just bought very first home! what next?

[lybean]

Of course need to set up bills.
Also need to buy just about everything - nothing has been left behind and I used to live in a furnished property.
Do most people change locks?

Where to even start?! Any tips/advice most welcome :)

Charity shops and eBay local collection are good places to buy cheap well made bits of furniture and household bits.

It is worth buying a good mattress even if it means you have to sleep on a mattress on the floor for a couple of months.

Dont do anything in terms of decorating /DIY for a few months unless it is urgent as you will probably change your mind.

I have never changed locks but I would do if the place was rented out before I bought it.

Change the locks first! You have no idea who has had keys to your house in the past. It is always the first thing we do.

Then as its empty I would get minimum furniture so you can decorate to your taste without having to move furniture from room to room.

Why only if its rented? The previous owner could have given the keys to so many people who you have no idea what they are like! No way am I taking that risk.

I would change the locks as you will never know how many sets are out there with family members, neighbours etc. Luckily it can be a relatively inexpensive process, check your lock types and then Google it.

I love the feeling of setting up home.
After my first house (which was mainly set up using hand-me-downs) I enjoyed being able to afford a FEW new items in my second home. It can be a slow (and expensive) process so don't rush out buying furniture just to fill spaces, see how you want the spaces to work for you and then find furniture that fits.
Curtains & blinds can be expensive, were any of these left?

Fast forward 34yrs and we have just moved into our new (and final?) house which we are furnishing almost entirely from scratch (our choice but that is another story!).

Have a search (assuming you're on facebook) for your local 'I need a whisk' page. People give away all sorts for free so you can save yourself money on furniture!

Definitely change the locks! When we moved into our new house I changed the locks as soon as I could , I always do. A few months after moving in , my new next door neighbour knocked the door and handed me her spare key to my house! Obviously, it was given by the previous owners to her for emergencies and she had just remembered she had it. I didn't bother telling her it was already changed as it was kind of her to return it anyway. But goes to show you never know who might have a key.

Once you have the basics e.g. bed, focus on one room at a time. Once the first room is to your taste you can go in there and shut the door and relax. Ideally go for the room that can be sorted relatively quickly e.g. bedroom or living room

I agree that people could have copies. I just don't think any normal human would let themselves into a random house they didn't own. I probably have more than normal optimism in human nature but no-one has ever let themselves into any of our houses. Even if they did come in, what would they do? Tidy up? Use the loo? Steal stuff ?

In terms of my own personal risk assessment, teeny tiny possibility of anything happening, and if it did, it probably wouldn't be that bad so not worth the hassle of replacing keys.

Obviously other people will have their own life crap going on and so their assessments will vary.

Congratulations!!!

🏡 how exciting!!!

locksmith & a bloody good clean.

everything else really depends what condition it's in & what you want to do in it!
& how much money you have!

I'd try to concentrate on any energy saving things that need doing, check doors & windows for leaks. Get them sealed or replaced. Lift insulation, wall insulation.

efficiency of any appliances.

it SO SO SO much easier to decorate before you have too much stuff, so consider what you want to do about that.

too many unknowns really, but don't rush out to buy loads of furniture.

id get a comfortable bed sorted out though.

Mind you, you sound quite young & when I was I could have happily slept on the floor 😂😂

Thanks everyone. Do most people change the entire lock system or just rekey?
As FTB I'd like to keep costs low! but wont compromise on security at the same time if thats what is needed.

@WingingItEveryDay7 couldn't find a local "i need a whisk" unfortunately, I'm sure this sort of thing must exist, just wonder what else it may be called..

Any websites for ideas/inspirations?
We are going for a minimalist / modern style.

If your loft isn't fully insulated do it now - if you're are going to renovate anything in your house you don't want to be trapsing old insulation down the stairs if you've got new carpet and freshly painted walls. A warm house will always be more of a home than a cold but freshly painted one IMO.

@lybean it depends on your door & what locks you have.

when did you get the keys, when are you starting to live there? What appliances do you have already?

buy your light bulbs carefully. Find ones that are cheap to run! They seem more expensive to buy, but you'll soon make it back (unless you buy Uber fancy ones)

We disagreed over if we ‘needed’ to change the locks. I said we don’t know who has the key and someone could just let themselves and take our stuff and we wouldn’t be able to claim on insurance etc. he said the risk seems low and in rentals we never think about changing the locks.

but it was only £20 to change the lock so we changed it. we bought a lock and changed it ourselves, it’s quite simple. Just need a drill

Aside from changing the locks I'd also check all security around the house. There are online guides you can refer to. You want to minimise the risk of being burgled. Sometimes those security steps can reduce your house insurance premium.

Make sure you have adequate buildings insurance and also contents insurance.

Houzz is a good website for inspiration on decor.

£20 is cheap. I have to admit I assumed it would be more expensive. Also I definitely agree with insulating the loft. It is a grubby job but will make a huge difference.

After advice from Mumsnet, yes, I changed the locks, and got several new sets, which I then put aside into sets as ‘spare’, ‘guest’ and ‘Mum & Dad’ etc. I also found a few windows in the move, that I wasn’t given keys too. So I had every lock in the place re-keyed to the same key. Very handy.

I agree with setting up one room at a time. I started with my bedroom, as I wanted the place I slept to feel ‘homey’, and then kept working through the house. If I knew I wasn’t going to get to a room for a few months, I would buy a few cheap/second hand things for it, just to survive, and then replace when I got there properly. I tried not to do this with many rooms, as I didn’t want the waste, but some was necessary. Start with the many rooms first - bedroom, kitchen, lounge….the rest will fall into place.

Finally, I’d say consider picking a consistent colour palette for the whole house. Not so the whole house is the same colour, but so tonally the whole house flows together. It helps when you
buy furniture and accessories and you always have an eye as to what suits and what doesn’t.

Goodluck!

On Facebook' Marketplace' is excellent also 'things for sale in ***' local area have random great items.
Congratulations by the way and well done.

Change the lock system! A year after we bought our house the previous owners daughter came round to return the key saying she forgot she had it.. thank god we'd changed them on day 1!

I change the locks immediately, it’s my first job even if there’s no mention of it being previously rented out it doesn’t mean it wasn’t.

I've never changed the locks on moving into a new home! Never occurred to me. We have a Facebook 'Re-use' group which is fantastic for picking up free stuff and getting rid of things you don't want. Join your street WhatsApp group. Knock on your neighbours' doors to say hi or if that terrifies you, pop a card through their letterbox.

Euro & Yale type locks are the most simple to replace, you just remove the barrel and insert the new one.
With mortice locks you have to replace the whole lock but still a relatively simple job to do.

With any lock you have to identify the type exactly to ensure the new one is a direct replacement.
.

Read the meters!

Make sure you know where the water stop cock and your fuse board are.

You don't want to wait until you need to quickly turn the water off to realise you can't find it or to discover it's too tight for you to turn without assistance. Or have the lights blow when it's pitch black outside and realise you need a torch to see the fuse switches because the board is right at the back of a dark cupboard.

Yes because the very honest woman who returned the key was clearly actually planning to rob you before you foiled her. Thank god indeed.

MN is another world sometimes. Still I guess people have time to wait in for a locksmith when they’re washing five towels and three sets of bedding every day.