A few weeks ago, I had a house full of contractors. The scope of the job was to remove the existing carpet in three rooms of the house and to install hardwood flooring. We planned the project way ahead of time and determined the budget for the job as well as the timeline. The time estimate was a week for the work.
Easy enough, right?
Day 1 – when removing the carpet in the living room we found water damage to the sub-floor that resulted in additional scope, budget, and time. A new subfloor would take additional materials and additional time, both resulting in more money. But it had to be done.
Day 2 – an important stakeholder, my husband, decided that since the baseboards are torn out while the work is in progress, it would be nice to replace them since they are old and littered with paint drops. This is another item that would require additional materials, time, and money.
Day 3-8 – the work continued. Various crises popped up (problems matching the stain, how to keep the cats off the steps while the polyurethane dried); all were quickly handled but added time to the schedule. In a blink of an eye (it seems) our 5-day job had almost doubled.
Day 9- we’re done! Floors look beautiful, the polyurethane has dried without kitty paw prints on it, the stain on the floors and baseboards match the other stains in the house and everyone is happy!
So what’s next?
It’s hard not to get caught up in the relief of finishing a project. It’s important to go back and identify what we could have done differently, what we could have improved, and what worked well. This is true even for home improvement tasks! These are arguably the most important projects we manage! We’ll be having a lessons learned session at home this weekend. 🙂
Have you had a similar experience?
Boy have I had a similar experience! I’ll be writing it up soon in janeslessonslearned.com, but for now I’ll tell you that my just-completed 3-month kitchen reno taught me that there are many approaches to project management, that construction timelines are very dependent on sequencing (aka critical path), and that building is a lot like cooking – some people like recipes/plans and some are happier winging it.
I love that PM skills used at work are transferrable to lots of home projects!
I’m impressed that you only had to double your original time estimate! My experience with building/renovation projects has been that my own estimate should be at least doubled to start with, usually tripled…
It is a sign of true humility to go back and look at what could have been done differently. I should do that more often in my home projects, but often I am so proud (and happy to be alive) when I finish a home project that I don’t even think about that. Thanks for the post.