5 Random Things I Learned After Moving Into My New Home

Homeownership, to some, is defined as the American dream.  The pinnacle of success, marked by a small, large, grand, or nowadays, tiny, pieces of property. It’s what most people strive for, their name on the deed.

I have to say, my husband and I worked hard for our piece of the pie. A literal reenactment of The Jefferson’s theme song. We moved on up! But it wasn’t to a deluxe apartment in the sky. It’s a custom built 6,000 square foot home, for which we gave our blood sweat and tears. If you’ve been hanging around the blog, you know the story but if you missed it, you can find our home building story here.

We moved on up!

Since moving in, there are so many things that I’ve learned not only about home ownership but living in a home of this size.  These are not complaints because I am beyond grateful to have these first world problems, however, this serves as more of a “heads up” to those who may be looking to purchase or have recently moved into, a home, especially one of a similar size.

Let’s delve in shall we:

Turn em’ Off! (Light a Candle)

It seems like no matter what I do, my electric bill is super high, or so I thought. After speaking with a few neighbors, it’s on par with the size of the house but after living in apartments for so many years, the cost was pretty foreign to me.  We’ve noticed somewhat of a difference,  with our efforts to conserve energy by turning off lights when we leave the room and setting outdoor lights to motion detection only in lieu of having them on all night.

Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls

Watch your water usage! Especially if you water the lawn or have an irrigation system. We won’t talk about that one time at band camp, when two New Yorkers who have never really used a hose let alone an irrigation system, didn’t realize that their grass was being watered all times of the day and night. Literally every 2 hours for days. I already suspected it would be bad when I got a call from the water company and the lady on the other end asked, “do you know how much water you’ve been using?” Aye yi yi. Our first water bill was higher than some peoples car payment. We have since become very familiar with our irrigation and water usage and are now back to an appropriately priced water bill.

Can I Get a Window Seat?

Or window washer for that matter. WINDOWS! The gift and the curse, more so a curse when there are over 30 of them and 5 glass doors to boot. A source of light but when dirty or touched by little hands, a source of doom and gloom. I try to clean one room of interior windows once a week and I promise you, it’s about as intense of an arm workout that you can get. However, it’s been almost impossible to clean the exterior windows, thanks to the height. They say you should have your windows cleaned, especially the outside twice a year. I’ll be calling someone very soon to once again, let the sunshine in.

That Grass Ain’t Greener on the Other Side

OMG, grass and all that’s associated with it. Lawn care and maintenance, pine straw, mulch, planting, crabgrass. I came up with a landscape plan with my landscaper and when he told me the price for the proposed rocks that we were adding, I was dumbfounded. Apparently, the old adage dumb as rocks, is really a thing, especially because I thought all rocks were created equal. Not quite. Rocks incorporated into your landscaping should be polished to avoid them dulling over time. Shiny, polished rocks aren’t cheap, much like landscaping and nice lawns.

You’re Buggin’ What, You’re Buggin’ Who?

I don’t like bugs, I know you probably don’t either but I can’t sleep well at night with the thought that a bug roams free in my domain. I can’t tell you the amount of funny looking bugs I’ve come across in my home, the yard and garage.  That one time the funny looking gecko went slithering across my garage, I was convinced it was time to meet my maker. However, there would be nothing to prepare me for the swarm of what I thought were ladybugs, which the exterminator referred to as Asian beetles, that swarmed my home last fall. See nobody told me that these bugs swarm in search of a warm place for hibernation in the winter.  What somebody also failed to tell me is that they like light colored houses warmed in sunlight and guess who has a big beige building that likes to soak up the sun? Mmmmhmm. There were literally hundreds of these bugs around the house looking for a way in. Unfortunately, there were quite a few that made it in but by the time we would discover them. They’d already be dead but needless to say, an infestation of anything, dead or alive, makes my skin crawl.

There are so many things that you will discover as a new homeowner. Hopefully your mistakes and lack of knowledge won’t be too costly.  The important thing is to learn from your mistakes and relish the moments. I can’t tell you how hilarious it is to tell the story of our first water bill.

Did you catch all of my song lyrics in the post? Yeah I had that kind of time today.

What things have you learned about living in your new home?