Congratulations! You must be feeling amazing now that you bought a new home. You’re probably imagining how each room in your house will look like, and you’re excited to go on a shopping spree for furniture, fixtures, and other decors.
As monumental as this stage of your life will be, moving into a new home and turning it into your own has a huge learning curve. After you’ve been handed the keys, you’ll have so many things to learn and so many decisions to make. Before you set anything in stone and regret it for later, it’s good to know about the most common mistakes new homeowners commit so that you can avoid them.
1. Poor room planning – You may already have something in mind and you’re ready to purchase new furniture for your space. However, eye-balling the room will not do the job.
If you’re planning to fill in a space and start buying stuff for your new home, you have to take the tape measure out and start taking down notes. Failing to measure dimensions could lead you to cram too much stuff into your room and underutilize the space. Make sure that you plan and take measurements before you go and make purchases.
2. Purchasing all new furnishings – Speaking of making purchases, one mistake that most new homeowners make is buying new stuff all at once. This may raise eyebrows since shopping for all new furnishings sounds reasonable; but if you do this out on a whim and without proper planning, you might end up having regrets.
What experts suggest is to try to live in your new home (as long as you all have the basics) for a couple of months before you start investing in new furnishings and fixtures. This will help you get a feel of what you really want so that you won’t have any remorse afterward. This tip also makes sense, especially if you’re budget is already tight. Waiting for a bit can ensure that you’re making a wise purchase.
3. Making large renovations right away – Just like making huge purchases, it’s better to give yourself time to live in your new home before you take on any major renovations. See how everything feels first before you decide on making huge changes.
4. Choosing the wrong lighting – Lighting can make a world of difference in any space. Poor lighting could put to waste all your effort in designing the room. On the contrary, properly placed lighting can bring the interior design of the room to life. It can highlight impressive areas in the room, create the right atmosphere and make the room more inviting.
5. Buying the wrong size of HVAC unit – Purchasing an HVAC system for your newly purchased home is another huge investment, so you want to make sure that you’re getting your money’s worth. Cooling or heating units are specific to the square footage of the space that they’re supposed to cool or keep warm. Purchasing an AC that’s too big for what you need can cost you to pay more for the actual unit and the expense of running it. On the other hand, an HVAC unit that’s too small won’t be effective in cooling or heating your home.
If you want to purchase the right one for your new abode, you can ask a professional HVAC company to perform a load calculation to ensure you’re buying the right unit.
6. Tackling a project fit for a professional – One of the biggest and probably the costliest mistakes that new homeowners make is taking on projects instead of hiring a professional to do the job.
Especially if you purchased a fixer-upper and you have limited skills to turn the home into a liveable space, it might be a better idea if you hire experts to help you with the tasks. Not only will this ensure that everything is done professionally, but it’s also more cost-effective as you’re assured that the job is done correctly.
Electrical works, roof repair, home window replacements, plumbing, refinishing floors are some projects that are best to be entrusted to the pros. So next time you’re having issues with your electric system, be sure to call an electrician near you.
7. Failing to ask around – While it’s a good idea to ask for referrals when hiring contractors, it’s also best to talk to at least three service pros to ask for estimations. No matter the size of your project, getting bids from multiple contractors can ensure that you’re getting the best value from a high-quality contractor.
8. Investing in low-quality stuff – When it comes to purchasing materials for your home project or buying furniture and fixtures, choosing poor-quality materials just because they’re affordable is a bad idea. Cheap items have quicker wear and tear, this means you’ll be spending frequently for repairs or replacements so you’ll probably spend more down the road compared to investing in good materials or furniture.
This is the same as cutting corners on home improvements on maintenance. Many homeowners would think that the DIY route could save them more money. However, oftentimes hiring a pro to help you with remodeling or with repairs is a more practical idea. For example, when you hire a professional plumber to fix the water system in your newly bought home, you can save money by preventing costly repairs in the future.
9. Neglecting maintenance – Now that you are the official owner of the property, this means you’ll be fully responsible for any issues that may occur along the way. You can no longer call a landlord when your HVAC is malfunctioning or when your roof is leaking — you have to take care of that yourself.
You have a lot of little things you want to check on in your new home to keep in tip-top shape. Some maintenance tasks that you should remember are cleaning your HVAC filters and having your unit serviced at least once a year, caulking windows, clearing your gutters, etc. Failing to do these things leads to huge, expensive problems.
You can check out this fall home maintenance checklist that we created to help keep your home in its prime condition.
10. Not setting a budget – Whether you purchased a newly built home or moved into an existing house, at some point you will encounter some inevitable issues with your it that will require replacement or repairs. In any case, having an emergency fund will make things more bearable in these kinds of situations.
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