The Things I Like About The Home Remodel:

In decreasing order of importance and need:

1. The complete tearing down of the downstairs/master bathroom.  I will spare the sink, which was tiny and had a very old faucet because it still worked and worked well.  And yes, the wallpaper took you back to the 70's, but hey, it's just wallpaper.  But everything else had to go.  If I had to start somewhere, it'd be the shower.  Father tried to redo the shower walls about a decade ago but the linoleum either buckled or he installed too much because it didn't fit right up against the wall.  Plus the shower was so old the bottom was beginning to rust.  And, it just had a curtain, letting all the water seep out through the bottom.  That's fixed with a glass door in the brand-new shower.  Then there is the leaking pipes above the ceiling.  They tore the whole bathroom down to the studs, probably in order to find where and how big the leak is.  It's been there a long time; whenever a faucet from the kitchen or upstairs bathroom has been running a long time, after it's shut off you can still hear drops coming from inside the walls or ceiling.  And for a long time those drops eventually started to warp the ceiling of the master bathroom.  It was so bad, for years My Father placed a metal bowl where there were drips coming down from the ceiling.  I don't think there was a constant drip-drip, but if there were, I think it was where he put it, all those years ago.  I know they stopped the water in order to change a pipe somewhere, and that was long over due.  Then there was the toilet, which never flushed completely; the water would just bubble and gurgle, then maybe it would flush in that ba-whoosh! sort of way where it would all evacuate through the bowl.  Plus it always seemed to be running.  And finally, the floor.  I usually don't think floors need updating, but when it's cracked from all the shower water runoff it's absorbed, maybe it can go.  I wondered why they did the upstairs bathroom first since that was perfectly good and the downstairs one was in such bad shape.  At least they got to both, and now the floor, the guts, the toilet and the shower all work splendidly.
2. The overhaul of the kitchen sink and its pipes.  I have mentioned that the entire kitchen has been redone.  And it looks great, don't get me wrong.  But even though you were stuck in a time warp whenever you prepared food, the formica countertop still, you know, worked.  What didn't work was the sink.  Well, it did work, as in you opened up the spigot and water came out.  But it too had a leaky pipe.  Also, Father kind of did a number on it many years ago when trying to take out the sink system and figure out where the leak was coming from.  He bollixed the re-installation and resorted to re-caulking the whole damn thing with, like, two whole tubes.  You should have seen it; what we used as a backsplash was instead a large, hardened, shitty-looking tan mass of caulk that was smeared by someone both blind and drunk.  It looked ghastly; so ghastly, in fact, that this was the only time I thought a fixture around the house had to be replaced only because it looked terrible.  Now, there was that matter of a leak, too, and fortunately the contractors got to the bottom of that when they ripped out all the cabinets.  The new sink, wider and deeper, looks great, but more important than that, there is no dripping after you turn off the faucet and there's no dried caulk that makes the appliance looks like trailer trash.
3. The tearing down of the side fences.  This is news to me.  And this started ... um, let's see ... when I was helping Father dig up the backyard to make way for my parents' garden it was still there on Saturday, and I think I noticed the fences were torn down after I came home from work and thinking, "Well, at least this makes it easier for me to take out the recycling bin tomorrow" on Tuesday, so between Saturday and Tuesday.  (Guess I should have written the exact day down.)  Well, let's see ... Tuesday morning I think was the day the city tore up our driveway for some fucking reason, and I think the fences down by then.  So I'm guessing it happened either Sunday or Monday, and I'm leaning toward Monday.  Anyway, I had never thought putting up the fences was necessary; when Father put them up they were the highest (and thus most hostile) fences in the neighborhood.  Since then I have seen many fences like that in the neighborhood -- none as high, but most have that same "don't fucking even come close to our house" message.  But the doors of both fences weren't flush and didn't close properly, so we had to use cinder blocks to secure them shut.  And the one to the right was very loose; several years ago that door tore off its hinges and Father and I had to spend an afternoon trying to nail it back on, and it was still uneven against the other door.  So, although I've come to understand the security features, those fences were coming apart.  Besides, all somebody had to do was move the cinder blocks (no one would be able to hear) to get into our backyard.  I just don't know if the contractor who's redoing the fences -- the same one that took what seemed like years (complete with not one but two sabbaticals) to finally renovate the master bathroom -- will be coming around when my parents are away and I'm at work to finish the job.

And I think those are all the good things about the remodel.  Now, soon I will list all the bad things.  Trust me, it'll be both longer and more impassioned.