When the Contractor Becomes the Client

A 1968 house. Seven months. This time, I was on the other side of the clipboard.

By Jeremy Kelley

Our finished kitchen. Getting here involved a few more decisions than this picture lets on.

After more than two decades remodeling other people’s homes, I figured I had a pretty good idea of what my wife and I were getting into.

And I did. But explaining a remodel to someone else and going through your own are two very different things.

Our team at Rick Kelley Builders spent seven months remodeling our 1968 house from top to bottom. We stayed in our former home during construction and moved in once the work was complete. We avoided living in the dust. The decisions, surprises, and occasional spirited husband-and-wife discussion came with us anyway.

We did the whole thing.

This was not a “swap the countertops and paint a wall” kind of project. The kitchen got a new layout, cabinetry, appliances, lighting, and finishes. We remodeled the bathrooms, moved walls, replaced trim and doors, and added custom closets.

Downstairs, we finished the basement with a wet bar, full bathroom, media room, and office. We also added a smart-home system with security cameras.

At this point, I can control the lighting, temperature, security, and more from my iPhone. Which is great… until my wife asks why the lights just turned off while she’s reading. Still working out the rules on who controls what.

Knowing the schedule doesn’t make it feel faster.

If you’re planning a whole-house remodel and have the option to stay somewhere else, I can recommend it. We were very glad we did.

Even so, being both the contractor and the client was a strange experience. One part of me understood exactly why something took time. The other part was thinking, “Wait… why isn’t this done yet?”

Both of those people were me.

There were hundreds of decisions, budget considerations, scheduling dominoes, and the occasional swing from “This is amazing” to “What have we done?” Apparently, knowing how remodeling works does not exempt you from having feelings about your own house.

The marriage test.

My wife has great taste and strong instincts about what she likes. She knew how she wanted our home to feel. I tend to think in plans, measurements, and details. Those are not always the same language.

“I don’t know exactly what I want. I’ll know it when I see it.”

That’s not a contractor’s favorite sentence. Especially when you’re married to the person saying it.

So we drew. We sketched. We revised. We used blue painter’s tape to lay out walls, cabinets, and furniture on the floors so we could walk through an idea before committing to it. There were paint samples, lighting tests, finish options, and more conversations.

Sometimes I needed to explain an idea differently. Sometimes I needed to stop explaining and listen. Eventually, we got to spaces that felt like us.

The kitchen island, after the drawings, samples, and blue painter’s tape.

Avery’s Flying Bathtub.

During demolition, we opened the living-room ceiling and found a major floor joist that had been treated like Swiss cheese. Old mechanical work had left so many large holes close together that the joist had snapped.

It was directly under our daughter Avery’s new bathroom.

For about a week, I joked that a relaxing bubble bath could have turned into an unexpected visit to the living room. “Avery’s Flying Bathtub” became the name.

We reinforced the structure, corrected the problem, and moved forward safely. The repair was permanent. Unfortunately, so was the nickname.

Those are the parts of remodeling that don’t make the pretty photos. Opening an older house means finding out what’s been hiding behind the walls. Experience helps you figure out what to do next.

Then we had to move.

You’d think staying out of the house during construction would make moving easy.

It does not.

Does this belong in the new house? Will it fit? Why do we own so many cords? We found things we hadn’t seen in decades, including things we were pretty sure we had already thrown away.

Boxes multiplied. Labels became suggestions.

Then came the excitement of moving into our finished home, immediately followed by being very aware that every wall and floor was newly finished.

If remodeling is the marathon, moving is the finish line… followed immediately by someone handing you a heavy box and saying, “One more thing.”

A word about our crew. And our neighbors.

Watching our team work on our own house gave me a different view of the things I already value: the care in the details, a clean jobsite, and respect for the home and neighborhood. I’m proud of the people who did this work.

And to our neighbors: thank you for putting up with the trucks, the noise, and the months of construction. We appreciate your patience. We’re very happy to finally be living here.

Home, at last. The house is finished. The boxes were another project.

What I brought back to work.

We’re moved in now, and we love our home. I’m very happy to be looking at the finished photos instead of another round of samples.

I’ve always known clients have questions. After seven months on the other side, I have a better understanding of what’s behind them. Sometimes you need a schedule update. Sometimes you just need to know the person running the job has a handle on it.

That’s what I brought back to work: a little more patience, a better sense of when to check in, and firsthand proof that contractors can worry about their own houses, too.

If you’d like to see more of the finished rooms, I’ve put the photos together on our own-rebuild page.

See our finished home

Thinking about your own remodel? I’d be happy to talk through your ideas, your questions, and what to expect. I now have a few more stories to go with the answers.

Let’s talk about your home