Homeownership, 3 years in

Financially, home ownership has been mostly a win for us.  Despite our relatively large mortgage payments (compared to lower cost areas), it really is affordable for us, and we are even able to throw relatively large prepayments at it.  We can’t pay our house off in ~5 years or anything aspirational like that- but we don’t have trouble paying for a place to live.  Comparing to renting, it seems to be working in our favor in this relatively short time horizon.  We sometimes daydream about a  life where we cash out move somewhere significantly cheaper.  We could buy a good house in many places in the country, especially if we use the market price (minus selling costs).  Even if we use our appraised price (which is the purchase price + inflation), we are coming out well.  The prepayments will continue until we decide we have other priorities for the money – but I’m already happy with the reduction in the balance and reduced interest costs.

Owning a home is more of a hassle than renting, and I really am not the type of person who gets a lot of joy in “customizing” my home. Still, we’ve slowly make progress on home improvement and furnishing.

Projects in the last year:

We did a variety of somewhat major maintenance projects and tasks in the first two years. This year, we didn’t do anything major.

• DIY patio drainage fixing (still not done!).  Total cost < $1,000, mostly for fill rock, sand, and hauling away of bad clay dirt.
• More curtains / blinds: blackout cheap pulldown blinds to augment the more sheer bedroom curtains on hot days, light filtering blinds on two small living room windows.  I don’t have the cost in front of me, but likely < $400 or something.
• Modest DIY attempts to tame the landscaping. We could use professional help, but are doing what we can until we are ready for that. For example, we probably need to pull out some overgrown front hedges and start over. Yet, I’m not ready to invest the money to do that.  I’m also not ready to invest energy to decide what we want,  then find someone to do it for us.  The cost of this is just time.
• Pest inspection (for termites). They are a big problem here and it is best to monitor every several years to prevent issues.  This was $300, with only very minor DIY remediation needed.

I learned that we should not overestimate our DIY capabilities. T is really handy, but also really busy.  Undertaking a moderately sized patio project was probably not a good use of our limited free time.  By the time we realized this, we had put in too much “sunk work” to give up.  Also, T wasn’t really a good project manager, and I didn’t want to take over the project management.  The manual labor part was executed relatively well (although it was grueling and time consuming), but anything that requires more logistics (tool rental, hauling in rocks) would go weeks with no progress.  We tend to spend more time on our front deck, so the not-so-temporary loss of use of the patio hasn’t concerned me.   I’m pretty chill about the progress here… but it does need to get done.

Upcoming projects and maintenance tasks:

• Bathroom retiling,  planned for the next few months. The scope of the project is not yet defined.
• Repaint the exterior.  I’m not sure when this will happen and how much it will cost, but I think within the year.

New furnishings / appliances:

We save money by ignoring consumerist pressure to have an impeccably decorated home! The need for good/professional interior design could come into play if we start to feel like our house doesn’t meet our needs in terms of size. For now, there is no need. We accumulate things very slowly, both because we are picky AND because we are lazy shoppers. This it keeps overall home furnishing spending down.

• We purchased a large evaporative cooler fan.  It is fantastic on the hottest days of summer, but it is a beast.  I had never heard of such things in the midwest, but the climate/humidity levels here make them a low-energy alternative to air conditioning.
• We never did find that perfect kitchen table, but we found a good-enough inexpensive table from IKEA.  I’m happy to not have a bar height table anymore.  Someday we can search for a forever-table,

Things that are on my wish list:

• Curtains for the slider doors. We plan to just go the IKEA route here, but haven’t done it yet.
• I am dying to purchase a Roomba, but afraid of being disappointed.
• More/better rugs (same as last year, no progress).  The one in our living room is blah and we still need a hallway runner and a rug in the spare room.
• Entryway project (same as last year).  It is usable, but lots of room for improvement
• Shading for the deck (same as last year). Umbrella or other.
• Some sort of built in cabinet IKEA hack for our wine fridge.  Our old wine fridge died and we got a new/used one on Craigslist that is slightly wider.  Now there is not a good place for it.  This is mostly a pipe dream, but in theory it could be done.