The Honey-Do List: Why We Make a Good Team

Welcome to day one of “The Honey-Do List” blog swap! In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’ve teamed up with Kelly @ View Along the Way, Michelle @ Décor and the Dog, and Carrie @ Hazardous Design for four fun days in which we’ll be celebrating DIY life with our husbands. We all know that without them, we wouldn’t get very far in our quests for home improvement. And for their humor, their encouragement, and their patience in the face of questions like “Which of these 817 shades of blue looks best on the south-facing wall of the dining room?”, we think they deserve a big fat round of applause. Or at least four days of blog posts in which we talk about them.

Today’s topic: teamwork. Why do we make a good team? What do we lack as wives that our husbands make up for, and vice versa? Read on for details that involve cavemen, complicated headboards, goat intestines, and helpless damsels in distress.

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Carrie of Hazardous Design: I was drawing a blank on this question so I asked Chris to tell me why he thinks we make a good DIY team and this is what he said: I think we’re a good team because Carrie takes orders so well. Actually, I have found that I am terrible at telling her what we need to do, so there are generally a lot of comments from her like “Use your words!” and “I am not a mind reader!” Apparently we have not reached the point in our communication where my grunting like a caveman at a particular time translates into Carrie picking up the tool and using it for its intended purposes. So I guess the reason we are a good team is that Carrie puts up with my poor communication and fills in the blanks when she needs to (sometimes with expletives).

Michelle of Décor and the Dog: Nate and I make a great team because I have amazingly awesome ideas and he does an amazingly awesome job of executing them.  I am horrible at visualizing and measuring.  Nate excels at both.  Nate gets distracted easily when starting a project.  I’m great at keeping us focused.  We both like a bargain.  We would both prefer to attempt to build a piece of furniture (our headboard for instance) than buy it.  We also have similar but different tastes.  Does that make sense?  Of course it doesn't.  Nate prefers new.  I prefer old.  We somehow have found a happy medium that we feel makes for a beautiful home.

Erin of…this blog: Having a house to fix up has actually given Rick a hobby that complements my hobbies, so he no longer feels left out when I am working on a project that doesn’t require his muscles. Basically, I have the vision. Rick does not. When I have a vision, Rick’s vision is one of a maniacal wife who will rarely let him just sit and watch TV at night. This causes him to make lots of skeptical “ew” faces as though I just suggested we wallpaper our kitchen with goat intestine. What Rick does have, however, is an inspiring amount of patience to see my vision through long after I’ve grown tired of the project, which is usually approximately 53 minutes after beginning. I, personally, am a fan of “finish as quickly as possible”; Rick is a fan of “finish as perfectly as possible.” Together, we motivate each other to be efficient but precise. Hooray for projects that don’t collapse after minimal wear and tear.

Kelly of View Along the Way: We're a great team because I do all the work and he oversees. Okay, that's a teeny stretch. I do all the planning and have the vision, and we work together equally to accomplish it. (That was not true either.) He helps me not make stupid decisions, then he does the majority of the work himself. (Getting closer.) I just ask for him to do things and he researches the how-to and then does everything himself while I look on helplessly. A helpless Kelly + a heroically talented Andy = a fantastic DIY team.

Truthfully? I think we respect each other's strengths (even though I'm not sure what mine are yet?), give each other "veto" rights on every decision, and constantly motivate each other to TRY projects and ideas we've never tried. Because in the worst case? We learned something and spent time together. Even if the result is a disaster. And that's okay with me.

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And that wraps up our Honey-Do List insights for today! If you do DIY work with a spouse and have lived to tell about it, are you a good team? What do you bring to the duo that your significant other doesn’t, and vice versa? If DIY isn’t your thing, what do you and your honey team up to do? Go ahead and share, all you readers with “honey-do” lists of your own! :)

Be sure to visit Kelly on Wednesday for the #1 things we’ve learned about working with husbands, Michelle on Thursday for what home improvement would be like without a handy husband, and Carrie on Friday for what would happen if our husbands were given free reign to decorate our homes!