Wednesday, September 18, 2013

An Overwhelmed First Time Homeowner

It's been so long since I last wrote here.  I don't know what to say except that buying and moving into our first home was way more overwhelming than I ever imagined.

It's not that it's overwhelming in a bad way - it was just overwhelming in so many ways.

There are so many things we want to do... on top of all the things that absolutely had to be done.  I spent the first few weeks here walking around the house with a bottle of bleach in one hand and a roll of paper towels under my arm.  The guy who owned the home before us worked on cars (we hope) and his hands must have always been dirty.  We noticed that every switch plate and door and wall had black hand prints all over them.  I'm not a neat freak or anything, but it's just different when it's your dirt.

We finally got the house into a condition where we felt more comfortable.  After that, the unpacked boxes we still had were really beginning to bug me.  The boxes in the Office were filled with books and we didn't have a place to put all the books yet, so in boxes they stayed.

The problem was budgetary.  We had really depleted our savings to buy the house, plus we set aside an additional $10,000 to convert the house from oil heat to gas heat, since it's so much more cost and energy efficient.  We knew the gas conversion would pay for itself over the next decade or so, but spending an additional $10,000 after you've just bought a house is scary.

We set aside some additional money for furniture/decorating, but not much.  It was at this point that I started to feel overwhelmed.  I had always dreamed of buying a home and decorating it and making it look and feel exactly how we wanted it to.  But I'm not very skilled in it and I find myself second-guessing almost every purchase I'm about to make.  I didn't even want to look at furniture online anymore, because I knew we couldn't afford any of it right away.  We've only bought a few pieces of furniture since moving in and the majority of them were from Craigslist (I'll share those in a bit).  But all of this on top of not having any confidence in what I was doing (decorating-wise) really started to make me second-guess blogging.  I wanted it to be fun, but I was feeling so intimidated and clueless.  So, I just stopped for a while.

Recently, I stopped looking around the house and focusing on the things that have yet to be done and started really focusing on the things that we've already done.  These days, I'm feeling grateful and much less overwhelmed, as I'm enjoying being in our home so much more.

As soon as I started to feel better, I started to think about the blog again.  I still want to have fun and continue to interact with the other Home Decor bloggers and hopefully learn a lot.  So, I'll keep updating the blog as long as I have something to write about.  We're decorating at a snail's pace, but we'll be here for a really long time, so what's the rush anyway?

The room that I'd say is "most done" right now, is the living room.  Probably because this is where we spend most of our time.  We still have to paint this room (that lovely yellow/green came with the house) and I'm not exactly sure what color to go with yet.  I've got a brown and blue-gray thing going on, but I can't say it was entirely intentional.  We brought the brown sofas and coffee table with us from our apartment and really, that's all that came with us - everything else is new.  I fell in love with the gray carpet (and its price) and everything else just sort of came along for the ride.  I think I need a "pop" of color somewhere, but I'm not really sure yet which one I want to use.  Orange? Yellow? Purple? Pink?!




The sofas and coffee table are from Raymour and Flanigan (outlet), the rug is from Overstock.com, the pillows and lamps are from Homegoods, the mirror next to the entry is from TJ Maxx, the round end tables are from Joss & Main and the curtains are from Wayfair.

In total, I spent just under $500 on new items for this room (purchases outside of what we brought with us).  Good thing the budget was set for $500, HA! 

I have a bathroom update to share soon, as well as a few really great Craigslist finds that I can't wait to share.  

Happy Living! :)

4 comments :

  1. I hear ya on the overwhelming thing. Our house is still a mess because we are either A. working outside or B. not home. We still have SO many boxes laying around. I'm hoping to tackle that all this week.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's crazy, right?! And I feel like with the Holidays approaching it's putting even more pressure on! I just started painting the basement, because I have a feeling that when we have people over int he winter, that's where the majority of hanging out will be done. I don't mind the projects, but it's just getting it to a point where it doesn't feel like you can't ever have people over yet that makes me feel less like it's home.

      Delete
  2. It is easy to feel overwhelmed, but you need to look at take it one project at a time. Once you have been in your house a year, you will be amazed at how much progress you made! Now if only I could follow my own good advice!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know you're right. Even when I look back at pictures from the day we moved it, I know we've made lots of progress. It just seemed like before we bought the house we had so much free time and now it's the opposite!

      Delete