30 House Things to Care About
30 House Things to Care About
Random things I care about when becoming a home owner
(Originally posted Sept 22, 2020)
Random Observation/Comment #678: Me asking neighbors: “How do you do this? I’ve never had a garage, car, deck, lawn, fence, roof, basement, garbage can, security system, doorbell… Help me.”
Why this list?
I love being a homeowner, but it’s a lot of overhead. It was so much easier just renting and complaining to the super at the apartment when things were broken. I can see why Home Improvement stocks are rising – We’re all stuck at home looking for things to fix. Home ownership adds a layer of pride and expression, I never knew I’d enjoy.
Renovations – A house is a continuous project and there’s always new things to buy, photos to hang up, and things to fix. Hopefully we take our time prioritizing. New weekend fun.
Landscaping (maintenance) – Watering plants and cutting the lawn. Honestly, I’m happy to spend money and replace my small backyard lawn with AstroTurf. Also happy to support any kids on the block or handy friends I can pay with cooking for parties.
Caring for auto sprinklers – You have to blow them out during the winter and set them based on weather. Why do I need to care so much about the weather?
Sealing the fence – I’d do this myself, but I honestly would have no idea what details to care about and it’d probably take me a whole day.
Gardening – Planting or composting – This is more of an added feature than bug. I’m not super into gardening.
Pipes freezing in the winter – Especially by the copper piece connecting the external hose. I do not want to get a leak in the basement.
Sealing basement and garage cement – Threw money at this from the new house build. Sealing it prevents further cracking by the lines.
Humidity control – Colorado is super dry so we installed an attachment to the heater for the winter. We also bought at least 4 different types of humidifiers for all our rooms.
Large appliance maintenance – A/C, heater, boiler, HVAC, etc – All these I imagine are really annoying to change, but they have a good 5-year warranty.
Painting the house – We painted it within the first month and I personally feel it added some of the most value.
Changing air filters for the house – Didn’t know I needed to do this monthly (especially with the Colorado fires).
Sealing the spot under the seat in the shower to prevent water damage – This was good advice from the house builder. A lot of checking on sealing since water damage is the worst. We wound up having a hole in our kitchen ceiling for a year.
Plumbing issues – I haven’t even scratched the surface of this, but I’m sure this is a large thing to worry about when it comes up.
Shoveling snow / salting walkways – Luckily, I’m usually up at 6AM. I’ll probably dislike this heavily in the winter when it’s still dark out. I should also get a headlamp. Maybe a flamethrower.
Baking soda for funky smells – Totally underrated. Garbage cans smell so bad. I do miss just throwing things down a trash chute.
Hanging heavy things – Apartments don’t really have much flexibility here, so we’ve still put everything up with the sticky hangers. Besides pointing at myself, I cannot find any studs.
Bills for everything – Water, Gas, Solar, Electric, WiFi, Mortgage, Insurance, HOA. Especially working from home, I feel like we need to take time for adjusting our A/C and heater patterns in order to optimize energy efficiency. Maybe we’ll keep the window open.
Door-to-door salesmen – I didn’t even know these were still a thing. It would be cool to have someone drop off fresh milk.
Insects / ants – Hopefully I won’t have any infestations. Another thing to make sure we don’t get ants. We did have a mud dauber scare where a wasp was flying into a hole in our garage. Sealed it up.
Neighbors – I don’t think I knew anyone on my apartment floor. We’d have moments of saying “hi” if we had a similar commute schedule and met up in the elevator. Emphasis on getting good porch furniture and take walks often.
Out of reach areas – Never owned a ladder. Making friends with people who own ladders. I think I’ll avoid hanging things up high.
Deck furniture – We recently bought a hammock and it’s great. Especially with social distancing, we can take advantage of hosting with outdoor spaces.
Security Setup – We have a Ring that hooks up to a video and surveillance system, which is really well integrated.
Smart home upgrades – I thought connecting lights and TVs to Echo was pretty good, but who knew you could hook up your oven, range, garage door, A/C system, and coffee machine. Too many smart things make me feel dumb.
Window privacy filters – Especially for the second floor where we may be facing a neighbor directly, we prefer to add a privacy filter to the window to keep the natural light for working.
Pantry room – Didn’t have room in the city to store extra things, so I really love this extra space for having miscellaneous pantry items.
Window cleaning – Another reason we’d likely need to borrow a ladder. This is a service we’ve paid for every year during spring cleaning.
Grilling – Need a good place to be able to grill and maybe smoke some meats. Then I need to figure out how to work with gas tanks.
Lawn signs / Flags – These do represent some level of identity for you to your neighbors.
House Decorations – We’re totally going to do something for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Probably going to add some more holidays like Chinese New Year, Easter, Oktoberfest, Cinco de Mayo, etc.
~See Lemons Love the House