First House... Things you never thought you would ever need.

[mhsjax]

step stool
carbon monoxide detector (our home only came with smoke alarms)
window seat for our cat
lawn chairs (now is a great time to great them on sale)


I'll keep thinking as we just bought our first home.

Great point about the lawn chairs and to go with it, it is a great time to buy a grill.

 

[Pamlur]

A telephone directory. Sometimes you don't get one automatically.

 

[love2disney]

Also get one of those unlockers for the doors with lock but no key. You know the ones on bathrooms, bedroom doors etc. I dont know what they are called but we have had to use one quite a few times.

Also new filters for ur furnace.

 

[ksjayhawks]

Spade
Bucket
Broom for outside/garage
Trimmer for shrubs
Hoe
Rake
Ice Melt
Battery powered radio
Phone that isn't cordless

 

[themilesfamily]

A dustbuster.

I love mine soooo much.

 

[NHdisneylover]

Lots of great advice here. Absolutely get these aforementioned things ASAP: the plunger, carbon dioxide alarms, smoke alarms and fire exstinguishers.

Also:
*surge protectors for outlets with computers, TV, etc
*fire safe for important documents
*box of "nice" cookies and some tea to invite neighbors in to share when they drop by to introduce themselves
*extra copies of keys to keep elsewhere (friend's house, desk at work, etc.)
*name plate for mailbox

 

[lovemygoofy]

I'm not sure what size of house you are moving into but here is what I learned moving into our house 6 months ago:

a bathroom cleaning kit in each bathroom(toilet bowl cleaner, brush, scrubbing bubbles, windex and a couple cleaning towels, lysol wipes)

nightlites(mostly for me because I hate the dark but my husband is up
and will turn all lights on in the house if the nightlites didn't light the way)

new broom and mop and special thingy for hardwood floors

the energy efficient light bulbs(we bought a big pack from Sams club and lamp size ones from IKEA)

curtain rods(all mine and I have ALOT of windows came from IKEA)

laundry baskets (we have stairs now and our w/d is in the basement and we put one in the guest bathroom/bedroom)

rugs inside the door way at for the bathrooms and one or two in the kitchen

barstools for the bar area in the kitchen

weedkiller and bug spray (we bought the pump bottles from home depot)

I don't know if you are upgrading into a bigger house but I wouldn't worry about trying to fill it up right away. It sounds like you have all the basics covered and that is what is important. I have several rooms still empty in my house and I really don't even know if I'm going to put furniture in them or not though the empty space is driving me crazy lol. Congrats on the new house!

 

[NHdisneylover]

I second Tina's advice to not try to fill it up right away. I always find that after living in a home for 3-6 months I have a much better feel for how I really want things arranged, what colors will really suit the rooms, etc. I always think I know when we move in--but it often changes.

 

[Ohiodislover]

Has anyone mentioned indoor extension cords? I looked but didn't see it. How is the kitchen on plugs? I needed a power strip for my kitchen.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

As a landscaper of my home, I have a nice set of requirements.

Gardening gloves
Wheelbarrow
pruning shears
shovel

(those are the basics)

Do you have a lawn mower or weed eater?

 

[golfgal]

Also get one of those unlockers for the doors with lock but no key. You know the ones on bathrooms, bedroom doors etc. I dont know what they are called but we have had to use one quite a few times.

.

Around here we call those paper clips . We just unfold a paperclip to release the lock on doorknobs like that.

Over the years what I have learned to do was to keep a list on the fridge of things that came up over the first few weeks like putting in new lightbulbs thinking "I wish I had a step stool" so I would put that on the list. You could go out and buy everything people mention and never use half of it.

 

[si-am]

We just bought our first house two years ago and boy has it been a learning experience!

I wouldn't kill yourself trying to buy everything all at once. Every house is different and you never know what kind of obscure tool you may end up needing! We have just made trips to Home Depot as the need arises, and by now we seem to have accumulated quite a bit of tools/cleaning supplies/lawn stuff, etc.

