I bought a farmhouse. Then I built an app.
Some people reach midlife and buy a sports car. Others take an Eat, Pray, Love trip. I bought a farmhouse on four and a half acres in my hometown, about an hour from where I live.
Apparently, I wanted something with more maintenance.
I’m Ryan, the founder of Domicusto. The farmhouse needs a nearly complete renovation, and my wife and I have made a substantial financial commitment to get it there. She’s put a lot of faith in me to see it through.
I’m fitting the project around a full-time job and the schedules of my three daughters, making trips back and forth, taking days off and working on weekends. I’m hoping the girls can lend a hand when their schedules allow. Most nights, I’m also working on the app that grew out of the whole undertaking.
It’s a lot to fit into a life that was already fairly full. It has also given me a sense of purpose I hadn’t expected.
Plenty of ideas. Somewhere to put them.
Coming up with ideas has never been my problem. Turning all of them into something useful is where things get more complicated.
Take the farmhouse attic. I can picture converting it into usable space, complete with a new staircase. I have considerably less ability to build that staircase. Unfortunately, imagining it in great detail does not count as construction.
Creating an app is something else I’ve wanted to do for years. AI gave me a way to start, and the farmhouse gave me a problem I was motivated to solve.
At first, the ideas were scattered. I wanted to compare contractor quotes, keep photos of the renovation, track expenses and organize the paperwork. I was also considering making the farmhouse a short-term rental, so I was already thinking about what I’d need to manage it afterward. The renovation tools and rental ideas grew together as I built.
Then, during Wednesday-night pickleball, I got talking with a neighbor who owns rental properties. Hearing how he managed them gave me more to think about. Even my recreational activities were now generating app ideas.
As the project grew, I began to see how the same underlying record could help people who own a home, renovate a property or rent one out. The farmhouse’s future is still undecided, and that became part of the point: I wanted something useful while I worked out what came next.
Keeping up with the house—and myself
Today, I’m running my renovation invoices through Domicusto to keep track of what things are costing. I can talk through my ideas for a room and use AI to help organize them into records I can review and update.
That suits the way my brain works. A conversation might cover a contractor’s quote, something I’m waiting on and a new thought about the attic. Having somewhere to put those details helps me return to them later, including when I’ve reconsidered last week’s excellent idea.
Keeping room measurements, photos and notes together also makes conversations with contractors easier. I can find the information we need without trying to remember where I wrote it down or whether I took a picture of it.
But keeping up with a property also means remembering the work that’s easy to postpone. I’ve done my share of that in my own homes. Upkeep deserves a place alongside the exciting renovation plans, even if it rarely gets its own inspiration board.
That’s why maintenance is central to Domicusto. Schedules help keep the next task visible alongside the record of what’s already been done, and owners can add scheduled upkeep to their calendars. You shouldn’t need a major renovation underway to find that useful.
The things a house can’t tell you
My interest in keeping these records also comes from the homes we’ve lived in.
Our current home was built in 1969. We bought it from the original owner, becoming only the second family to live there, and inherited the original blueprints and records of what it cost to build.
When we renovated the kitchen and removed the original double oven, we could look up what they had paid for it in 1969. Those records gave us a connection to the people who built the house and the decisions they made. The blueprints are now framed in my office.
The farmhouse came with much less history. I knew it needed extensive work, but I would still have loved to know more about the place and the people who had cared for it.
Selling our previous home showed me another reason that information matters. We had lived there for ten years and put a lot of ourselves into it. I sold it myself, which meant prospective buyers could ask me about the renovations.
I could explain the new siding, including the foam-board insulation underneath it, and tell them about the windows and roof. Much of that explanation was in my head. We had invoices and contractor information we would happily have shared, but the buyers first heard the story directly from me.
I felt those conversations helped them understand the care we had put into the house. We had expected to stay much longer, until a home we loved became available about a mile away and changed our plans.
A future owner won’t always have someone there to explain the work. I want those decisions and useful details to be easier to preserve and pass along.
Still building
Domicusto is in beta, and the farmhouse is very much a work in progress. I’m using the app on my own project and asking other owners to help me understand where it works and where it needs to improve.
I want it to help people stay on top of their properties and keep a record that remains useful after the details have faded from memory. That matters while you’re living in a home, while you’re managing it from an hour away and when someone else eventually gets the keys.
I’m excited about what the farmhouse could become. I’m excited about Domicusto, too. Both have grown into something much more meaningful to me than I expected when I started.
If you try the app, I’d love to hear what would make it more useful to you.
— Ryan