Remember that beautiful fully-furnished house you viewed and fell in love with?
Well, congratulations, it’s your new home.
It sounds a bit empty, doesn’t it?
A bit echoey?
That’s because the feckers who sold the house took EVERYTHING!
The toilet is the only place to sit in the house, and you’re fortunate they even left that.
I remember when we moved in, maybe we were naive, but we didn’t expect it to be so bare.
So what do you do now?
How much is it going to cost to make the house habitable?
Eh, a lot, I’m afraid to say.
Let’s start with the big expenses.
You could go big here and blow the whole budget on cherry wood flooring.
Your friends will be mightily impressed by the floor, but they may not be so happy about sitting on it because you can’t afford furniture.
A more affordable option is laminate flooring (the bowld Des Kelly has a calculator)
You might not have noticed the state of the walls the first time around because they were covered with beautiful art and family portraits.
But now they are naked and waggling their uneven arse at you.
You’re gonna have to call the plasterer.
Good luck with that.
Hen’s teeth come to mind.
If you can get one, prepare to pay up.
Click
Johnny, why does the light switch in the kitchen not work?
Try it again, there Mary.
Click
And turn it off
Click
It works alright Mary, but it’s for the bedroom upstairs.
Ah, the joys of a house wired in the 80s.
How much to rewire a house in Ireland?
Unless you love magnolia in every room.
How much can you expect to pay to paint indoors?
Unless fitted, those nice wardrobes you saw are going with the vendor.
How much are built in wardrobes?
Got €7k knocking about to keep your milk cold?
Well, then you need a Liebherr 60/40 No Frostm Freestanding American Fridge Freezer in Stainless Steel, of course.
Other less expensive options are available.
You may also need:
The trick here is to buy only what you need because this sh1t can get out of hand.
You do not need to blow a grand on a Kitchen Aid Food Mixer regardless of how cool they look on Bake-Off or the great intentions you have of using one.
We bought an Aldi version just to see how much baking we would do. Hannah used it once, and we gave it away.
You may also need:
Again, let’s keep it simple, to begin with
Check out these Home Protection Tips (burglar alarms, CCTV, moat building etc).
You’ll likely have to change the locks.
Ring doorbells are all the rage.
We had Phonewatch for years, a pain in the ass; it only went off when we went on holidays, usually due to a bird or a branch hitting a window.
My father’s head was melted.
He was all ready to fight burglars, but all he got were dazed birds.
Welcome to the Road to Nowhere.
This is where the miscellaneous stuff lives.
Look away if you’re easily depressed because the list is endless:
Smoke Alarms
Monoxide Alarm
Brown/Green/Black bins
Sweeping Brush
Curtain & Blinds
Cutlery
Pots & Pans
Mirrors
Bedding
Towels
From the ever-useful First time Buyers Group on Facebook:
I started picking up things a year before my house was ready so if I was in Dunnes for example I would pick up a pack of drinking glasses one week, cutlery the next. I kept a list in my phone so I didn’t buy double of anything and an empty box in my wardrobe and added something to it every week. Once it was full, I would put it into my Mam’s attic. By the time I was moving in I had bought everything for my kitchen cupboards and had some other essentials like a mop, brush etc (had about 8 large boxes full of stuff at this stage). I didn’t notice the money that I was spending as I was prob spending less than €20 each week but added up to a lot. For Xmas and my birthday I got things for the house from my family which really helped.
You may also find some bargains on:
Facebook Market Place, Freecycle, Adverts and the old reliable DoneDeal.
It’s amazing what people no longer need as they climb the affluence ladder from the bottom rung of being a totally skint first-time buyer.
Keep your eyes peeled.
No, it’s not soft furnishings.
It’s the mortgage itself!
Buying a house is expensive (mortgage repayments); as you now know, furnishing a house can run into tens of thousands.
And where does this money come from?
Your income.
But what if your income stopped because you got sick and were out of work?
Before splashing out on the monthly subscriptions for Sky, Netflix, Spotify, Disney, Apple TV, and all the rest, take out a monthly subscription for income protection.
If you can’t work, it will pay you up to 75% of your income to pay the mortgage, the plasterer, and SKY.
Our Beginner’s Guide to Income Protection Insurance
Thanks for reading
Nick
Editor’s Note | We first published this blog in 2021 and have updated it since
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