The Woes of Single-Family Home Ownership

Owning a single-family home is a money pit. We knew this and we still wanted a home. Millions of Americans are single-family homeowners...why I ask! why!!??? Okay, I'm being dramatic but its hard to maintain. Mowing lawns, shoveling, cleaning, maintenance, maintenance, maintenance - more money out of our pockets. We didn't buy this home in bad shape, we just want to make it our own. First thing when we moved in, my biggest fear...bugs, ants, and spiders...I'm aware this happens in homes - we've slowly got them to go away, we still see them once in awhile but with preventative maintenance, its gotten better. I won't talk about it too much otherwise I get really uncomfortable...we won't go there.

So far we've taken down the front hall closet and replaced the wood floors with nice tiles in the front foyer. I plan on placing a tree storage bench there...I found it on Pinterest. We replaced all the blinds in our home, the blinds are nice but we have some issues with them, we went to Budget Blinds, its not budget necessarily because they are cheap, they are custom, they call themselves Budget Blinds because supposedly they can fit any budget... how clever. Anyway, our rep sucks and my patience is running out because something already malfunctioned and needs to be replaced. She sucks...I cannot stress it enough...SHE SUCKS. Okay rant over. Next incident, we came home one night after dinner with a friend to find out our garage suddenly decided not to open. No shit. Why won't you open? We have the baby in the car and its 11:30pm. Had to call a locksmith...$150 to open a storm door, of course we had it locked since we always went into the house through the garage door. Boo. Just this week alone, we had a tree on the side of our house removed, one big tree in the front yard trimmed, a bush removed, and mulch and small grass and shrubs removed from the front and backyard. It looks better now. Now we plan on placing stones, lights, brick, and boulders in its place. We also had our garage drywalled and now its ready to paint and prepare it for storage.

We accept the challenge. Owning this home will be our project. Hopefully we don't F**K it up! Otherwise I'll be showing you photos of our new townhome or large condo, just kidding. You pay an assessment and like magic...all that outside work is done for you, so maybe I'm not kidding. Anyway, we figure millions of other Americans do it, so we should be just as capable. There is some uncertainty is that last statement. :)