Despite all my years I still feel like a child inside. I have a hard time looking in the mirror and locating a fully realized adult. You might have believed the birth of my second child might have changed it, yet I still seem to be in denial of the aging process.

In regards to aging — or instead putting it off — my dear wife and I recently moved into a brand new home and this home has enough room in its basement for the home gym my wife had always wanted. But I’m seeing dollar signs when I brainstorm all the tiny and large items needed, from the required but often forgotten weight benches and exercise mats to deciding on the most versatile exercise bike. Stationary bikes can be tricky these days. Do I buy an upright or a recumbent exercise bike? Should I choose an electronic or analog?

And then my dear wife appears determined to get one of those elliptical trainers as well. Yes you understood that correctly. An exercise bicycle and an elliptical trainer — not just one or the other. My estimate is that the extra exercise equipment will go with the stretch mark treatment she started using after she bore our youngest child. I’m sure I’ll regret that jest.

I have to be deliberate with the budget because our new home is a bit more of a diamond in the rough. We desired it this way, yet we still have to carefully budget everything, down to the knobs for cabinets (I’m not kidding). My wife has an ambitious cabinet refacing project plotted, but must remind her the sinks for the bathrooms she wishes put in shall set us back a fair amount, too.

Gratefully, she and I both like the natural, rustic style, so we are furnishing our new house with furniture which is unfinished. It still requires some polishing off, but she and I can keep the costs down and make better furniture than we might find in any store. I recently came across a nice table for coffee with some decent, raw knotting and a console table in matching mahogany.

And then there’s the great outdoors. For our patio we are researching fireplaces for outdoors and we will go with some inexpensive wicker furnitures initially.

Supplying a new home seem so adult, but I can’t help but feel like I’m merely playing house. The exercise equipment and furniture just feel as a new era of toys.