The First Year in My Home

Next week marks the one year anniversary of the closing on my home - and what a year its been, mostly positive. So far I've worked on a few smaller projects inside the house, mainly painting and minor cosmetic stuff. However, I will be tackling my biggest project so far when I'll be building a deck off the back of the house next week. It'll be ten by 16 feet which should be just right in my view. The entryway from the house is off the back of the garage and the deck will be on the north side of the house, so it won't get the full effects of the sun. All in all, it should be an interesting process in building a deck as I've never done so before. Thankfully my dad will be along to help so I won't totally be going into the process blind.

I have so many other projects at the top of my list that it gets to be a bit overwhelming trying to decide which ones to do next. This spring, I began to re-install the rain gutters that were removed by the previous owners (still never figured out why they took them down), but I am missing some parts. So I need to go to one of the hardware stores and pick up some rain gutter parts. There's lots of landscaping work I'd like to have done, but that is going to be an ongoing process. I'm sure I mentioned it before, but the property where I live is pretty much sandy soil. It looks like the previous owners have tried improving the lawn through the years by putting down topsoil, but it's not a very thick layer. I would like to buy a truckload of topsoil and re-plant the lawn. But pretty much the entire lawn needs to be done so as I mentioned, it will take time.

I have encountered a few troubles here and there since I moved into this house nearly a year ago, but they've mainly only been minor issues. The windows in this house were described as being "new," but I think they are cheap windows. During the winter, I had one window blow out, meaning the outer window pane shattered for no particular reason. There's a screen on the outside and it wasn't cut, so nobody attempted to break-in and no birds crashed into the window. I just think the window had a bad seal and with the cold air that particular day, it shattered. I've been trying to track down who made the windows but have not been able to find any kind of serial number to track down that information. One of the windows in the living room also fogs up quite frequently which means the gas inside the two window panes has escaped. So that one also needs to be fixed. Ah, the issues in buying a home I tell ya.

The appliances have also been a bit of trouble - mainly the fridge and the washing machine. The washer was only a little over a year old when I moved in, but I began to have trouble with the machine stopping halfway through the washing cycle. Well, it turns out the timer failed and so I had to track down a part for that. It wasn't a cheap part either, $140 to get the washer working properly again. I am happy to say, though, I haven't had issues with it since. Let's hope it stays that way! And then there's the refrigerator. Every three to four months, the freezer gets too warm and all my frozen goods start getting soggy. So I've been having to manually thaw out the freezer with a hair dryer to get rid of the ice build up and then it works fine again. It sounds like the fridge has a couple of issues, one a temperature sensor and the other I'm not sure about. But my uncle who's very good at fixing electronics and such, is supposed to come over one day and fix the fridge so that I don't have to keep thawing it out every three to four months. I'll be glad when it's fixed once and for all!

So needless to say, home ownership isn't totally easy, and I expected that coming in. But I have no regrets in buying this home - in fact, I think it all worked out exactly as planned. Even when I curiously look at homes currently on the market, I still haven't been able to find a place as good as the one that I have. And despite a few bumps in the road here and there, the first year living in my home has been overwhelmingly positive. Here's to several great years to come!