A Letter from Yourself, Six Months from Now

Key Takeaways

• Change the locks, replace the toilet seats, and swap in smart bulbs before furniture makes those tasks harder than they need to be.
• Outdoor maintenance like weeding beds and clearing overgrown vegetation compounds fast. Tackle it early before a season turns it into a bigger job.
• Paint colors, landscaping changes, and renovation projects deserve a full season of living in the space before you commit.
• Administrative deadlines like Vermont's homestead exemption do not wait for you to feel settled. Put them on the calendar now.
• The best priority list is personal: walk every room, note what makes you happy and what bothers you, and go from there.

 

Dear New Homeowner,

 

Don't worry. You are going to make it.

Right now, I’m sitting in our home with a cup of coffee in our favorite chair, looking out the window with the view we fell in love with at that first open house. You remember the moment. We walked in, turned the corner, and that was it. The decision was basically made before we even saw the kitchen.

The boxes are gone, or at least moved to the garage. The chaos of negotiations and inspections is in the rearview mirror. The version of you reading this letter right now, the one who just got the keys and is staring down a mountain of decisions and expenses, is going to be just fine.

I am writing to tell you what I wish we did first, what I am glad we pushed off, and a few things I would go back and change if I could. Read carefully, because future-you earned a little authority on this.

 

1. Do These Before Anything Else

Some things feel optional only because you haven't needed them yet. These are not optional.

• Change the locks. You have no idea how many copies of the old keys exist. This is a quick conversation with a locksmith and it should be the first call you make. If you are feeling handy (I wasn't), you can install them yourself. Get smart locks, especially for our rural address. Monitoring activity and unlocking the door for our in-laws is a life saver with the hour commute to the office.
• Replace the toilet seats. It might sound funny, but now is a great time to start fresh.
• Swap in smart bulbs before the furniture goes in. Once the couch was positioned and the shelves were loaded, swapping out ceiling fixtures became a project. Do it now, while every room is still empty and accessible. The payoff is real: you will be telling the home to wake up the lights before you even feel settled. It sounds like a luxury now, but it will become part of how we live.
• Replace worn door knobs and hardware throughout the house. It's cheap, fast, and it adds a layer of polish that will brighten your day.
• Locate and photograph the circuit breaker (it's in the other mechanical room you haven't discovered yet), the main water shutoff, and the HVAC filter. You will thank yourself the first time something goes sideways at 9 p.m. on a Sunday.
• Start a home folder. Physical or digital. Every manual, every warranty, every receipt for work done. You will reach for it more than you think, and shuffling through a pile of receipts on top of the dryer was not a good approach.

 

2. Get Outside While You Still Have the Energy

The inside will pull you in fast. The outside will wait, and wait, and wait, until it is a bigger problem than it ever needed to be.

• Weed the garden beds now, before the season locks them in. Whatever is growing there didn't take a break while the house sat on the market. We waited. I am not going to tell you what it looked like.
• Cut back anything growing against the foundation or over the roofline. This is not cosmetic. Moisture and damage followed overgrown vegetation.
• Take the window screens to Aubuchon to get repaired and replaced. Bring them all at once, get it done, and enjoy the breeze guilt-free.
• Wash the windows inside and out. We kept saying we would get to it. When we finally did it felt like a different house.
• Walk the property line and note what vegetation is dormant. You will not know which plants are weeds and which are perennials until the next season gives you a full picture. We nearly ripped up something that turned out beautiful in May.
• Check the gutters and downspouts. Clean them and make sure water moves away from the foundation. This one was quiet until it wasn't.

 

3. Inside, Room by Room

There is a short window when the house is empty and everything is easy to access. 

• Rent a commercial carpet cleaner and do every carpeted room before the furniture goes in. This is the single best version of that task, and it only exists once.
• Plan the kitchen before committing to where things live. A few deliberate hours of layout thinking now saves you from reorganizing the whole thing in three months.
• Put a drain wand in every shower. You're welcome.
• Deep clean the oven, the fridge coils, and the dishwasher filter. These were not on the seller's checklist either, and we ended up paying for it with a new fridge.

 

4. Push These to Month Three or Later

Here is your permission slip. Some decisions made too early are decisions made wrong.

• Paint. Live in the light through different times of day and different seasons before committing to colors. The room I'm sitting in that looked cold in January will surprise you.
• Landscaping redesign. Watch a full year of what grows before you rip anything out.
• Renovation projects. You need to live in a space to understand what actually bothers you versus what you just noticed on move-in day.
• Furniture for the guest room, the basement, the bonus room. Let those spaces exist as possibilities while you learn how you actually use the house. We thought we wanted the guest room, but it's so much better as a home gym.
• Advanced smart home upgrades. Get the lighting right first. Let your daily routine develop. Then layer in thermostats, cameras, and automations that fit how you actually live, not how you imagined you would.

The urge to finish everything immediately is real, and mostly wrong. Some decisions need a season to make well.

 

5. The Administrative Layer

These have actual deadlines. Do not let the excitement of moving in cause you to miss them.

• File for the homestead exemption with the state. The deadline is April 15.
• Update the homeowner's insurance to reflect your actual contents and any improvements you are making.
• Re-register the vehicles and update your driver's license with the new address.
• Register to vote at the new address.
• Introduce yourself to the neighbors. They know things about the house and the street that no listing agent ever mentioned. Ours told us about a drainage issue in the backyard that saved us a real headache.

Six months from now you are going to be sitting in that chair, in that light, with that view. The chaos will be a story you tell. The house will feel like it was always yours.

You are going to love it here.

Warmly,

You, Six Months From Now