Wife Spending Money

[Anonymous]

When a woman is pregnant OP - it is very common for her to go into nesting mode.

Try to be sympathetic.
She likely will not have the time, money or energy to do this in the near future so she is doing it all now.

Not unusual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Baby nesting instinct! Just do it! Anything to make her happy and make things more comfortable. Anything “annoying” now will create resentment later.

Well, nuts to that. If you use that rationale - it'll be her anxieties as a new mother or whatever, then you get to the catchall "happy wife, happy life" rationale. Accommodate her reasonable desires, but don't let her be an emotional terrorist just because she's pregnant and threatens to hold things against you later.

If OP’s anxiety is that the spending train will never stop, they need to have a serious discussion about that, not the backsplash. Otherwise it just looks like he’s squashing and minimizing her interests, which is not good. Perhaps they can come to common ground if they get to the root of the issue.

[Anonymous]

Just set a reasonable budget for kitchen update that you decide together. She doesn’t need to be importing tile from Italy. This can be done in a way you are both happy about

[Anonymous]

It's posts like this that make me thank my lucky stars to be divorced from my controlling husband.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardware and light fixtures are a great way to change the look of a kitchen very cheaply and you can do both yourself. If she can do the backsplash herself, it also won’t be much money. She sounds like she is spending a little money, but spending it wisely.

OP here. We will be hiring someone to do it because neither of us know how to it. We want it done right. I still think it’s very unnecessary. The kitchen is white with black hardware and light gray walls. She wants to change it to nickel and add a light gray backsplash. All of it will cost about 2k.

OMG...stop whining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardware and light fixtures are a great way to change the look of a kitchen very cheaply and you can do both yourself. If she can do the backsplash herself, it also won’t be much money. She sounds like she is spending a little money, but spending it wisely.

OP here. We will be hiring someone to do it because neither of us know how to it. We want it done right. I still think it’s very unnecessary. The kitchen is white with black hardware and light gray walls. She wants to change it to nickel and add a light gray backsplash. All of it will cost about 2k.

OMG...stop whining.

Actually he has a point. Those changes are pretty much the same color palate and look as currently have and nickel is already outdated. This IS a waste of 2k.

[Anonymous]

OP, this isn't some short-term rental you're staying in for a few months, this is your home. There nothing wrong with wanting your home to fit your tastes, or to want to change out finishes that you don't care for. When you refuse to let her make changes just because you don't think they are necessary (even though you can afford them), you are basically saying that it doesn't matter if this places really feels like home to her. She's not talking about gutting the kitchen, she wants to make light cosmetic changes to suit her tastes. Let her change the dang hardware and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardware and light fixtures are a great way to change the look of a kitchen very cheaply and you can do both yourself. If she can do the backsplash herself, it also won’t be much money. She sounds like she is spending a little money, but spending it wisely.

OP here. We will be hiring someone to do it because neither of us know how to it. We want it done right. I still think it’s very unnecessary. The kitchen is white with black hardware and light gray walls. She wants to change it to nickel and add a light gray backsplash. All of it will cost about 2k.

OMG...stop whining.

Actually he has a point. Those changes are pretty much the same color palate and look as currently have and nickel is already outdated. This IS a waste of 2k.

... and if he makes the money, he has a right to opine about how it is spent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardware and light fixtures are a great way to change the look of a kitchen very cheaply and you can do both yourself. If she can do the backsplash herself, it also won’t be much money. She sounds like she is spending a little money, but spending it wisely.

OP here. We will be hiring someone to do it because neither of us know how to it. We want it done right. I still think it’s very unnecessary. The kitchen is white with black hardware and light gray walls. She wants to change it to nickel and add a light gray backsplash. All of it will cost about 2k.

OMG...stop whining.

Actually he has a point. Those changes are pretty much the same color palate and look as currently have and nickel is already outdated. This IS a waste of 2k.

DP. Nickel is not outdated, and is far more timeless than black hardware.

[Anonymous]

The sky is blue, news at 11. Wife spends money - what did you think would happen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardware and light fixtures are a great way to change the look of a kitchen very cheaply and you can do both yourself. If she can do the backsplash herself, it also won’t be much money. She sounds like she is spending a little money, but spending it wisely.

OP here. We will be hiring someone to do it because neither of us know how to it. We want it done right. I still think it’s very unnecessary. The kitchen is white with black hardware and light gray walls. She wants to change it to nickel and add a light gray backsplash. All of it will cost about 2k.

OMG...stop whining.

Actually he has a point. Those changes are pretty much the same color palate and look as currently have and nickel is already outdated. This IS a waste of 2k.

... and if he makes the money, he has a right to opine about how it is spent.

She makes the money too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - your situation feels so familiar to me. My wife would start fixating on some house thing that "needed" done -- where I couldn't see that it would improve our quality of life at all. Part of it is just how I'm wired. The color of the walls is never, ever going to be something that makes me feel better or worse about life. But, she'd be restless until whatever change she wanted was made.

Ultimately, my main concern was the money. And it wasn't necessarily any given project. Any one thing individually was manageable. It had more to do with my anxiety that there was no end point -- and my wife never gave me the impression that she was paying any attention at all to the overall financial picture. She wants something. The check won't bounce. She buys something.

Over the years, we got better at budgeting. We should've done it much sooner. It also helped that the business she started eventually started pulling in a lot more money which took some pressure off of the finances.

Wrong. It may not improve *your* quality of life, but for many people, having a house that feels like home massively improves quality of life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - your situation feels so familiar to me. My wife would start fixating on some house thing that "needed" done -- where I couldn't see that it would improve our quality of life at all. Part of it is just how I'm wired. The color of the walls is never, ever going to be something that makes me feel better or worse about life. But, she'd be restless until whatever change she wanted was made.

Ultimately, my main concern was the money. And it wasn't necessarily any given project. Any one thing individually was manageable. It had more to do with my anxiety that there was no end point -- and my wife never gave me the impression that she was paying any attention at all to the overall financial picture. She wants something. The check won't bounce. She buys something.

Over the years, we got better at budgeting. We should've done it much sooner. It also helped that the business she started eventually started pulling in a lot more money which took some pressure off of the finances.

Wrong. It may not improve *your* quality of life, but for many people, having a house that feels like home massively improves quality of life.

Yeah - I just will never understand how a different color backsplash will make the slightest difference to anyone's life. Let alone $2,000 worth of difference. Now, if she was agitating for a more comfortable couch or a bigger TV, that I'd understand.

[Anonymous]

Maybe she should think of her child’s future re: the environment and not treat a perfectly functional kitchen as disposable? I wish all these “but I don’t like the COLOR!!! But it’s so DATED!!!” home renovation people could think beyond the end of their own nose. Stop trashing the planet, please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardware and light fixtures are a great way to change the look of a kitchen very cheaply and you can do both yourself. If she can do the backsplash herself, it also won’t be much money. She sounds like she is spending a little money, but spending it wisely.

OP here. We will be hiring someone to do it because neither of us know how to it. We want it done right. I still think it’s very unnecessary. The kitchen is white with black hardware and light gray walls. She wants to change it to nickel and add a light gray backsplash. All of it will cost about 2k.

OMG...stop whining.

Actually he has a point. Those changes are pretty much the same color palate and look as currently have and nickel is already outdated. This IS a waste of 2k.

DP. Nickel is not outdated, and is far more timeless than black hardware.

Timeless? What hardware did they use on their cabinets 3000 years ago?