YOUR PAD - A HOUSE OR A HOME?

It's interesting being invited into people's homes not only to receive their hospitality but also to gain a greater insight into their characters by observation. Just looking around a home tells it all. Maybe there is a bookcase with a preponderance of craft books or paintings on the walls of some special artist or a piano with some classical music ready to play. The lounge may be comfortable and lived in or it may not be inviting. Often it appears that people match their type of furniture and so we could go on.
It got me thinking that house maintenance means one thing to one person and something totally different to another. One section of the community treats their houses very casually. They usually wait until something has broken or the paint starts flaking off before they get around to fixing the situation. Others are so house proud that every speck of dust is chased off the premises and the paintbrush is poised to obliterate every spot or blemish. Again some people are never satisfied with their house. They are continually upgrading and buying items to titivate it up.
It always interested me when I was in the lending game for housing to observe the modus operandi of young couples about to purchase their first house. Some would opt to buy a broken down old house determined to spend the next decade pulling down walls and renovating from top to bottom. Other young couples would mortgage themselves up to the hilt to buy their dream house so that they could walk in with nothing to do and then work like crazy to reduce the mortgage to a reasonable level so that they could eventually raise a family.
There must be a better way and I suggest a middle of the road attitude can be helpful in determining how and when we should maintain or upgrade our property. I like to walk in and around the house pretending I am a Real Estate agent looking for deficiencies jotting down things to be done. Then I try to put them in order of priority determined often by the cost involved and finally setting target dates for completing each task.
Once you set yourself a task and complete it there is great satisfaction generated.
That's my theory anyway but I hope my wife doesn't read this - I might be painting instead of writing. Someone said, "Those who can, do, those who can't, teach!"