Installed the handrail twice, after arguing about it once

Did a full gut on a three bedroom for a guy who was going into the program with it for the first time. Kitchen, bath, all the flooring, new panel because the old one was a mess. Good job. I was proud of it.

He'd told me from the start the plan was a voucher tenant. Somewhere in the middle of the job he asked whether I could skip the handrail on the four steps down to the basement, because the tread was wide and he thought it looked better open. I said I'd rather put it in. We went back and forth. I put it in.

Inspection came. Passed the handrail. Failed on the back stoop, which had three steps and no rail, and which neither of us had thought about once because it wasn't part of the scope. It had been there since before he bought the house and it never crossed either of our minds that it was a step count that mattered.

So I went back and built a second handrail on a set of stairs I'd never bid, for free, because I'd been the one who told him I knew what the inspection looked for.

That's the part that annoyed me for a week. I knew the rule. I applied it to the stairs I was working on and not to the stairs I was walking past every day carrying tools. Now on any job where the owner mentions the program I do one lap of the whole exterior before I write the scope. Takes five minutes and I've caught something on three of the last four.