When you build/renovate your own house, there are always little things that never seem to get done. Or there are jobs that were done once, but already need repair/re-painting/re-doing. It’s human nature, I think, to overlook the details, get used to deficiencies once the big-ticket items are done.
D has a few days’ holiday. We’ve already had a wonderful trip to New Zealand, so I suggested a ”One Hundred Little Things Challenge” to motivate both of us to get these niggling details attended to, before the call of the outdoor work ramps up with spring upon us.
I walked around the house, putting little sticky notes on everything that I subjectively determined was a “little” job. I came up with only 48.
Oh, there are lots of “big” projects that are still incomplete (or not-yet-begun). I’m just talkin’ ’bout those jobs that whisper away in the dark recesses of our (realistically, my) mind/s. When you build your own house, they are likely to never get done (unless you are preparing a house to sell, and we plan to die here, so that re-sale value motivation is absent.)
Here’s an example of one of those. We’ve been using a screwdriver to lock the garage door in the dining room. The handle and latch have been gathering dust in the corner, just waiting to be installed. Doug did it in about 20 minutes. Two jobs done! 
The carpenters had to cut a hole in the concrete floor for a heating vent. I’m not sure what went wrong with the concrete saw, but this is what resulted:
(BTW, the awkward cuts in the concrete floor could have been avoided if we had brought all our contractors/sub-trades together in a meeting near the beginning of the project. The heating contractor would have designed the metalwork and informed the carpenters that wall cavities were not wide enough to permit heating ducts, so they would need to form openings in the floor for the ducts, BEFORE the concrete was poured.)
I’ve been meaning to patch that for 2 years. Needless to say, it’s on my list. And, like many of the jobs on the list, it took more time to write about it than actually do it!
As each job gets completed, its little tag is put on a master list. That way, we can see our progress, and that helps to motivate, too.
I’ll update as the challenge proceeds.
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