We returned to the USA from our first European leg, with the intention to help a friend prepare for the sale of her house. I think we got there.

Initially full of energy, we put together an Agile project plan, and agreed to have daily stand ups over coffee.

Around the end of the second week we lost focus, and started doing unplanned work (like spending five days finishing the master bathroom, which involved a lot of floor work, which in turn resulted in some nerve damage... more on this later).

By the end of the third week of work we realised that we were not going to get big parts of the project completed. This resulted in two poor decisions being made. The first was that we no longer stopped working when we agreed we should (five PM) and the second was that we didn’t take our weekends off. After working for three weeks without a proper break, we were struggling (pothole physically and mentally). Lessons learnt: follow the plan, take breaks to improve patience and productivity, make time for your lover, and communicate very clearly with the others on your team.

After working hard for three weeks, I started getting numbness in my fingers. This got progressively worse as I continued working (ignoring symptoms is a special kind of stupid) and I ended up with numbness in most of my hands. This caused eBeth quite a lot of worry and guilt, as we were pushing for things to be completed right up to Christmas (where we only worked a half day of six hours!).

As I write this, we have spend 10 days with Aine and Steve in Canada. We spent a lovely 4 days in a log cabin in Penetanguishene (AirBnB), and more time in Simcoe. My right hand is back to normal, but I still have some numbness in my left hand (resulting in a lot of fumble fingers!).

We are heading back to Greencastle (Pennsylvania, USA) for the last four days of our second North American Tour 2018/19. I’m hoping to stay focused on getting a short list of important work done, sorting out what we are taking with us for our trip through the UK and Thailand, and what will be shipped back to Australia separately (and what will be tossed out, looking at you, stinky hiking boots and painting clothes).

Personally, I have really enjoyed some aspects of the project (I have many new skills, understand the critical importance of balancing time off vs staying on track in a project, and taking time to acknowledge achievements and milestones). If I could rewind time for a do-over, I would still take on the additional work we did, but would make more of an effort to minimise the time spent on the additional work so that we still had weekends off).

With some luck, the work we have done at the house will result in a quick and fair sale of the house so that our friend can make some decisions about the next phase of he life (be that downsizing or moving back to Australia).

Work completed:
Master bedroom (laminated flooring, painted, skirting boards, install floating ceiling, install new door and door fame, paint and install closet doors).

Master bathroom (finish plastering, install new flooring, fit vinyl tiles, painting walls, cut and install skirting boards, repair toilet (decalcify and fix leaks), install floating ceiling, repaint wash basins, install new light and switch, cut down and paint bathroom door).

Upstairs hallway (laminated flooring, skirting boards, painting, sand and stain staircase sill).

Family bathroom (fit vinyl tiles, painted, skirting boards, repair toilet (decalcify and fix leaks), floating ceiling, repaint wash basin, install new light panel in floating ceiling).

Staircase (clean, sand and apply 3 layers of lacquer to steps, clean risers of paint, fit Newels, cut and fit handrail, paint cut and fit balusters, paint walls).

Entryway (laminated flooring, skirting boards, paint walls and ceiling, paint void above stairs, new doorframe and loads of chalk to stop air leaks, repair dry rot around entryway, replace crumbling drywall).

Lounge room (sand, reseal and repaint bay window, laminated flooring, and custom laminated stairs, fit stair nosing, install skirting boards, plaster over fireplace hole in ceiling, paint walls and ceiling, replace missing crown moulding, install new down lights).

Dining room (repair popcorn ceiling, repair plaster walls around rear doorway, paint ceiling and walls, cleaned and install crown moulding, install new down lights).

By the time we leave the USA, we would have spent just shy of six weeks on the project.