I haven’t written about it yet, but we’ve embarked on a bathroom remodeling project. Demolition started on the Monday before Christmas, and from then until now we’ve had a gaping hole where our only full bathroom used to sit. So far I’m pretty pleased with the process and amused to see how home remodeling project work resembles software project work. Such as:

• No matter how much you think you know after your initial assessment, you don’t know the real story until after you start. We had hoped to move the toilet a bit, and that seemed possible until we demolished the floor and the plumber got a look. We could move it, but we’d have to raise the floor a couple of inches to provide adequate pitch in the new pipe run. Hey, I know it’s a throne, but we don’t need a dais.
• The sooner you find your mistakes, the cheaper they are to fix. Today the GC was framing the floor and managed to drive a couple of nails through the radiator pipe – and he said the nail gun was just set to “stun.” Fortunately he thought about that after he had laid some cement but before he placed and nailed the plywood. The plumber’s here fixing it as I write this. I’m sure glad we caught that before we laid tile.

Anyway, I’m so far very pleased with the contractors – they communicate well, they show up when they say they will, and they admit their mistakes and make them right. We should all do that well.