Items First-Time Homebuyers Should Have

It’s awesome that you are buying your first home!  We’ve put together a list of items first-time homebuyers should have once they are moving into their new home. While you’re focused on big furniture and unpacking, odds are that you may not know about some smaller household essentials you will be needing in the near future!

Kitchen

You’re finally standing in the kitchen of your dreams. You whip up a batch of cookies or cook your first real meal. The timer dings, you head to the oven to pull out the yummy treats, but when you reach for the oven mitt-there isn’t one. No dish towels, either. Stock your kitchen drawers with a few oven mitts and dish towels.

Garage

Unexpected repairs are both unfortunate and likely in your new house. Lots of things are easy fixes: tightening a pipe, adding a screw or filling a crack. Invest in a tool box and fill it with essentials like nails, screws, a screwdriver and hammer, nails and a measuring tape. Life will be easier if you don’t have to ask around for a spare nail after things fall off the wall. If you are a tool person, with a huge toolbox in the garage or workshop, put together a smaller version and keep that inside the home!

Bathroom

Life happens-and sometimes you need a toilet plunger. Plumbing situations can pan out one of two ways: just fine (if there’s a plunger readily available) or hideously ugly (when there’s no plunger to be found.) No need for more details on this one.

Living Room

After hours and hours of research and multiple trips to furniture stores, your new coffee table and side tables have arrived. Now you get to have people over to show off your new place. You’re so excited to host people until you see it, something that you never imagined would bother you as much as it does: a cold, perspiring drink creating a water ring on your brand-new coffee table. The horror. Do yourself a favor and invest in a set of nice coasters to scatter around your living room.

Bedroom

Unpacking boxes of clothes into your new closet is a very satisfying experience until you run out of hangers. Add an extra pack of hangers to your closet to keep everything organized as you build up your wardrobe. Clothes without somewhere to call home end up flooding out of drawers, draping off the end of the bed or lying all over the floor. Nothing spoils that new-home-cleanliness high like a hanger deficit. Another tip here, is when buying new clothes, ask the store if you can have the hangers!

Entertainment Room

You made an adult decision and turned that spare space into an entertainment room (at least until you have more kids.) You decide to reward yourself with a relaxing binge-watching session; who cares if it’s the middle of the day? Remote in hand, blankets on deck, popcorn in lap, you turn on your TV just to realize that you can’t see a thing thanks to the mid-afternoon sun glare on the screen. Take your TV watching experience to the next level by investing in shades or black out curtains for your entertainment areas. No longer will you be inconvenienced by the sun’s schedule. Oh, and don’t forget batteries for all those remotes!

Office

In the increasingly paperless world, it’s easy to forget how annoying it is when you need something stapled and there isn’t a stapler to be found. Folding the corners of work reports or school papers makes them look much less polished. So, you’re off to scramble to the nearest office or school supply store, adding to your stress. What’s the answer? Keep a stapler and a backup box of staples in your office to make life easier.

Let me know if you can add other items to this list!

We’re here to help when you are ready to start the search for a home in Gainesville!