Now It Makes Sense! – What the Green Monster Taught Me About Risk Management

We decided recently to sell our home. Not quite sure if we had missed the buying and selling craze of this past year where both home inventory and interest rates were still low and prices were climbing sky high, we called our realtors and invited them to a chat. They had been over a couple years ago but at that point we backed off. This time, we liked what they had to say and agreed on both deciding to list and on setting what looked like a good offering price. Before they left, the open house weekend was tentatively planned for a couple weeks away. We had some work to do to get ready!

The realtors returned to finalize the plan, sign the listing agreement, and take listing photographs. During the in-between week there was discussion about the outdatedness of our ensuite primary bath. It was outdated when we moved in over nine years prior and still was. Outdated is being very kind. Hideous is a more appropriate word. To each their own, of course, but this bath has never been on my “I like” list. Imagine hundreds of square feet of 1990 hunter green 2” square and hunter green 1” octagonal tiles, EVERYWHERE, including in the shower that could easily accommodate a kid’s hockey team. Spacious and hideous. We had learned over time to affectionately refer to it as The Green Monster but I had less love and more hate for this space in my otherwise well-loved home.

The realtors made a slight – maybe huge – mistake of mentioning that a little touch up of The Green Monster could help us fetch an offer close to asking but on the other hand, maybe don’t bother because “you have a great house, people are shopping for location and the myriad possibilities your house has to offer, yada yada yada.”

To me, “a little touch up” for this big old eyesore feels like sticking some duct tape on a totaled car. At this point in the meeting my wife is seeing dollar signs, bidding wars, and over-ask offers and is hearing “don’t do a thing” to the G.M. Concurrently, in my head I am building supplies purchase lists and estimating work hours so we can give this space a solid makeover, terrified we’ll get a bunch of low ball offers if we instead do nothing. Work that, if commissioned, needs to be entirely complete within 5 calendar days for the Open House. Oh, and there is only one partially available resource to do this work, during evening and night hours. What on Earth am I thinking?!

My wife and the Realtors all used worse phraseology than “what on Earth are you thinking.” There might have been even more harsh words but I’m not sure. I spotted a few icy glaring stares pointed at me. Yet, I remained undeterred and resolute. I love a challenge and I do enjoy home improvement tasks. So, I somehow managed to get everyone on board enough to kick off the project. Alone. They all wanted NOTHING to do this. They were not onboard and readying the “I told you so” speeches. This is NOT a good way to manage these key stakeholders and there could be some pain coming from this quick and dirty plan. But the wife wants top dollar, so onward I go!

At this point where I’m sharing with you, a little gloating lingers. Thankfully I’m the one gloating and not anyone else, because we would know how this ends! I’m happy to say the story ends well. By the Open House there was no longer a Green Monster within these four walls. Our home sold within two days, everyone was thrilled, a sweet young newlywed couple had found their dream home and we embarked on the next chapter of our lives.

Oh, but those five days were painful, very painful, and terrifying. Seemingly impossible at least once every single one of the five days. I used up every single day, down to the wire. And yes, it was always around one o’clock in the morning where possibly insurmountable issues would arise. And no project team members with whom to troubleshoot and mitigate. I asked myself so many times, what the heck were you thinking?! And I panicked, and I was certain I would be getting divorced very quickly over this project. That’s how serious some of the issues that cropped up appeared to be at various points in time.

In the excitement of the moment where I first committed to makeover the bathroom, I did not take even a few moments to fully appreciate the risks. This is a not a new home. When you start tearing things apart it’s very important to expect the unexpected and plan for it. Instead, I jumped off the deep end and didn’t analyze the risk and therefore did not have mitigation or contingency built in. The Open House was going to happen, regardless.

When a couple of seemingly major issues showed up, in the middle of the work, I was already at the point of no return. There was no option to fall back to pre-refresh state. If I could not resolve to satisfaction these issues, I was dead in the water. We would never get a good offer, and we would have lost untold amounts of money in any offer we would receive. Maybe we couldn’t even get to market and would have to delay the Open House.

Why am I telling this story? Risk planning matters. Hence this blog’s title – now it makes sense in real terms to me! All that stress and terror could have been avoided if I had made sure to understand what I could be up against and understand in advance to the best of my ability what my options would be if – no, when – issues occurred. Such an exercise might have justifiably prevented me from undertaking the project all together if I realized before demo that the total risk was just too great.

Starting the makeover:

After the makeover:

Maybe a buyer would have loved the house with the Green Monster as-is – probably not, but maybe – and I could have left it all well and good. For that we’ll never know. But I sure did learn my lesson on this one! I think I would enjoy doing it all again if given the opportunity. But I’d be sure to do a lot more upfront planning. Risk planning won’t prevent most of the issues that might arise, but at least I’ll have plans to deal with it.

Now, moving on to sort out my packing and moving plan…