Scope Creep

If there's one thing that Don and I are really good at, it's scope creep. As in, you start with a minor, easy, inexpesive, short, simple construction project. Then, you slowly but surely improve your project until it's difficult, expensive, lengthy, and complicated! Oh, and better. Much better.

Now, to be honest, I am the one who is usual guilty of coming up with the brilliant ideas that add to the scope creep. Don, who wants nothing more than to make me happy, and who is capable of just about anything construction-wise, always manages to make my ideas actually happen.

This is our new living area, in the suite that Don and Waneta recently vacated. They had the windows replaced a year ago, but never finished the sheetrock because they didn't want to put up with the construction mess. Who could blame them?

So, Don and I started out with this list of what we had to do to finish this room: tape and mud the sheetrock, sand, prime, paint. Voila!

Until I decided that it would be cool to get a flat-screen tv and hang it on the wall, making this the boys' ultimate hang-out room. I asked Don to remove several windows on one wall and turn that into a real wall. It was Don's idea to build a little nook in the wall for the t.v. and components to sit in, so they wouldn't take up any space in the little room.

We decided to get a small big t.v. to keep the expenses down, etc. We decided 32 inch. The boys are used to a 27 inch t.v., so we figured that was plenty big. But there was scope creep there, too. Yesterday Don went into town around noon. At four, I started getting nervous and suspicious. Sure enough, he came home all sheepish with a 42-inch t.v. from Costco. Apparently a great deal, not that he would tell me the price, but I'm thinking it was considerably more than the 32-inch.

We'll be working on this house forever.