Lessons Learned: The Perils of Perfectionism in Home Renovation

Photo by Blue Bird: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-painting-the-wall-with-a-roller-brush-7218683/

My apartment was in dire need of a fresh coat of paint. It had been several years since I last tackled the job, and the walls bore the marks of a well-lived-in home. This time around, I saw an opportunity not just to refresh the walls but to teach my son a valuable life skill: how to paint a wall. It wasn't a daunting task, but I knew it would challenge him, as painting wasn't exactly his forte. I hoped that through the process, he would gain confidence and the satisfaction of completing a task with his own hands.

However, things didn’t go quite as planned. As the deadline loomed closer, my son had to shift his focus to a project that played to his strengths, something I wasn’t equipped to help with. So, I took over the painting. It seemed like a simple enough task, but little did I know, this would become a lesson for me.

When I first surveyed his work, I noticed the telltale signs of a beginner’s hand: uneven strokes, missed spots, and an overall slower pace than I had anticipated. But that wasn’t the real challenge. The real challenge was the prep work I had assigned him—covering scratches, filling holes, and sanding the walls smooth.

As I began inspecting his work, I found a few scratches he had overlooked. Then I found more. The more I looked, the more imperfections I discovered. Soon, I wasn’t just fixing his mistakes—I was scrutinising every inch of the wall, sanding and re-sanding, trying to achieve a flawless surface.

It wasn’t long before I caught myself. I glanced at another wall, one that I had painted nearly a decade ago. To my surprise, it was far from perfect, yet it had never bothered me until now. I realised I was falling into the same trap my husband, the most meticulous craftsman I know, often fell into. We used to joke about his perfectionism, sometimes even hiring professionals to avoid his endless revisions. Yet here I was, obsessing over every tiny flaw.

This experience reminded me of an important truth: there are better-painted walls and less professional ones, but no wall is ever truly perfect. In reality, most of these walls would soon be covered by furniture, artwork, and shelves. The quest for perfection was not only unnecessary but was also a waste of time and energy.

Had this been a job for someone else, with a firm deadline and clear expectations, I would never have allowed myself to get lost in such minute details. So why did it happen here?

The answer lies in human nature. The more knowledge and skill we acquire, the more we strive to improve, sometimes endlessly. In professional settings, we gauge our efforts against the value we receive in return—usually money or recognition—keeping us in check. But when we’re working on something for our own satisfaction, we can easily lose sight of what’s truly important and spend hours on unnecessary efforts.

This lesson, learned while painting my apartment, extends beyond just home renovation. It’s a reminder that perfectionism, when untethered from practical considerations, can lead us astray, consuming our time and energy in pursuit of an unattainable ideal. Sometimes, good enough really is good enough.

For those who feel a natural impulse towards perfectionism, it’s important to channel that drive in a productive way. One effective strategy is to set clear deadlines for your projects, allowing yourself a fixed amount of time to reach a satisfactory level of completion. While it might be impossible to completely suppress the desire for perfection, you can manage it by scaling your efforts. Deliver results that are "good enough" by your set deadline, and then, if necessary, allow yourself the opportunity to refine and improve in later iterations. This approach, common in software development under the mantra "release early," recognises that initial imperfections can always be improved upon in future versions. By embracing this mindset, you can avoid getting bogged down in unnecessary details while still allowing space for growth and improvement over time.

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