I don't know how it is for other renovators but now that my project is coming to an end one thing has become clear: planning can be a waste of time.
About a month before my contractor and his men started demolishing walls, I spent weekends fine-tuning ideas for the house. Keith and Will, my patient architects, helped put on paper a staircase, rooms, tile patterns, lights, furniture, electrical sockets and more. They even asked whether I needed a plug beneath my dining table for hot-pot gatherings.
At HK$500 a socket, the costs multiplied as I tried to envisage where best to place electrical equipment, what my vacuuming habits might be, how many lamps were necessary, and even the best places for mosquito zappers. However, like my packing habits when I'm heading for unknown lands, I overestimated what was necessary. Worse, I didn't check the plugs would be situated where they could be reached.
As a result, two of the four sockets behind a desk are hidden by drawers, the outlet in the living room is not accessible because no one measured the legs of the armoire in front of it, and the power point on my bookshelf is unused. The CD player/radio for which it was intended picks up so much static there the cat would resemble Tina Turner's wig if she were to walk past.
Some of the problems have been the fault of my contractor, Joe, who, I think, scans what has taken my architects hours to perfect, then files the drawings in the boot of his car. This morning I discovered that sketches detailing how electrical wiring would be hidden beneath my work desk had been disregarded.
'Where's the panel to conceal the spaghetti?' I asked. 'You want a door under your desk?' he asked. That discussion went no further.