We had to move home. It’s never fun, is it? So we decided to minimise the stress by finding somewhere close. We bought an apartment 15 metres up the hallway. The new abode was, in real estate agent parlance, a renovator’s dream. Or, as others pointed out, parts of it resembled a public toilet. It needed a serious spruce and we had five months to do it. I knew moving and renovating, while working and parenting, would be challenging (it was). But surely there was plenty of time and there’d be many eager tradespeople ready to help us transform the…