The very adult business of buying your own house

I don’t know exactly how many aisles there are at Bunnings. Thirty, 40, 50 – more?

To me, it feels like about 1000, and in the past month I reckon I’ve wandered down most of them. It’s what I consider the aftermath of finally buying a proper adult house, with a backyard, a garage and fairly ugly floor tiles to boot.

Not that owning a house really makes you an adult – a decent slice of this purchase was based on the fact that the letterbox is shaped like a surfboard. However there must be something mature about it, because my wisdom teeth were absolutely killing me around settlement date.

Hear from Australians living on the water on Somewhere Else : 

But, back to Bunnings, which is pretty much the direction my poor substitute for a ute, a 2003 Suzuki Ignis, now automatically heads in.

Each time I arrive in the car park, my mind goes a complete blank; my heart begins to race like a MAFS bride arriving at her fake nuptials.

OK, let’s steady oneself, I think. Deep breaths. People have walked on the moon and invented Wi-Fi, so it can’t be that hard to find a replacement globe for an IXL Tastic in Bunnings, can it?

Anyone know what kind of sandpaper you need for preparing your walls for painting? Hey, excuse me there, what’s the right time of year to plant basil?

On one fateful day I almost have an existential dilemma, as I stand frozen in the hose aisle trying to get my head around the various options. How long should a hose be anyway? Trust me: for a small-ish backyard, the answer is not 30 metres.

When I was on the hunt for real estate nirvana I didn’t know it was going to be like this. All I had were optimistic goals and a Pinterest board full of coastal decor ideas.

Buy house at beach – tick. Put cool pictures up. Yep. Have an amazing veggie garden and compost system and show off new zucchinis and pumpkins to all and sundry. Easy. But now I realise that being a good speller does not, in any way at all, equate to being handy around the home. I definitely, definitely should have married a tradie.

Meanwhile the garage door is the squeakiest thing I’ve heard since my family’s old guinea pig, Ralph Malph.

The back gate, for some reason, stops closing and on one windy night bangs so hard that I lay awake all night, not knowing how to remedy the problem, but worrying it’s keeping my French Airbnb guest awake.

I go all eco-friendly and get those free people around to replace all my light bulbs. On the same night the kitchen light starts flashing weirdly and my bedside lamp goes kaput.

Then there’s the bloody hose. I can’t seem to connect it properly, and end up watering myself – without any noticeable growth.

Meanwhile it’s raining and sunny, then rainy again. Prime conditions for grass to grow, and who knew it could grow this fast? Naturally I don’t have a lawnmower, even though I now own a little shed. In a touching move, my mate pops over and lends me his, giving me a quick tutorial and some two-stroke.

I’ve now mowed the lawn twice, and have been disproportionately proud of this on both occasions.

Next problem, how do you do edges? A friend quips that I’m “already pretty edgy” which makes me laugh, but is not terribly enlightening. However the words “whipper snipper” seem to be coming up a lot in conversations.

In the first few weeks, a stream of family and friends are kind enough to pop by. Little do they know I’m about to rope them in to assist with my latest practical dilemma. Surely they want to feel involved, no?

Dad tightens the washing line, Mum organises my kitchen, my brother puts my outside table together, my little nephews load up my bookcase and friends generously install door locks, help me hang pictures and share sparkling wine.

For the moment, my spare room remains bright purple, the walls are kind of empty, the lawn edges are wonky and I remain in post-mortgage signing shock.

Some days I know I’m incredibly lucky to even have this place, and on others, I wonder what I’ve gone and done. Oh well, it’s only 30 years of paying it off, eh? Plenty of time to buy a drill (unlikely), kill a few plants and finally figure out what a Phillips head screwdriver is.