First of all, let me start by saying this house isn't new. Peter quite possibly had the best week of his life in May of 2017 (our wedding lasted a day, so it doesn't count). He celebrated his birthday, he visited Prague and Berlin, he got engaged to the most beautiful woman in the world (his words, not mine!), AND he bought this house, which is where we currently reside. That picture was taken during the summer of 2017 when I got to see it in person for the first time. This house has been a huge blessing. It was very reasonably priced, it's located in a very convenient part of Shelton (though our neighborhood is super hilly with tight, winding roads, so it took me a week to figure out how to leave it and how to get back without using Waze haha), and it makes for a great starter home. We've been able to bless others with it as well. There ARE several renovations we'd like to make (it's a little old-fashioned on the inside), but that hasn't stopped the house (which I've dubbed Winterfell hehe) from being incredibly good to us. I've learned, though, that there are many ups and downs to being a homeowner.
Things have been a little quiet for me for the past two weeks. I had students traveling one last time before the start of the new school year, and I have students settling into their new fall schedules, so I had more free time than usual. I decided to spend some of that time working around the house. First, I realized I haven't done much in terms of decorating. I love watching shows on HGTV and was thrilled by the prospect of decorating my own home someday, but now that I have said home, I really haven't done all that much yet. I spent a lot of time over the past year setting up my office space and organizing our things in the basement (which includes finally getting rid of all of these empty cardboard boxes we no longer needed), and while both spaces look MUCH better now (especially my office!), I've sort of neglected the rest of the house lol. There are very few decorations around and even fewer pictures (I have frames and I have prints, but I never decided where to put them, which means I never ended up putting them anywhere lol). I recently decided to change that! Last week, I picked up a new buffet with a hutch (Facebook Marketplace for the win! Also, it was so scary not being able to see out of my rear-view mirror while driving it home...yikes!) to go into our dining room - I'm hoping to hang our wine glasses from the bottom shelf of the hutch and use the buffet to store some of our bigger kitchen appliances, as well as some pots and pans that don't fit in my kitchen cupboards. I still have to get someone to help Peter bring the buffet upstairs (it's a whee bit heavy for me), but at least we have it now lol. It'll definitely get the ball rolling for giving our home the rustic farmhouse vibe I'm looking for. ; ) I also FINALLY bought a wreath to hang on our front door all year round (don't ask me how much time I spent looking at wreaths on Etsy...that is one dangerous website for a girl like me...). I purchased some fall themed decorations too. I always loved how my mom changed things like the hand towels in the kitchen and bathroom and the decorations in the living room window to match the season or to reflect different holidays, and I really want to do that myself. I bought some fall hand towels and fall pillow covers for the pillows on the couch, and I have a pumpkin centerpiece I plan to use that my mother-in-law painted. I should really hit up Walmart or the Dollar Store to see what else I can find. This IS my favorite time of year, after all!
I've also done some cleaning recently, and that's really what made me realize how difficult it can be to live a normal life while being a homeowner. I need to start turning myself into a cleaning lady once a week since I know I can't afford to pay for one to come on a weekly basis. We had a small maggot problem earlier this week (gross, I know), and I would've figured out sooner that they were coming from a bag of brown rice I've been keeping on the kitchen counter if I had been cleaning the counter on a regular basis. Yeah, that was my bad. I've been good about vacuuming and cleaning the toilets and washing the dishes and doing the laundry, but other things I don't usually touch unless they get super dirty (like the microwave or the stove top, for instance...). I don't know how other people do it, but I think I need to just start setting aside a morning when I'm not tutoring to have Alexa blast some music while I spend a few hours cleaning. I now understand how cleaning takes up a good chunk of my Moroccan student's free time... Any advice on how you do your house cleaning would be much appreciated!
There are other things that Peter and I have to concern ourselves with, such as making sure we have the gutters cleaned out (Peter did it once, but I was a terrible spotter because watching him made me really nervous) and trimming back tree limbs so we don't get squirrels in our attic again. We also need to make sure we get our snowblower fixed before winter comes. I've learned, though, that being a homeowner isn't as hard as one might think, especially when you know others who are homeowners as well! The people around us (family, friends, and neighbors alike) have made the transition fairly easy. It's definitely a big responsibility, but hey, that's what adulting is all about, right? I'll post pictures once all of my fall decor (and other decor, for that matter) is up (and when the buffet and hutch are properly situated as well hehe).
Comments