Repairs, Upkeep, and Unpleasant Surprises

OK, so we have been living in the house for almost 2 years now and I never knew the amount of work that would need to be done throughout such a short period of time. I say short because everything was brand new when we moved in so I am thinking we should not have any problems for at least five years, maybe longer if we were lucky. I was wrong!

Did you know that when you buy a house where everything is brand new, all of the light bulbs go out around the same time. I was not expecting that. Nor was I expecting that the light fixture in the shower was caulked together because the threads that are supposed to hold it together were not fitting properly. I used a caulking gun for the first time, and ruined a pair of jeans at the same time.

We also have well water which no one told us needed to be set up before we began to use the water. Our pump was running every time we used water in the house and it messed up the pressure in the bathtub. We thought we were going to have to cut a hole in the wall to fix the bathtub issue but luckily we had a friend who knew a thing or two and got that fixed. Speaking of the well, the watter in the pump froze this winter leaving us with no water for a day. That was interesting, my poor husband was out in the snow wrapping insulated material around the well to make sure that did not happen again. We had it wrapped in old blankets and then built a cute little house around it last summer but that apparently was not enough.

Another thing we learned is that our thermostat requires batteries???? Who knew?? An for those of you who have recently purchased a newly built house, I know you feel my pain when the smoke detectors go off. There is a building code now that requires a smoke detector to be placed in every room in the house and they are all linked to each other. That means when one goes off, they all go off. There would be no need to call the fire department at my house, they can probably hear the smoke detectors going off from the fire station.

Just a few days ago, our heating unit decided that it wanted to freeze up and start kicking on the emergency heat because it would not defrost. Thank goodness for warranties because it covered everything but the labor, yet again, my father came to the rescue and knew someone licensed to work on those units so he cut us a huge deal.

So now the two main concerns that we have at the moment are getting the washer and dryer to fit into the smallest laundry room in the world and trying to take my huge desk apart so I can fit it into what is supposed to be my office. No luck on either of those yet. I guess we will have to wait until next year to buy a stacking washer and dryer set to fit into the laundry room because this year we are buying our very first riding lawn mower. I figure I will have to sell the desk and just buy a smaller one. Oh well.

So if any of you know of some great ideas on where to look for cheap but good riding lawn mowers I am all ears! By the way some of my flowers are starting to come back now that the weather has warmed up. My azalea bushes are getting their leaves back and my daffodils are growing like crazy. The hyacinths are starting to get buds on them as well. We shall see if the rest of them decide to grow this year or not.