A home does not need to be finished before people can make good memories inside it.

Waiting for a house to be ready is a way of postponing your own life in it. There is always another room, another repair, another thing you would rather not have anyone see. Meanwhile the years that could have been spent filling the place with people go by, and the finished version, when it arrives, has no more warmth than the unfinished one.

Invite someone over before the work is done. Apologize once, briefly, or not at all, and then let the evening be about the food and the talk. Most guests remember whether they felt welcome and almost none remember the state of the hallway.