First Time Homeownership
By buying my house in January of 2024, I started a relationship that would take lots (and lots) of work.
I knew this was a huge responsibility. I knew it would take work and commitment that I hadn’t experienced before. That being said, it also had (and has) issues - my house was built in 1913, so it needed some TLC. But I love it, and from the first tour I saw the potential to make it a home.
My hope is that sharing some of my successes, struggles, and experiences as a first time single homeowner helps someone else who’s nesting and getting overwhelmed.
Although my house is nowhere near where I’d like for it to be, it has come a long way in the last year. It’s 1,035 sq. feet, 2 beds, 1.5 baths, and has some lovely living spaces. One of my favorite details is the stained glass lining the large front window in the living room. It matches the rest of my street, which was developed by the same company in the early 1910’s.
I will say I had a bit of bad luck in the beginning…and when I say a bit, I mean a LOT.
On February 23rd, 2024, only three weeks after moving in, I couldn’t find my cat before work, but figured she was resting somewhere. She was old, and needed a shot for her diabetes twice per day. I got home from work, and she was still missing. We still don’t know what happened, but I found her dead in the basement in front of my laundry machines. It was traumatic to find her in the condition she was in. Again, we still don’t know what killed her, but that was within a month of moving in. Thankfully, I had friends nearby that came over within minutes to help me.
Lexi on the back landing, February 2024.
Another month or so later, on April 2, 2024, a drunk driver hit the front of my house in a pickup truck, totaling two of my neighbor’s cars in the process. Thankfully, my porch is solid concrete so it only suffered a few scrapes and a torn-up yard. I’m just happy my car wasn’t hit. Nobody was hurt. The driver was arrested that night, inebriated but unharmed. The insurance companies were easy to work with and resolved everything quickly.
Not to mention, as is a common theme these days, my house suffered from a lazy flip. There’s paint everywhere on the front of the house, layers upon layers of paint on doors and wall trim, hardware painted over, windows painted shut, and worst of all, a leak in the basement was concealed with a material called “Drylok” until the water caused damage that was $25,000 to fix. This was a devastating (to say the least) when it happened in August of 2024. But I knew the repair and construction would add to the value of the house, so I went forward with the project.
This brings me to a point I want to make about single homeownership. It’s easy to be taken advantage of. In retrospect, I was completely ripped off by the company who quoted me and performed the repairs. I was naive and scared. All I knew was that there was contaminated water leaking out of a hole in the wall in my basement like someone turned on a faucet. My cat was hospitalized with E.Coli and pancreatitis after drinking a tiny bit, so I knew it needed to be solved quickly. This was a huge indication that the water coming out of my walls contained sewage. Another indicator were the leech and maggot-like bugs coming out of the water. It shouldn’t have been so expensive no matter how nasty, but this was a life experience that taught me invaluable lessons about standing up for myself and trusting my gut. When it comes to home projects, take your time. Don’t let scare tactics like scarcity keep you from getting second opinions. Especially if, as was my case, the damage is already done. I had to take out a loan larger than my Master’s degree tuition, and I’ll be paying it off at a high interest rate for a long time.
Ernest home after two days in the hospital. Whether or not he would live was initially unknown due to the condition of his pancreas, dehydration, and internal bleeding.
Ask everyone you know and trust for advice - and listen to them. A lot more people have dealt with things like basement leaks and house damage than you realize. There’s nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about; houses age too, and sometimes they need a fix.
Sept. 2024
After getting all of my late dad’s things into my basement and organizing for months, I had one week to move everything back out of the basement in the August heat, alone. I laid a tarp out, hauled everything up the cellar steps, and covered them back up with another tarp once everything was outside. It was heartbreaking to undo all I had done, and I still haven’t reorganized everything over a year later. Anything left inside was covered in concrete dust, and/or wet and ruined.
The majority of my knowledge of house upkeep comes from watching my parents change lightbulbs, smoke detector batteries, and air filters growing up. These days, there is valuable information on social media like TikTok or YouTube on what should be done to your house on a regular basis to make sure it stays clean and in good shape. It took a while for me to forget I couldn’t just put in a maintenance request and wait for someone to come fix it for free. I have a sticky window, a leaky sink, and a drafty door that need some serious attention.
I won’t get into the nitty-gritty of the buying process. There’s a lot to it that even I still don’t fully understand. However, there are tons of articles online for first time buyers, and for first-time loan opportunities, and they’re much clearer than I could ever be.
Having been here for about a year, I am pleased with my progress and have much more realistic expectations as to the timeline of things. I used to believe I’d move in, unpack, and have everything how I’d like it in six to nine months (tops, if I’m lazy). That was just silly. It took me months to have all of my boxes unpacked, and even now I’m sure there are some shoved in a closet somewhere I’ve forgotten about. It will be at least another year or two before I have all of my projects done, likely longer, and new projects and fixes will pop up along the way. The wonderful thing about owning a home is that there is no rush. There is no lease running out. You can take your time and invest in materials that will last, and make sure everything is how you’d like it. It can be overwhelming with all of the possibilities, but it is so freeing.
One thing that has been unexpectedly helpful is having dedicated shelf in my basement (off the ground, in waterproof containers course) which houses all of my infrequent home repair and upkeep supplies. This is not household batteries, tools, or lightbulbs. This is primarily air filters, smoke detector batteries, Ring camera chargers, harsh outdoor cleaners, paints, spackle, or anything I may need quarterly, maybe monthly. These are things that could be easy to store elsewhere (I.e., alongside seasonal decor, outdoor storage, etc.). It’s nice to have them all in one spot so that when I go to do one thing, I’m reminded to do them all.
When it comes to an all-or-nothing mindset, lose it. As someone who would do things perfectly or not do them at all, this is not conducive to a functioning household. It’s okay if you can’t do the entire project, or the entire chore, in one go. You are allowed to do one load of laundry if you can’t do them all. You can wash your sheets and not your comforter. You can organize for thirty minutes, no matter how much or little that may be. You can set aside a weekend to do a project, but if you have to set it down for the workweek before completion, life will go on. Take breaks, be realistic, and choose quality over quantity. I went through so many projects thinking “when this room is cleaned, I’ll get it finished” or “if I get a new dresser, I’ll need to rearrange the room, but if I’m rearranging, I’ll want to go ahead and paint..” and the next thing I know, I’ve turned buying a dresser into a full-scale renovation.
In that same vein - unpacking does not equal permanence. Just because you unloaded all of your dishes into random cabinets does not mean that they have to stay put. Just get everything out of boxes - then you can plan and organize. You don’t know how much space those boxes are taking up until they’re gone. Make it functional first - you can make it pretty later.
Okay, pause. Thus far in this blog post, everything was written and drafted in March of 2025. It’s now late September. I’ve had a job change, traveled, my dog died, and it feels like all of the things have happened. BUT, reading this back, I realized I’ve fixed my sink AND my drafty door! That may not seem like much, but it’s easy to slip into a mental rut thinking that you haven’t accomplished anything. Re-caulking the sink actually wasn’t that bad, and the draft (obviously not a permanent solution) was fixed with a few hardware-store products.
Red passed away in March of 2025 after almost fourteen lovely years with us. He was the best boy ever. 6-6-2011 to 3-27-2025.
I’m not an expert on owning a home, nor am I even proficient. I’ll be learning for as long as I can imagine, and probably then some. Give yourself some grace in the process. Everything takes a long time by itself, but if you throw in work, friends, pets, and family, medical and mental issues, or anything else, it all becomes overwhelming very fast. There is no race, and the only competition is your expectations. I wish you the best of luck on your homeownership journey!