upstairs attempting to paint the ceilings. Welcome to full blown adulthood for us!

Renting while at uni has not prepared us for this. While it did prepare me for some things, like handling utilities and taking meter readings and other very boring things, it didn’t teach me all the skills I am having to learn now. 

We’ve had to buy a new fridge and a new oven. These are things you get no choice over when you rent because they’re already provided. Who knew just how many different options there are to choose from. It’s mind-blowing. I’ve been making full use of Which? (thank you Dad for your account) and researching our choices carefully. We can’t afford the best or fanciest designs, but I don’t waste money on appliances that will only last a few years as that is just false economy. So we’ve bought the best ones we can afford and I’m a little in love with my new fridge. It’s actually a little crazy to me that we own a fridge. I’ve never owned anything like that before. 

Having the freedom to make these decisions is a little overwhelming. I really like the fridge and I could choose whichever one I wanted (budget allowing of course). But knowing that if I come to dislike it over time I can replace it if I want is a strange feeling. This is a different kind of freedom and independence that only comes with owning the house and all of the stuff inside it. 

So back to our new house. A few details first of all. It’s a two bedroom semi-detached house with two parking spaces and a front and back garden. Its cosy without being too cramped and size wise I’m hoping it will be the perfect starter home for us.

It’s in the same village as my parents’ house and I’m so happy to know that I don’t have to move away from the area that I’ve lived in all my life. I absolutely hated living in Southampton, which is nothing against Southampton itself. It’s a great city, I’m just a country girl at heart who isn’t cut out for urban life. I was dreading having to move further away from where I wanted to call home and I can’t believe we’ve managed to snag this house!

The house actually used to belong to my cousin who has bought a slightly bigger house for her young family, just around the corner. Because it was owned by a family member I knew the house was coming on the market before it was advertised, which ultimately resulted in us getting it. More on than in a later post though, because it is a long story!

Right now we’ve got most of our kitchen appliances in, with a lot of help from my Dad who has helped us plumb in the washing machine and dishwasher. We’re still waiting for our new oven to arrive and we don’t yet have any broadband despite me ordering it weeks in advance (thanks BT Openreach). 

As I mentioned in my previous post Jared and I have saved all the money for this house ourselves. Anyone who has ever been involved with a house purchase will know it’s not just the deposit money you have to think about. There’s the legal fees, the stamp duty, the mortgage fees, the surveys, the Homebuyers report… the list goes on and on. Saving all that money was really hard and as you can imagine pretty much all of our money has gone on the above. So we’re really grateful to our friends and family who have helped us out with old furniture and appliances as well as some lovely and useful moving in gifts. Not having to buy absolutely everything new has made all the difference to our squeezed finances.

As we’re lucky enough to be living round the corner from my parents’ home we’re making the most of the house being relatively empty and cracking on with some decorating. We’re trying to make our lives easier and resist the urge to move in straight away but it’s hard!

I am very grateful that I have spent 15 years of my life watching my parents build their house from scratch. I’m no good at DIY but I did pick up a little bit of knowledge along the way. The most important of which is that everything is harder than you would think when it comes to home improvement. Lessons that we are now learning for ourselves!

The house is in good condition and is only 10 years old so all the work we want to do is purely cosmetic. But it’s exciting to make the place feel like it’s ours and add our own taste to the interior. 

We have no idea what we’re doing as none of us have ever done any kind of decorating on this scale. But part of home owning as we’re rapidly figuring out is learning as you go along and trying your hand at new skills. We’ve already made some mistakes and learnt from them and I’m sure that this will become the new norm for us. 

So far we’ve mastered cleaning washing machine filters, filling in holes in the walls, and painting ceilings. I’m sure there’ll be a fair few more on this list before we are done. 

It might sound strange but I still don’t really feel like it’s actually OURS, even though we’ve spent a lot of time working on things already. I feel like we’re helping other people make it look nice, so they can live here. I don’t think the enormity of it has sunk in yet but I guess it will with time. It will probably help once we’re actually living here with all our familiar stuff around us. 

This was a bit of a rambly post, but my mind is kind of all over the place at the moment. Have you ever started your own home from scratch? Or is this something you’re working towards? I’d love to hear your stories!