Aaron from House in Progress posted a very good read on how being a fixer-upper drastically changes your lifestyle.

I can truly relate to his post. When Teague and I started looking for houses, we knew a few things. We wanted something old in a quiet neighborhood, and something that needed work. We were ready to be good homeowners and put in some sweat equity. We realized it was going to involve lots of hard work and sacrifice. But you can’t really know the full implications of something until you’re knee deep in it, like we are now.

I have no regrets about our decisions thus far. We love our house, and love the work we do to fix it. But we’re also keenly aware of how much of our lives (not to mention money) it consumes, and how hard it is to find a balance now that we’re caught up in the obsession. As Aaron notes, it becomes hard to take a break from house projects without feeling guilty for “wasting” time. There’s so much we wish was finished, and so far still to go before we’ll be satisfied, that we can’t seem to slow down. Even when we plan ahead and say we’re going to do something fun, we usually end up changing our minds at the last minute to do some house-related thing. We keep saying things like “after the kitchen is done, we’ll take a big break” – but we both know we’ll be in the upstairs bathroom the very next day ripping out the rotting shower surround!

I don’t know to break the addiction, but we do need to work on getting some FUN back in our lives. Fun that does not involve a trip to Home Depot ;)