I’m 35 and have been with my wife for going on 12 years I’m active and work full time now onto the title, I hate working on my house like I see a ton of people my age or younger/older that are constantly remodeling their homes, it’s not that I can’t do it, I just don’t have the drive or motivation to do it my kitchen has been in remodel for 5 years I have 90% of the cabinets up flooring is done still need trim and back splash and the rest of the cabinets put up but whenever I “decide” to do it I make excuses to myself not to and go about my business I know its frustrating for My wife because it’s frustrating for me half the house is in mid functional remodel, I see my neighbors outside seeding the lawn and doing lawns ape and I just walk back inside. How do I break this trend? Is there a switch in my head that just hasn’t flipped yet?
31 comments
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Hell no. It’s why I bought a townhouse. I finally hung up a photo for the first time in 2 years.
Nah man. I’m a contractor that runs over 300 jobs a year, and I swapped my floors out 18 months ago and still havnt put my baseboards on. Not doing things at home is how I relax
Nah. Not odd. Some people really like that kind of work, but it’s certainly not everyone. Though if you’re leaving stuff half done for a long time, maybe you should pick a weekend and power through.
I loathe doing work around the house, but I don’t mind paying for someone else to to work.
Is it in your budget to hire someone to finish the work? It would be worth it to get rid of the stress of procrastination.
No, it’s not weird.
Don’t compare yourself to the neighbors, or anyone else. There’s no better way to make yourself miserable.
I’m in the same boat. I don’t know what it is, but it takes a lot of willpower to actually do stuff around the house. The crazy thing is, if I’m at somebody else’s home, I’ll do whatever: dishes, sweeping, cutting grass. And when it comes to my own house? It’s weird.
Edit: word
Don’t like it that much but do some stuff because I don’t always want to pay
I’d be happier living in an urban neighborhoods. Don’t really like the suburban America lifestyle
I always figured I’d do the trim when I got ready to sell. As long as everything works and your warm and dry whats the rush?
Not at all.
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Some people are just like that.
I’ll be honest, I’ve actually found myself shifting back and forth between attitudes. I’ll have a lot of motivation for a while to get things done (whether interior or exterior), then go through a phase that I couldn’t care less (maybe I’m more interested in going to concerts/movies/whatever and don’t care to get up and work the entire weekend on it).
Live the life you want to enjoy and don’t feel like you have to keep up with neighbors (in terms of yard).
If you do want to push yourself to finish up tasks, I find that making a list(s) works great. I use evernote for easy access and have short (1 day to 1 week) and long (3 week to 3 month) term lists (semi-merged). This helps in a few ways. It lets me put together longer term tasks to track, slowly move individual tasks from the longer term list to the short term list, make some progress on those and feel accomplished, while also not feeling bad about making slower progress on the longer term lists. Use that advice as you will..
sounds like your wife is more interested than you are. Why doesn’t she do the work? That would make more sense, wouldn’t it?
Not at all. This is exactly why I have decided I don’t want to own a house unless I can afford to hire people to do major repairs/renovations. I’m kind of a perfectionist and would most likely end up either taking forever to “do it right” or end up spending more to get someone to fix my mistakes.
Put an ad on Craigslist seeking a helper. It will make the plowing through it part more possible, especially if you have the materials purchased and waiting.
I took great joy in staining my fence, and adding on to our patio, but just can’t bring myself to replace a piece of broken trim on a base cabinet.
Maybe you just hate doing that stuff. Pay a guy.
To answer your explicit question: no it’s not odd that you hate working on your own house.
I’m reading an underlying issue though in that having an unfinished project is causing you a lot of stress and anxiety and you would really like it to be done. I have four corrugated garden boxes in my back yard that have been 75% done since last harvest. Today, all fun and relaxation is going on hold until they are finished.
Try to find a way scrape up the motivation. Ask someone to come over and help you, whatever it takes. Then don’t start any more projects.
The one thing I wanted was a house to call my own. We bought our house. I realized I hate yardwork. I hate painting. I want to re do the bathrooms but I’m not interested in DIY nor am I any good at it and I am to cheap to pay anyone so yeah the yardwork is the biggest I never thought I would pay some to cut my grass. Me and my wife have already decided as soon as the kids are out we are selling and buying a condo.
i used to be this way about repairing cars. I knew how to do it, I had the tools to do it, i just lost the interest in ever opening a hood ever again. Been taking cars to mechanic ever since. feel so much better. Hire contractor to finish work and be done with it. your happy, wifes happy, and dont start any new projects.
Like Nike says, Just Do It. Sometimes we have to adult and do things we don’t want to. Get it over with to feel that feeling of relief and get husband points from your wife. As someone with major medical issues I often have to do things I don’t want but I do it anyway. Plan a little reward for yourself when you finish the jont
Nah, some people don’t like that, some people do.
Dude, punctuation please
Haha, not at all. I bought a house a while ago and sold it a few years later.
I’m not having kids and just moved into a loft in the city. No lawn, no fixing stuff, no dealing with snow, no raking the leaves.
I have my weekends back now, it’s great.
Hire someone to do it for you.
Nope, I hate working on the house. Always have. My time is mine and I would rather do what I want. If I were retired and had nothing else to do it would be different but it would cost more money if I fixed it, the cost of parts and the cost of my time. Cheaper to pay someone to do it.
I’m the same as the OP. But I’m the opposite from my Dad. My Dad built the house I grew up in and also built 2 small barns. He repaired everything except the AC or heavy electricity. But he got satisfaction out of that kind of thing, and it was out of necessity because he grew up poor. I get satisfaction from other things so I see repair time as a massive time sink when I could just pay somebody to do it. And don’t get me started on remodeling. That seems like a gigantic waste of money if I were to try and keep up with the neighbors. I would rather put that money into my hobbies or vacation. Don’t get me wrong, I do simple repairs on the washing machine or electrical switches, and I do a lot of the yard maintenance. But for the people that look at ROI, I see very little ROI on sinking all my time on repairs, remodels, and maintenance.
Not at all… it’s hard to get motivated after working all week.
I hate doing home projects. That is half the reason I am happy to be divorced because I am content to live in the house that I bought. It doesn’t always need to be changed to be updated to the most recent fad.
It also saves me a ton of money not being constantly forced to pay for “upgrades” that aren’t really upgrades.
The next time I share a home with a woman, I will move into her place and she can be responsible for wasting all of her money and time and effort on a bunch of frivolous projects that really don’t make any significant difference in the value of the house.
At 35, you hire people to do this so you don’t have to. You have a day job, and unless you really have financial pressures where its you or not doing it, the real question is why you cannot let go of these chores and let a pro handle them.
Years ago, my wife (at the time) and I bought a house. It was a old house, that needed lots of work, but it was in a great area with the potential for making great money when we sold it. At that time, I was running multiple restaurants for a company, racing road and mountain bikes, and other sports. I loved working on the house. I put insulation in the attic, redid the back and front yards. After those endeavors, I Lost much of my enthusiasm. I got frustrated that I was not following my plan. After spending WAY TOO MUCH money, hiring companies to do a few projects, I came up with a solution that worked for m. I started hiring licensed contractors to help me with projects. Make sure they are licensed!! I looked online (Craigslist and Nextdoor). It took a bit to find licensed ones that could answer the questions I asked about jobs, but the savings was amazing! And it allowed me to pick and choose how much I wanted to put into a job.