Are you like many partners who have a little list of jobs posted on the fridge for the man about the house to do? Some of those lists are quite long and tend to grow every day.
What is the best way to motivate your man to get stuck in and do a few jobs around the house? There must be a motivation for him to want to get started and I will share one of those motivations with you.
Having been a man about the house, I have a fair idea what it is that can keep your man away from all those little repair and fix it jobs.
There are always heaps of those little jobs and more just seem to pop up all the time as things break and wear out.
I used to be a builder when I was young and fit so I suppose my own house was a bit like the trade mans curse.
No matter what trade you are in the jobs at home pertaining to that trade just didn't get done.
I mean if you are doing something all day at your job why would you want to come home and do the same stuff again.
So I always built my own houses and we invariably moved in before they were completely finished.
That meant they never really got finished.
If you are at work all day building stuff why would you want to do it at the weekend too? It was bad enough just building the place in the first place.
My first real house project was a three story monster that I tackled as a young and fit starry eyed dreamer.
It was a pretty special house right on a half acre of water front with a jetty out front.
I spent a whole year every weekend and every night after work on my own there getting the place up to move in stage.
It was a massive undertaking for a young fellow.
So anyway, back to those jobs around the house that just are not getting done.
Now some guys are handy and some guys are not.
If your man is one of those that are not handy forget it.
Nothing is going to convince him to start fixing things.
He will call in the repairman up the street first and prefer to pay him to do the job.
However, many guys are handy and will have a go even if the results are less than perfect.
One of the main reasons that your man will not have a go is because he lacks the tools to do a good job.
Many jobs require precision work and a handyman can't do that without the right tools.
Even some tradesmen are unable to do some precision work with out the right tools.
The days of the old craftsmanship are just about gone.
One of the handiest tools that you can get for him is the power compound miter saw.
That may sound a bit complicated but it only an electric saw that sits on a bench and allows the operator to make truly precision cuts.
This will give him the accuracy to produce something he can be proud of and so will be more than happy to get some of those jobs out of the way.
Say you wanted some sort of picture frame made out of frame molding.
There is no way he will be confident cutting those mitered corners by hand but with the power compound miter saw it will be a breeze.
It can do many jobs from cutting accurate lengths of lumber to cutting any angle you need.
If you buy him one of these you will find it will be the center of all his home handy man work.
He may even be coming to you for more jobs or is that maybe a distant dream.
These basic power compound miter saws are not expensive any more.
You can pick up some good brands for just over the $100 mark which is not to bad these days.
So go for it.
If he has a birthday coming up or you just like to surprise him, this will go down really well.
I know it was the backbone of all my wood working jobs.
You will be surprised just how much it will motivate him to get to work.