Code and buildings have nothing in common. One is a malleable construct of our minds, while the other is an observable object, constructed of brick and mortar, amongst other things. Given that code and buildings have no similarities it is clear that we cannot apply metaphors from constructing a building to "constructing" a code base. Or so we thought.

Last year we each bought a house and started renovating it, while at the same time we renovated a legacy code base. It turns out that while construction of code and buildings is very different, renovating them has some surprising similarities.

In this experience report we'll show lots of pictures from our house renovation - full of torn down walls, replaced floors and the like - and draw analogies to our legacy code renovation. We'll share helpful tips for code renovation that can be understood by anyone due to the building analogies and hopefully entertain you along the way. By the end we hope that we've convinced you that renovating a legacy code base is a much nicer task than renovating a house, where each torn down wall can lead to brick and mortar raining down on your malleable head.