It was a blast. My wife made most of the design choices, which was cool with me, we generally have similar tastes, and I was enjoying learning how to use tools, and fix things properly. It was like a college degree in house renovation.

Most of the time it didn’t feel much like work, except for that one room that had five layers of wallpaper, with several layers of paint between them, and wallpaper on the ceiling with several layer above that. Scraping all that garbage off the walls and ceiling was one of the most unpleasant jobs I’ve ever done. Once it was all stripped, though, the rest seemed easy.

I considered becoming a Flipper, long before that was a thing. I wish I had done it.