Renovation Nightmare

When Ben and Sara bought the old stone cottage in a quiet street in Adelaide, everyone told them they were brave. The house was almost a hundred years old. The roof leaked, the paint was peeling off the walls and the wooden floors moved under their feet like the deck of a ship. But it had a lemon tree in the garden and a wide veranda at the front, and the price was the lowest they had seen in two years of searching.

Neither of them knew anything about building. Ben was an accountant and Sara taught music at a primary school. Their plan was simple: they would have everything done by professionals. They would have the roof repaired before winter, have the walls painted in the autumn and get the floors replaced after Christmas. They made a spreadsheet. It had colors.

The first roofer they got to come was a cheerful man called Darren, who climbed up, walked around for ten minutes and came down shaking his head. He made them sign a contract that afternoon, took a deposit and promised to start on Monday. He started three Mondays later. He replaced some tiles, broke several others and left, saying he would be back for the rest. The next time it rained, water poured through the kitchen ceiling instead of the bedroom ceiling. Sara called it progress. Ben did not find this funny.

The painters were worse. They would not let anyone into the house while they worked, which seemed professional until Ben and Sara came home and found the living room painted bright orange. There had been a mix-up with the order, the painters explained, and anyway orange was "very fashionable at the moment". Having the walls repainted the right color cost almost as much as the first job. The floor company sent a man who measured every room twice and then ordered boards that were too short for all of them.

By February the spreadsheet was entirely red. Ben and Sara were sitting on the veranda one evening, surrounded by tins of paint they did not want, when their neighbor leaned over the fence. Mrs. Kowalski was eighty-two and had lived in the street for sixty years. She had watched every builder arrive and leave with great interest. "You two," she said, "are paying people to make your house worse. Come over tomorrow at eight. Bring gloves."

It turned out that Mrs. Kowalski and her late husband had built half of their own house themselves. Her garage was full of tools, all clean, all labeled, all at least forty years old. She did not ask Ben and Sara what they wanted to do; she told them. She made Ben hold the ladder while she pointed at the roof and explained exactly which tiles were cracked and why. She let Sara use her late husband's sander, but only after making her practice on an old door for a whole morning.

Over the next three months, they spent every weekend working under her direction. They learned how to replace a roof tile, how to fill a crack in a wall and how to lay a floorboard so that it did not move. Mrs. Kowalski never did the work for them. She sat in a plastic chair with a cup of tea and made comments. "Too much glue." "Not straight." "Better. Again." When they made a mistake, she made them do it again until it was right.

By the end of winter, the roof no longer leaked. The living room was a soft white. The floors in the bedroom were made of old boards that Mrs. Kowalski had been keeping in her garage "for the right people". They were not perfect, but they did not move.

Ben and Sara still have some jobs done by professionals. They got an electrician to check the wiring, because even Mrs. Kowalski said some things should be left to experts. But they check every quote with her first, and builders in the street have learned that if they want to work there, they need to get her approval.

Last week, a young couple bought the house across the road. It needs a new roof. Ben and Sara have already invited them over for tea, and Mrs. Kowalski has told them to bring gloves.