Last year my wife and I bought a new home. The 600sqft cottage just wasn’t cutting it with our little one starting to run around.
The blow up mattress stuffed between the TV and the living room couch for when family visited wasn’t ideal either. And if they weren’t down with that, I always felt bad if they decided to stay in a hotel.
We’d been saving for ages and it was time to take the plunge. It was by far the biggest purchase either of us had made in our lives, and it was also the most important.
We struck a good deal with an owner while their house was not on the market in an awesome school district and safe neighborhood. It was a winner. Deciding to not go with a fixer-upper, we were excited to transition into our warm, new home that was move-in ready!
Within a couple weeks we had some really heavy rainfall. There was literally water dripping (like, not a slow drip!) into the bedroom – seeping in from the wall and pooling on the floor…the nice hardwood floors we fell in love with…
As an excited and safety conscious new homeowner I had to carry out a full check of the house while it was raining. It was one of those things where I dreaded doing it because I felt like there might be something else…but of course had to. Turns out there was another leak on the patio that sits above the garage so water was coming into the garage.
After getting someone out and doing some trial-and-error, we identified the problems and repaired the leaks.
Then during one of the coldest weeks of the year, our furnace broke which resulted in all four of us (wife, kid, dog and me) sleeping in one bed while the temperature inside our home dropped to 56F. Aside from sleeping in a quinzee (Canadian version of an igloo), this was one of the coldest nights!
Then the dishwasher stopped working…
Then my car broke down in the middle of an intersection in Torrance. It was getting to that point where it had some decent mileage and was just starting to experience ‘those problems’…just bad timing and another unfortunate event to throw in with all the house stuff.
Then one day water started leaking down into the kitchen from the upstairs bathroom. As soon as I heard the water dripping I’m pretty sure I said “Are you kidding me??!”…There may have been some expletives thrown in there.
A few weeks later, the washing machine decided to quit on us. It was a refurbished washer from 2013 so I guess it was time.
I legitimately had to sit down and ask what was next. I couldn’t believe it. We had spent a huge portion of our cash reserves on the down payment for this house, and now every couple weeks we were having something break.
I remember adding up all the costs in my head thinking HOW? How could all this be happening in such a short timeframe. How are we getting so unlucky?
Of course nobody was out to get us. It just is what it is and I had to shift my perspective.
Although the house was in great shape, over this timespan we simply fixed and improved all these things that were not in good working order. After all, this was our new home, and a home we both loved and will probably be in for a loooong time. So let’s do these upgrades/fixes well and actually make it a good investment in the process.
We managed to improve the efficiency of our home by working on everything that went wrong. It became safer, cleaner, and more efficient – saving us money in the long run. It was just getting beyond the upfront cost and understanding the changes made were a good decision (rather then band-aiding everything).
It was one of those things where we were sick and tired of paying for all these things after JUST buying the house, but asking ourselves “What is the other option?”.
Understanding that fixing things and making them better / more efficient was the right thing to do. This had us feeling safer and more comfortable in our home, while improving resale value down the road.