How a change order should work

Most construction grief is not theft. It is drift. A door moves. A wall grows a niche. Someone says yes in a hallway. Six weeks later the invoice feels like a betrayal and both sides are telling a true story about a different job.

The protocol

Describe the change. Price it. Approve it in writing. Then the field moves. Not the other way around. Verbal 'that's fine' is not authorization. Photographs of a sample on a tailgate are not a contract.

What this protects

You, from a bill you did not mean to buy. The crew, from building the wrong thing quickly. The relationship, from a last-month archaeology of memory.

We will still have changes. Houses are living decisions. The Keyline Method does not ban them. It makes them visible while they are still cheap.