I will add that if you have a basement, a shop vac is a great idea. We learned this the hard way when the water heater flooded.

 

[wdwfan16]

Are there bedrooms on the second floor. If so, then get an evacuation ladder.

garden hose
wheelbarrow
ice melter
leaf blower
hedge trimmers and like tools
grill and accessories
chain saw (if you have big trees)
fertilizer spreader
freezer
folding table and chairs
A place to hold the auto supplies in your garage.
garbage cans

 

[barkley]

if you have carpet in the new place it can be well worth it to pay a company like coit or serv-pro to come in and give it a stain guard treatment. costs maybe $200 (our house is 2400+ sq feet and thats what it ran us) and it can realy help protect the carpet (i used to work in a furniture/carpet store and even the high end carpet that came with stain guard built in benefited from this type of additional treatment).

first aid kit (i have ones for in the house and in the garage).

if you live in a snowy part of the county consider investing in a snow blower (beats shoveling by a mile). be careful with those ice melting pellets-they can damage concrete (and esp. newer concrete that has'nt had a year or more to cure).

extra batteries for essential items (like fire alarms).

3 ring binder or plastic lidded container to keep all warrantys, operational books, information for the house, new appliances...

i'll echo the battery powered radio and non cordless phone-when we get power outages we rely on the radio for info, and can only use a cordless phone.

pack of address lables-lot faster to slap those on items that require you to notify of an address change.

if you are going from a house with carpet to one with hardwoods-a pair of comfortable cushy slippers (with all the walking and moving stuff and putting stuff away your feet and calves can get very sore as they get acclimated to non cushioned flooring). we also got a pair of cheap slippers that we wore in the garage when going through boxes (it was our 'staging area' to go through stuff and figure out what needed to be put where) we could slip these quickly on and off (attached garage) so we were'nt schlepping dust and grime into the house.

 

[DisneyAndRedSox]

Around here we call those paper clips . We just unfold a paperclip to release the lock on doorknobs like that.

We have a 3 yo that likes to lock doors, first time was b/c she didn't want us to see that her room was messy. Take a 2-liter soda bottle and cut it into a 5" x 5" square. You can wedge it in against the piece and push it back in towards the strike plate. It doesn't unlock the door, but you can now push it open! The soda plastic is flexible but strong enough.

 

[stsomewhere]

snow shovel
rake
lawn bags
emergengy flashlights

 

[AboutTheMouse]

How about at weather radio or outdoor thermometer?

Flower pots - you might find some good deals right now

Trash and recycling cans

Lawn bags for leaves

Sprinkler

Fertilizer / spreader for the lawn

A shed for all of this "stuff"

 

[onelilspark]

A tip for removing stickers easily and cleanly: take a hair dryer and slowly pull up the sticker. The heat from the dryer makes the sticker come up much easier & cleaner than if you were to try to pull it off otherwise.

If you have any residue left, a straight edged razor with the goo-gone has it gone in about 30 seconds. Real easy

 

[disykat]

I wouldn't kill yourself trying to buy everything all at once. Every house is different and you never know what kind of obscure tool you may end up needing! We have just made trips to Home Depot as the need arises, and by now we seem to have accumulated quite a bit of tools/cleaning supplies/lawn stuff, etc.

:

That's sort of our theory too. You have the basics so relax and be ready to go to the store if necessary. We've owned a home for 18 years and just bought our first plunger a few weeks ago!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

NICE and ADEQUATE STORAGE in the garage--I'm talking shelving system with appropriate rubbermaid containers AND a nice tool chest. We never did that and our home has been lived in for more than 10 years and holy moses do we need it.

The containers can be used for holiday decorations, camping supplies, gardening equipment, storage for stockup sales (paper towels, tp and such) and other seasonal items.

I see them in all organized garages and they are totally missing from garages like mine that look like a tornado hit it.