question for new home-owners

buying a new house puts a financial "strain" on most, if not all of us.

i was wondering how are you all prioritizing your changes/repairs to your new homes.

work from the inside out?
from the outside in?

i, for one, DO NOT have ANY money to dedicate to the outside of my home right now. we still need some basic pieces of furniture before i can put down sod/grass seed.

just curious

Re: question for new home-owners

we are doing one thing at a time. Like we need a new dishwasher & new closet doors, but whats more important, the dishwasher so we are waiting to get closet doors. We did most inside stuff first

Re: question for new home-owners

We have the house for about 3 years now.

Unless this is an "emergency" repair, we made a list of projects that needed to be done and prioritize them then we budget (tax return, etc..).

ALL our projects are projectst that would add value to the house without having to overprice it if we had to sell it.

For example, we just did our fence before redoing the carpet in the house. Why? We got 2 puppies last year and the old fence had holes everywhere. They had to be leached to go out in the yard. So, we prioritized to what needed to be done. Then we realized we had some major trees on the fence line that would have eventually messed up the fence later on. So we budgeted the fence and trees for this year. But that's it for this year.

The other projects will have to wait for next year.

As badly as we want everything right away, we have to be rational and not put ourself in debts just because we are impatient.

Re: question for new home-owners

our house is a fixer- we started with the essetials to live

bathroom, bedrooms.

WE gutted the bathroom and redid that, we painted and carpeted the bedrooms, laid wood florrin the living room. The the windows we just did cause they were horrible shape and draftly and the siding because there was extensive termit damage to the outside shingles..


next big project is the kitchen which we hope to start sometime over the summer. We figure its going to cost alot so we have to live with a really bad kitchen until we can get the funds together...
The will do the deck and the backyard and fence

Last on list is basement refinish..
We have so much to do, litlle by little it will get done. Its very overwhelming...

Message edited 4/13/2007 10:33:42 AM.

Re: question for new home-owners

we go from the inside out. luckily, my family was EXTREMELY generous with housewarming gifts and paid for most of what we needed...and we needed a lot (washer/dryer, couch, etc.)

My family is the best!

Re: question for new home-owners

We started from the inside out. From there, we focused on the things that we needed to do to make it livable. Then we focused on the most cost effective way to do it.

So far, we've updated the electricity, painted, and refinished floors. We are in the process of fixing up the kitchen, we need a new fridge and dishwasher and instead of replacing cabinets right now, we are just sanding them, painting them, replacing their handles, and replacing their shelves to give it a new look.

Re: question for new home-owners

The entire outside (siding, roof, windows) was all updated in the past two years. The other stuff, painting, refininshing floors, upgrading electric is something we are doing right away. The big stuff like kitchen and basement we will do as we have the funds to do it. I have an ongoing list of "wants" i.e. changing the stair banister to wood that we will do over time. Fortunately for us, the house did not need anything really major that would prohibit us form moving in.

Message edited 4/13/2007 11:07:03 AM.

Re: question for new home-owners

we take it one thing at a time, each month at a time. Sometimes things come up that can't be overlooked, so those are taken care of first and we have to put our wants afterwards.

Plus whenever anyone in our family asks us if we could use something for the house - we just say a gift card to Home Depot/Lowes. That helps us a great deal, esp when you buy small things.

My mother warned me that the first year would be the hardest and after that everything would start to work itself out.

Re: question for new home-owners

When we move in next month, DH is pretty much going to demo everything.....to make it a more open floor plan. He wants to relocate a couple of things; like the bathroom for example.

So a new bathroom will be completely new as well as our kitchen. The electric will have to be updated as well.

We decided to wait until next year to do anything to the outside/exterior including the landscaping and re-facing of the house. All our money will be gone for us to do anything else. And some renovations need to be done on the lower level of our house, but that certainly can wait till next year also.

Message edited 4/13/2007 11:23:31 AM.

Re: question for new home-owners

we did the inside-out too.

We put new floors downstairs, repained, moved some walls to make it more open.

next year we are going to work on the outside. need to fatten up the bank account first!

Re: question for new home-owners

I've lived in my house for almost 3 years. My house is in good shape in terms of nothing had to be done urgently but it does need updating. Everything works but needed to be updated. The kitchen needed to be updated slightly everything except the cabinets - we worked on slowly replacing appliances and finally we are getting granite countertops. All the bathrooms needed to be redone too - we updated the half bath when we first moved in and now we are working on the guest bath and next the master bath. Also we've done a lot of work on our backyard, we live on over a half acre with a stream so in the summer we spend a lot of time outside. All this to say that it all takes time, I expect for everything to be done by the time we are here for 5 years and ready to sell.

