Decision log & final review

What you decided, why it works for the brief, the evidence behind it, and how sure you are. Then the final review, and a look back after the change.

Decision log

The rationale is the column that matters: three or four sentences a stranger could follow, written from the brief (which includes what you like) and the observations. Evidence names the sample rows and light-log entries that back the decision. Status: confirmed means real paint or the actual item was seen in the room beside the main fixed things, once in daylight and once at the hours the room is mostly used, with a line or two noted, and chosen (more days, weathers and walls are optional depth for hard or costly choices); provisional means on the list for a reason (liking it counts), with the looks still missing named; unresolved means a written question with a plan and a date.

Final review checklist

Four headings, shown as tags on each item. The checklist asks whether you observed, whether your choices follow from your own brief, whether you can explain them, and whether the plan is complete; it does not ask whether you followed any decorating convention, and a choice that departs from one with a reason passes. Tick only what is true today; what you cannot tick is the next phase's first work, and the notes column is where you say what is missing. Use the buttons to show one heading at a time.

Post-implementation review

Two dates after each change: two weeks (what is simply wrong) and three months (what you have adapted to, for better or worse). What you write here feeds the next phase: the light log, the adjacent-room review, and the budget's "actual" column.

How to use this sheet

• One row per decision, including the decisions not to change. "Kitchen stays as it is" is a decision with a rationale; the next reader should know it was made on purpose.
• Write the rationale for a stranger. Name what the fixed elements asked for, what the brief wanted, which direction was chosen and why, and what is still open. The test: could your future self, or a housemate, defend this choice from the brief and the observations without you present?
• Point the evidence at real rows. "Samples: living-room rows 2 and 3; light log: 9 to 12 October, evenings" is evidence. "Looked at it a lot" is not.
• Add one row per sightline from the adjacent-room review. Module 11's review produces a decision for each pair of rooms seen together: the repeat is present or not, the thresholds work or not, the trim agrees or not, with a status.
• Set the status from the evidence, not from confidence. A decision cannot be more confirmed than the sample row behind it. If the sample was only seen at noon and the room is used at night, the row is provisional and the revisit date is the next evening.
• Use "agreed by" when the home is shared. Both names, or one name and a note that the other holds it provisional. A rationale is not finished until everyone who lives with the result has read it.
• Revisit dates are promises. Put them in the calendar. An unresolved row with no date is a shrug; with a date it is scheduled work.
• Run the checklist at the end of the capstone and again after each phase. The items you cannot tick are not failures; they are the list of what to observe next.