6 More Things I’ve Learned from My New House

Back in July, I blogged about 6 lessons I learned from my first month as a new homeowner. That was three months ago, so it’s high time to give you an update on my adventures. Now that I’ve been through one full season, here’s what I’ve learned…

1. Opening your house to other people rocks. In our little one-bedroom apartment, we didn’t have enough room to throw parties, so we’re completely inexperienced hosts. But now our linked living room and dining room fit 15 or 20 people. So far we’ve had two parties and played host to both our families, and let me tell you, even though we’re both introverts, it feels great! (Though we might not have hung our dining room chandelier so low if we’d anticipated moving the dining table off to the side during parties….)

6 Things I’ve Learned from my New House

It’s been almost four weeks since my significant other and I moved into our first house. We’ve had a steep learning curve. We were coming from a high-rise apartment building; the house is about 80 years old and mostly unrenovated, except for some basics like wiring.

So far, we’ve faced more logistics than we would’ve thought possible, which has been exhausting…but we’ve also fallen in love with our new neighbourhood (while not forgetting the old) and we’re still glad we moved.

Things I’ve learned so far:

1. Number your boxes. I numbered off the rooms in the new house, then numbered each box as I packed it: Room 1, Box 1, short description of contents. Boxes with higher numbers got packed later, so I knew the items in them were used more often and therefore they should be unpacked first. Bonus: the movers knew which room to put each box in. We’ve had almost no trouble finding anything. (We also haven’t unpacked everything — but that’s a post for another time.)

2. Be flexible. Our freestanding wardrobe wouldn’t fit up the stairs. It has now been repurposed as a pantry, supplementing our kitchen storage. I did have to mourn the loss of it in our bedroom, as well as come to terms with the way it dominated the kitchen, but I have to admit that it’s very useful in its new home.

A Love Letter to Our Future House

Somewhere in a big city sits an old house.

Its current occupant lives lightly, her world condensed into four rooms on the ground floor. The dining table is covered with a lace tablecloth and then plastic to protect it, the wood well hidden. In the enclosed front porch, tiny green shoots grow in long planters. A statue of Jesus overlooks the dim living room, where she watches television, alone.