Also if you have time before you move in try to redo the floors before you move in. I had two weeks overlap b/t my new place and old place so we redid the floors and painted as many rooms as we could.

Good luck with everything!

Re: question for new home-owners

we did inside out as well.... inside is almost done (for now ) and hopefully within the next year we will do siding/roof and more landscaping

Re: question for new home-owners

fortunately, our house was in pretty good shape and nothing really needed to be done. the previous owner did all the work!!!

We plan to get new gates leading to the backyard and we'll eventually dormer, but that's not for a few years.

Re: question for new home-owners

we just had our house built recently and we are really working on what needs to be done in order to function 1st- we have 2 kids so we have to make it liveable for them-the outside isnt a priority right now.

Re: question for new home-owners

we are in our house 2.5 months.

we have made a must do list in the first year..

this includes basically painting the entire house and re-doing all the landscaping on the outside.

we are lucky though cause we do all of hte work ourselves and have good friends who help us.

Re: question for new home-owners

We bought our house almost 2 years ago....Fortunately, we purchased a home that needed no work inside (not even paint, with the exception to the bedrooms). However, our boiler & hot water heater are original & will be replaced this summer.

We did need to do a lot of TLC on the outside of the house. So far, we have done it all ourselves with help from family & friends. Over the course of 2 years, we have not finished yet. Last year we put in the driveway & walks. Now we are working on the bushes & cleaning out the backyard. Over time, it will all get done but we are in no rush, it is a long term investment for us.

Re: question for new home-owners

....One thing at a time. We try to pace ourselves and do the "need" stuff first.

Good Luck and Congrats!

Re: question for new home-owners

We will be closing in a few weeks- we bought a real handymans special.
There are the things that must be done to make the house liveable- and that is in our budget to get done before we move in. And that's it for the year.
Including- reframing the living room floor (big dip from settling- gives you vertigo), painting, wallpaper removal, fixing the soffit, gutter drains, and getting rid of the squirrels. Tearing out the swingset, and replacing the fridge.
The bathroom will continue to be ugly until our tax return next year- we just have to suck that up.
We have no furniture- so that's in our budget too.
Next year- it's the bathroom, maybe a new stove and dishwasher; regrading the yard, new grass, etc.

Message edited 4/13/2007 2:08:14 PM.

Re: question for new home-owners

We needed a roof so we did that first. We, I felt needed window (i was cold) so we did that. Furniture -haha - not in the budget. We have what we have. It's unfortunately but....we have no money.

Re: question for new home-owners

We are jumping around just a bit. In the summer we work on teh outside and in the winter we work on the inside.
Needless to say 2yrs and nothing much has happened due to lack of $$. We replaced the roof b/c it needed it, dishwasher, refinshed floors, painted during the winter and then once it starts getting nicer out we work on the planting and lawns, hopefully replace the driveway this year. etc.

Re: question for new home-owners

we bought new construction so we don't really have to do anything on the outside (yet)...just did a bit of landscaping
The inside we've just being do a little at a time...since nothing had to be fixed..we just been customizing the home to make it more us....we are doing the first floor first..
we painted a few rooms and put recessed lighting in the dining room and kitchen (soon in the living room)...over the summer we are going to put down new floors...then we will prob stop until next year when we get our BIG return and do some other things.

Re: question for new home-owners

We are definitely working from the inside out. We are taking down some wallpaper and painting. We also need to replace some switchplates and little things like that. Maybe next year we will pull up the carpet in 2 of the bedrooms and refinish the hardwood floors. But we don't have the time or money to do that right now.

We did get a new fridge and couches but we paid for those a while ago since we had a while from contract to closing.

But we do want to get a BBQ and table and chairs since the nice weather is coming. We aren't doing any landscaping because the seller's told us there are a lot of flowers that come back each year so we are going to wait and see those.

Re: question for new home-owners

Message edited 4/15/2007 10:57:45 AM.

Re: question for new home-owners

we have been trying to do one inside and one outside project a year.

The year that we replaced our driveway, walkways and patio with pavers was the year that we didnt do a "big" project inside the house...since the pavers was a HUGE project both is size and cost!!