8. We're not rich, but we wouldn't do anything else. If you decide to tackle a large remodel, odds are you'll be surprised at how much it costs. It is going to be more expensive than you originally guessed — possibly two or three times as much. When you are writing checks for $20,000 at a time, you will be tempted to think that building can't possibly cost this much and your contractor must be pocketing huge sums and outfitting the pool cabanas at his or her private island retreat with big-screen TVs. A legitimate contractor pays huge sums in overhead costs that are hard to imagine if you've never shopped for liability insurance in a line of work where people routinely wield spinning blades and guns that shoot nails. We make enough money to keep us coming back for more, but if it wasn't fun, we wouldn't do it.