We Had Our Forever Home, Now What?
As stated in an earlier post, my wife and I were extremely lucky when finding a new home. Certainly, we did not feel lucky as it was starting to look like no existing homes would become available. We had been outbid on a handful of homes, and a pattern was starting to form. As we had learned, there were so many disadvantages to building in this current environment. Materials were in short supply, and wood was at a premium. New housing and existing houses have gone up more than $30,000 in the last few months alone. The classic case of supply and demand was currently driving the market. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” came into play with our finding an existing house before it even came to market. We were able to avoid the guarantee of a bidding war. I can only imagine how the last few months would have played out if we did not have this “in.”
So what were the advantages we had with an existing home? We were able to stay within the same city, we were able to upsize our current living situation and check off all of our needs regarding the new home. We had a deck with the existing home. We would not be tasked with lining up a service to have one installed, which would have been the case with a new build. Finishing the basement would have been a concern with a new build. We have no such concern now as our house came complete with a fully finished basement. Certainly, the upgrades we needed to make were of very little concern now. We don’t worry about lining up contractors; no phone calls would be made to us advising us of delays due to shortages of supplies. Our anxiety was now behind us as we now occupied our home and could continue our lives.
Our main concern now was making our house our home. This would only involve professional cleaning of carpets and the many windows. My wife had plans of making a closet a mudroom directly coming in from the garage. Being the “Techie”, I am, I wanted to get all of my devices installed. The smart doorbell, the cameras, the alarm system, the smart lawn watering system, the smart locks, and the smart lighting would be on my list of things to install.
We had a list of projects for the garage. First, I would need to install an additional garage door opener for the single-car portion. It looked like the previous owners only used this as a storage area with little to no accessing to the overhead door. Both overhead doors would need some maintenance to ensure long-term usage. This would also have to be “smart.” The garage would then have to be organized with the addition of overhead racks. This would entail us reinforcing the studs in the garage attic. We would also have to transfer most of our hanging system from the old garage to the new one. This would allow us to hang all of our tools, ladders, and other essentials. High on our list was some sort of garage floor coating. In future installments, I will provide details on the garage upgrades and changes in future posts.
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For many years, we had paid a lawn service to cut our lawn. Before the pandemic, we were always on the go, and having the lawn taken care of by a service seemed like a must. Before moving into the new home, I had come to the decision to perform this service myself. This would entail having to buy all new lawn equipment. Given the increase in space, I would have plenty of room to bring in this new equipment. I look forward to sharing this experience in future posts as well.
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