I am a DIY-er by nature with construction experience, I enjoy it, so when we wanted a bit more outdoor space, we moved from a suburban cul-de-sac to a slightly more rural property on some acreage, and chose an aged luxury home, feeling comfortable generally in my ability to be able to rehab it over time. After all, we're not in any sort of rush, and wanted the kids to experience putting work into the place where they live.

I misjudged the scale. Going from .5 acre to 10 I feel like the amount of time I spent on home and property maintenance before could all be allocated to just one bucket titled "nature." Mowing, whether it's lawn, meadows, trails, tree line, all on different schedules. Trees die, they fall, hang up. The volume of brush, invasive species, pulling it, burning it. When we bought it, I made a mental note: "we'll have to replace the driveway." That driveway is asphalt, and 1000 feet long. The quotes for that alone are in price territory of a luxury vehicle. Irrigation, 12 zones, repairing, winterizing. Septic is another ticking clock. When that goes, you're in for 5 digits. Don't have a suitable secondary location? Engineered system, multiply everything by like 3.

So remove that time from my schedule, that's what I have left for home improvement work.

We're deep into it and really enjoy aspects of it. But if I could talk to my pre-purchase self, I would advise that the scale difference is huge, and consider the amount of time that goes into baseline maintenance when deciding how much of a "fixer upper" to take on, especially when acreage is involved.

I think this really depends on your expectations. Let the driveway go to gravel. Only mow near near the house. Hardscape instead of 12 irrigation zones.

If you expect the whole place to be manicured like a city lot, yeah, that's a huge amount of work.

We maintain the areas around our house. The rest is just oak woodlands. Looks like nature because it is nature.

Unless you live in an HOA, theres no real value/use in maintaining your full lot. Just let it grow, or have landscapers come in a few times a year and keep things trimmed. Forget irrigation.

Hate to admit it but it is self imposed what you are doing. You don't actually need a brand new driveway. You don't have to manage all 10 acres. You can keep up a little half acre of it same as you used to, and let the rest go to woods and whatever wants to grow. Maybe you can get goats and chickens to help manage the brush. Or lease land to someone keeping goats and chickens.

> Septic is another ticking clock. When that goes, you're in for 5 digits.

But for the length they last it is less than my city sewer bill. Though if my septic fails I'll connect to the city system was the quote I got to do that was about what a new septic costs.