> Kubernetes is Too Hard. I built a system that I didn't actually know how to maintain without the time or energy necessary to dig myself out of trouble.

Couldn't agree more. Unless your homelab's point is to learn Kubernetes, just keep it simple. Proxmox sounds good, or just QEMU, libvirt, lxc, Docker, podman, whatever. Install packages, not containers where possible. Shell scripts are fine where needed. If it works for you, that's it, end of discussion, don't spend time on "pretty" if it's not the thing you want to get into / enjoy / learn.

(My "thing" is networking, I can assure you my homenet is beautiful. Couldn't give a rat's ass how & where my paperless is running tho. It runs. Done.)