There are a couple things that have surprised me about our home renovation. The first one I was told about but it still seems over the top, and that’s how many changes there would be and how much more it would cost than expected. Surprise ducts and vents in walls that need moving, deciding to add more flooring up our steps, buying new furniture. All these things add up to blow up our budget expectations.

The other surprise is the small decisions to make, like where do you put light switches? Where to put the thermostat, that was on the wall that we removed? Where to put the door bell? For this last question, the builder was surprised when I said, “Put it in the front hall closet.”

“IN the closet?”

“Yes, put it high up, out of the way and out of sight in the closet.”

Our doorbell is loud, it’s old and ugly, and we don’t need to see it. We’ll still hear it in the closet, and we won’t have to look at a big ugly box designed in the 60’s, or waste money replacing it.

I don’t think that’s a request our project manager heard before, but he didn’t need a lot of convincing. It was an easy ask and a decision that doesn’t cost us anything… it has to be put somewhere. Why not put it out of sight, and out of mind, and when it rings it might sound a little muffled, but we’ll still know what we are hearing and what it means. We don’t need to see it.