mom60- agree about the sense of purpose. I hear that again and again - find your purpose(s)/plan(s) before you retire so you are retiring to something.
I’m slowly going about that…and thinking that will inform, to great degree, some of the decisions re: location, size of home, type of home, etc.
My husband is like your friend’s dad - he gets a lot of fulfillment from fixing things and is quite good at it…
My H loves puttering around the yard and house and is very good at it as well. We lived in an apartment and at this time prefer our house with our yard.
My husband is the same… he needs a yard, just no lawn to mow. 
My husband fixes everything in the house. He just fixed the dryer, before that our rain shower, in fact since we moved in, we have not had to pay anybody to fix anything yet.
I need a big yard to plant things, so upsizing my yard is my preference, not so much the house. I have a very small yard though.
He might have liked our apartment in Munich. We were on the top level and had two huge terraces with built in window boxes. I grew vegetables on the one off the bedroom and flowers off the living room.
Two window boxes might not do, I’m afraid. His yard projects are more like landscaping projects… he likes to move dirt. 
No dirt moving around here. H seems content doing what he chooses in the yard and recently splurged on an electric lawn mower he seems quite pleased with. We are happy that we now have papayas, fresh ginger, rosemary, basil, chives, green onions, and bay leaves.
Sadly our avocado tree died but he’s trying to grow replacements.
We’re keeping our farm in the near future - just dividing our time. Our lawn mowing/gardening/walking around outside covering actual distance around our place will just be limited to the time we spend there. There’s not much of that going on in the winter anyway.
Love my retired hubby… but sure wish he had more interest in doing yard stuff. Cutting grass bothers his allergies (and mine), so we still hire out for that. Everything else is done by me, or occasionally at my suggestion when help is needed on pruning or leaves. It’s a small yard, so most of the work is optional / hobby. The nice thing is that he’ll cook dinner in summer evenings if I’m busy in the yard.
No grass here except the part that’s owned by the HOA and they take care of that. My husband also refuses to do any yard work, he’s a reluctant helper, I do them and get all the exercises. But I have become a rose collector, 130+ roses, so it’s hard to be living in a condo. During this pandemic, my yard has been my sanctuary, so that’s a healthy benefit.
Same here. DH actually likes to weed…but we have a huge lawn…and here hire folks to mow.
I do not get the “refuses to do any yard work” concept. There is not one yard task someone is willing to do? If not mowing grass, how about trimming bushes? Planting annuals? Spreading fertilizer or grass seed? Watering plants? Raking, snow blowing?
I really like some components of yard work and some I don’t love but it’s has to get done! I am the main mower and planter at our house. H will mow if I can’t and he’s good at trimming trees/bushes - which I will also do if I need to!
We have never hired out yard work and will have to be physically unable before we ever do. Am hoping in a new house soon that there is a little less to take care of than we have now since we have a big yard, but I’ll also embrace the opportunity to take care of our space as it provides me a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment since I spend so much time outside.
My husband will be glad to mow the grass, in fact he used to like doing that when we had a big yard, but we have no grass here. He does help when we had to dig up the whole palm tree or saw off a huge non producing fruit tree, but since I like to move plants around, I will be the one doing all the work. I’m ok with that since my husband does a lot of clean up after I cook, I make a big mess and he usually cleans up, fair division of labor. Plus he fixes everything in the house.
H likes tinkering as well as having a yard and working in it. The new place has a small yard (size of a townhouse yard where we live now). It will give him the space to do what he likes but not so much that it’s too much. Of course, D and SIL have offered their yard for additional space for him to work on!
I have never mowed a lawn in my entire life. 
I don’t like any aspect of yard work.
Dh did our mowing until Ds was old enough to do it and then that was his job. We outsourced it when he was probably a junior in high school and was busy with academics and extracurriculars.
My dh worked a LOT of hours. Hiring someone to do the yard work gave him more time to truly have down time.
I thought my hub enjoyed yard work (has a big, professional-grade riding mower, mows nearby public spaces, etc.). Then one time he said no, actually, he doesn’t look forward to doing that forever! I can still see him working on cars, fixing things indefinitely, though…
A big reason we’d want a yard is pets - miss our dogs; we’d like to have some in the future (that’s at least one aspect of ‘future plans’ we can def agree on!). While many apartments are pet friendly (particularly in the place I’d like to move!), thinking the dogs would just prefer their own open space (even if it not big).
Same here…plus DH could only do this on weekend days. If it rained, he couldn’t do it at all. The hired guys just come a different day.
DH has said….his goal when we eventually move is to leave the snowblower here for the next owners. That’s a job he does now…but he doesn’t intend to do it forever.
We already don’t have a lawn mower.
Some people love doing yard work/gardening. Others don’t. I enjoy cutting grass, but that’s about it. OTOH I love doing laundry…go figure.
I was the gardener in our household for most of our married life, including our big, hilly, PIA yard. I was also the winter snow person with our long steep driveway. I HATED it and I had no help. It was one of the primary reasons I wanted to move to a condo. My H was absolutely against that big of a downsize and wanted another house. Our agreement was that we would get a lawn service and he would do the snow blowing if we got a house.
Having someone else taking care of the maintenance has been life changing for me. It gives me time to do the fun stuff - maintaining the veggie garden, planting annuals, and doing the watering. It’s brought the joy back for me.
Every time my husband sees an ad or commercial for a lawn tractor, mini backhoe, or any such equipment, he starts talking about wanting one for the new house. The lot is just over 1 1/4 acres, so not huge but maybe big enough for him to play on. 