I never expected to be a house flipper. But I turned into one when we had to gut and renovate our 1920s house after an epic flood last summer while we were in the middle of selling it.

One sunny afternoon last July, I opened the back door to discover it was raining inside. Water was pouring out of light fixtures, cascading down freshly painted walls, pooling on the brand-new carpet in the basement playroom.

We had just accepted an offer on the house, and now it looked like a crime scene.

We had painted almost every room, replaced part of the kitchen, put in new flooring and more to get the house on the market, and all that work was ruined. Strangely, this was the second time we had nearly sold the house, and we had the sense that it was clinging to us, like a boyfriend you keep breaking up with who begs you to take him back — and then self-destructs so horrifyingly that you cannot dump him.

Selling a house, dealing with a disaster and going through a whole-house renovation can all be stressful. We signed up for only the first, but quickly found ourselves swept into all three at once.