A few days after that sleepless night, I got an e-mail from a friend about someone we knew who had been diagnosed with cancer. It put our bathroom in perspective.

My husband and I planned more date nights to get out of the house, with its drop cloths. Fun evenings helped diffuse some of the stress.

Despite all the aggravation, we’re happy we did our bathrooms over. “Having said everything I said about the risks in redoing a bathroom,” Richardson says, “a bathroom is one of the most important investments you can make in a house.”

Lesson ten: When your bathroom is done, it may not be perfect. I could point out things in our beautiful new baths that I’d now do differently. But I’ll let them go. After all, each looks so much nicer than it did. And it’s just a bathroom.