Any advice or tips for new homeowners?

50-80% of the shit you find at Home Depot for "homeowners" is halfassed bullshit. You can do it but it will suck. It might last long enough to suck for the next guy, but probably not.

Physical patching, like drywall and stuff, will work if you do it badly it will just look ugly. Plumbing and electrical will either work 100% or fail eventually. It's worth treating that stuff as if you intend for it to succeed beyond your wildest imaginations.

Nearly every task a home handyman wishes to accomplish can be accomplished by a high school dropout with half an hour of training. The exceptions are finish-related, such as tile, flooring, drywall and cabinetry. For finish-related tasks, most people can do a job that looks like it was done by a high school dropout with half an hour of training.

In general, the difference between an onerous job and an easy job, between a tedious job and a joyful job, is task-specific tooling. If you are not doing this job regularly, and if you do not want to do this job regularly, it's probably in your interests to hire someone who does this job regularly.

There is no aspect of plumbing or electrical that you can't handle yourself. The tools are cheap. However, if it looks like something you'll screw up, trust your gut. Any doofus can put in an outlet or a faucet but my father in law the doofus put in a dishwasher 18 years ago and it's eaten three dishwasher pumps in 15 months. I just spent $1100 un-doofusing it. Because I don't want to learn the intricacies of Johnson Ts, I don't like crawling under my house, and I don't work with 2" PVC pipe very often.

A push mower and a power mower require about the same amount of effort to push. The push mower won't mow stubborn dandelions. But if you use a push mower every couple weeks you don't have to buy a power mower.

There is no aspect of your plumbing that you can't make worse with Drano.

If there's a girl in the house, the shower drain will clog. get used to cleaning it out. Don't expect thanks, just do it.

The most likely thing to cost you a new kitchen floor (and probably subfloor) is your ice maker. PUDDLES ARE NEVER GOOD.

The thing most likely to send you to the hospital is the ladder. Don't fuck around getting on or off the roof. The second thing most likely to send you to the hospital is your circular saw. The thing most likely to kill you is a combination of ladders and overhead power lines. Cordless power tools, on the other hand, will likely limit your injuries to urgent care and stitches.

Keep your yard tidier than the least tidy yard in the neighborhood and don't be the last person to take down your Christmas decorations. Your neighbors are all judging someone and if it's not you, you might even get to know them.

Get out a piece of paper. Draw a map on it with your house in the middle. As the opportunity comes up, get the names of everyone in the house next to you on either side, across the street, and if possible on the other side of the fence. You will meet them once or twice a year and if you can remember their names it will go so much more smoothly.

Trees and bushes respond well to pruning in the fall or early winter. Cut at an angle so that water can't pool on the cut.

Never buy Sherwin Williams paint.

Never leave masking tape on for more than a day or two tops.

Own many tape measures. Own many sharpies. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states that you can never find the sharpie if you're holding the tape measure and vice versa. The only antidote is multiple pairs so that you can overcome quantum entanglement.

You don't need a pressure washer? But having a shitty electric pressure washer will allow you to clean things you didn't think were dirty. Having a powerful pressure washer will allow you to overspend on a tool you don't really need.

Always take the advice of fellow homeowners with a grain of salt.