One of the things we’ve learned from watching home improvement shows on television is that in any project, things will go wrong. Things will break. A simple appliance installation will balloon into the need to open a wall and re-wire part of the house. Your intention to do everything yourself will transform into needing a professional on-site ASAP.

When we found the house we wanted, we were annoyed by the clause in our apartment’s lease that required a 60-day notice to vacate. As it turns out, we will be moving into our new home on Day 59 of that period, because we’ve encountered a few unexpected problems.

Mr. Vega decided he wanted to scrape off the ugly acoustic ceiling before we moved in. Our internet search for “how to scrape a popcorn ceiling” yielded the suggestion to test for asbestos before doing that kind of work on houses built before 1980. We found a local lab that could rush the results for $75. We found out we were indeed the proud owners of a toxic ceiling that would cost $2500 to have professionally and safely removed. Ouch.

Fortunately, we had prepared in advance to expect the unexpected: in addition to our down payment and closing costs, we made sure we had about 5% of the purchase price set aside to make the place feel more like home. We also maintain an Emergency Fund, but as the asbestos only poses a health risk during removal, we agreed that Ugly Ceilings are not an actual emergency. Still, we’d feel better having the job done before we move our furniture, our pets, and our own lungs into the place, so we went ahead and had the work done.

Then when the gas company came out to connect the gas and inspect the appliances, they discovered that the stove that came with the house was leaking gas, which meant they weren’t allowed to connect it. The appliance repair men said it would be an expensive fix, and as it wasn’t a good stove to begin with, we had it hauled away, along with the old, moldy fridge that was in the house. We were lucky enough to find an inexpensive, well-reviewed fridge with a freezer on the bottom and in the smaller “apartment size” that we prefer, but we decided to splurge on a professional-quality gas range, to the tune of about $1800 (which is a great deal for the kind of stove we’re getting, but it’s not pocket change!).

We’ve got some other issues, like non-existent insulation in our central Texas attic, a colony of ants that have chosen that attic as the place to build their home, and a central air condenser unit inexplicably– and quite dangerously– perched on the roof that is not designed to hold that kind of weight. While some of these issues could become emergencies, they aren’t yet, and we’re grateful for our Contingency Fund. It will be completely drained before we even move in, so we’ll have to postpone our plans of replacing the old drafty windows with double-paned ones or installing a rainwater collection system, but we’ll still have our Emergency Fund, and we won’t have gone into debt to fix the problems.