Home Purchases Worth the Splurge

Happy Monday, friends! Looking back on the last half of the year, we had a lot of big purchases – some by choice others because we had to make them for the new house. I wanted to break down the ones that we really have used and loved so much over the last 7 months.

Samsung Frame TV || We really did our research on what TV was going in our living room. It’s where we spend the majority of our time if we aren’t in the kitchen and where we unwind every night after the kids go to sleep. The picture quality is impeccable, it actually feels like they are acting out right in front of you. When we purchased the Frame we also purchased the professional installation and I can’t recommend that enough. They had it hung perfectly and working within 30 minutes – absolutely worth the extra cost.

When the TV itself isn’t on, we have it in Art Mode. At first we used the art that it came with, but since then we have added our own photos that are shuffled through every few hours. It’s so nice having this large piece of art in our living room as a show piece. It truly is the focal point of our living room and I am so incredibly happy with this purchase. Also, I found our TV at Best Buy in the open box section. Pure luck that I spotted it and even better luck that it was the 2021 edition which is a thinner tv and thus really looks to be hung like a painting.

Closet Installation || Not quite a must when moving into a home, but redoing our primary closet was something I knew was high up on our list of redoing, so we got it done a month after moving in. The upfront cost isn’t fun, but the closet is exactly how I wanted it to look and now we are utilizing the space in a much better way.

King Bed and mattress || A non-negotiable for either one of us was that we had to have a King sized bed in our room! It’s great to have the space if / when Sophia wants to come in with us and I’m sure that when Mason is old enough he will want to do that too! Plenty of space for some family snuggle moments too! We went to a speciality mattress store to pick our new one out and after testing out 6 different types, we landed on ours. There was a special technology that was used for us to find out optimal mattress and I can honestly say when the average person spends 26 years of their lives sleeping – it has to be comfortable and is 100% worth the splurge!

Amazon Echo Show 10 || Hands down one of our most used items has been the Amazon Echo Show 10 that we have set up in our kitchen. You can read more about all our tech products in the house here. One of my favorite things is having dance parties in the kitchen with Sophia and the best part is that she remembers her favorite songs so she will ask Alexa to play them for her. Even better that Alexa understands her!

Home Charger || We have had our Tesla for a little over 3 years and when we lived in the city, not only did we not have a parking spot with a charger, but Gary would have to keep tabs on the open charging spots so that we could charge overnight. The day before we moved in, we had our Tesla home charger installed and it is such a treat not having to worry on finding a spot for our car to charge. Chargers are also so much more prevalent everywhere now so we can always get a top up if we needed to. Of course we didn’t need to get a Tesla charger, we could have gone with another brand, but we will more than likely stay in the Tesla family when we upgrade to a larger car so this made the most sense for us. It’s also not an installation that should be done on your own unless you are an electrician. The installation and charger aren’t what is expensive, but the cables that needed to be run in the garage to a power source made the price go up. Again, it’s a higher up front cost, but in the end it’s worth it.

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Grill || The grill we have is one that I bought Gary for his 40th birthday. He patiently waited 5 months after his birthday to actually use it! Since we have a propane tank and gas to the house, we actually hooked our grill up directly to the gas line so we never have to worry about filling up the tank or wondering if we have enough gas to grill. We used this so much over the summer and into the fall and I definitely see us using it sparingly in the winter and spring as well. The direct hook up was quite a splurge, but again now that it’s done, we don’t have to worry about gas to the grill ever again.

Eero Mesh network || When we first moved in, we kept having issues with our WiFi. Not ideal since we both work from home and basically use internet for EVERYTHING! Gary decided to set up a mesh network. The device itself covers about 1,500 square feet, so we have a couple of extenders on other floors and it also gets us up 900 mbps <– that is pretty darn fast! Gary set it up on his own and it took about 40 minutes total! If you are like me and not sure what a mesh network is, basically it allows various devices to link together branching off each other allowing the signal and network to spread further, thus also giving you super fast internet speeds!

Ring Home System || I talked about most of our ring home system in this post and since then we have added the Ring Outdoor cameras. I have to admit, I could care less about the ring system when Gary initially installed it, but now that we have it, I love being able to disarm the alarm right as we are driving up or check to see if I didn’t turn the alarm on when we are away or better yet, see the deliveries when we aren’t home!

Some things that would have been a splurge like rugs and drapes, we actually purchased from the sellers because I loved them so much. Our appliances were also still relatively new and within warranty so there was no need to upgrade those.

Next year we started a list of items that we still need to purchase for the house and at the top of that list is a runner for our staircase. So if you have any sites that you love for rugs/stair runners, please share!

When you move, what are some of your upfront splurges for the house?