The Little Things

When I first bought my house, I refinished the floors with my own bare hands, and then hired an enterprising 23-year-old kid to paint the walls (after discovering how terrible I was at wall-painting). This was done very piecemeal, over three or four months, in order to accommodate my tight budget after the home purchase. It took another several months to buy furniture, and even longer still to do these little touches.

With the bathroom vanity, I ordered a piece of granite online for around $350, and then hired a plumber to remove the old vanity top and replace it with the granite for another $600. The project cost around $1000. The bathroom tiles were much less expensive -- $125 to fix all the grouts. I didn't do much with the bathroom walls other than to change the paint color to black (from its original dark blue) in order to match the theme of the house.

I know a lot of people take out home renovation loans in order to fix up a new house, but that just didn't feel right for me personally. I hate debt, and the idea of owing money (especially with the uncertainty of the pandemic) kind of freaked me out. I work in healthcare, and the fact that even us healthcare workers were forced to take a steep pay-cut last year kind of chilled me. Thus, I just knew this was the way I would do things. It's not as satisfying as just having a beautiful home right away, but to me, the small things count.