PSA: That 'simple' stair repair in a 1920s bungalow took me 8 hours, not 2.
The original tack strips were set in plaster and the risers were all out of square by a full inch, so every piece had to be scribed and hand-cut. Has anyone else run into a hidden nightmare like that on what looked like a quick fix?
Honestly eight hours sounds pretty standard for that kind of work. If you buy a 1920s house you should expect nothing to be square or simple. That's just part of the deal and not really a hidden nightmare, it's the obvious cost of old charm. A quick fix on a century old structure is a fantasy from the start.