About 2 and a half years ago I bought my house. Home ownership is great and home ownership sucks. Remember when you rented and when something went wrong, the solution was to call your landlord, they would take care of the problem. There is none of that when you own a house. When you rent, you can't paint your walls, when you own you can paint them whatever color you want. When you rent you pay monthly and don't worry. When you own you pay your mortgage but you worry about whether your property values are increasing or decreasing and taxes and resale.
Another funny thing happens when you own your house, your furniture from your apartment just looks silly. Its almost an immediate thing and your are not sure why that futon that worked really well in your rented apartment just doesn't look quite right in your new living room. Maybe its because you now live in a place that is yours? Maybe it is because you control the color of your walls and what you do to your floors and where everything goes?
So, when you buy a house you slowly start to replace all of your "dorm" furniture. It's a normal part of growing up but it has to be done slowly and it requires planning and shopping and disappointment. In the past two and a half years I have a new couch in my living room, I love my couch and it was the first real piece of furniture I bought. I also have a really cool coffee table. I have a great headboard and cool desk. Another unexpectedly expensive item were custom wood blinds for all of my windows. My mom is great at helping pick out great things. Now, after shopping around I am in the process of getting a new kitchen table and chairs.
Today was all about the house. I cleaned up a little bit in the morning and toyed with the idea of moving my existing kitchen table and chairs down to the basement to prep for the new furniture but decided to wait until I had the new items in place. The plan was to meet my sister at the store at noon and pick up the four chairs and table I wanted and put them in our two cars and drive them to my house. Easy right? Well, not so easy! I got to the store a little bit before my sister and that was still not at noon. I walked in, found my set and went to the counter to ask a few questions. Since it was a new item I really didn't anticipate any problems but I should have known better. The store only had 2 chairs and the table in stock and the first person who helped me told me that they would not be able to order it. I asked if they could check at some other stores and they found another store but they also just had the floor models. I would have taken the floor models from store one and two floor model chairs from store two except for the fact that I was under the impression that the table would be in two pieces. Again, no such luck. So, even though it is a small table it won't quite fit in a civic. After some discussion my sister was able to talk to an associate who explained to us that the reason they were unable to order it was because this branch was closing but any other store could order it and I could pick it up there. This also provided me with the ability to find a friend and borrow a truck!
We placed the order for my stuff and by next weekend I should have my new kitchen set. That makes me happy.
After I returned from the store, much later then expected I was thrilled to see that the open house for the newly renovated condos was still going on. These condos are about the same size as mine and they are on the same street so it was really important to check them out and see how they were redone and what they were selling for. When you own a house it is really important to track the other properties in your neighborhood. So I spent about 45 minutes touring the units and talking to the realtor about square feet and condo fees and closet space and taxes and all of those fun questions my father asks me about when I tell him I went to an open house in the neighborhood.
But after all this, I felt like I wanted to go back to renting and futons, I was tired and really just wanted to go to sleep. Being a semi-responsible adult can be draining.
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