Sandbags & Glad Rags: Living In Your Home During Your Big Renovation

Once the ball is rolling, and you finally signed an agreement with the contractor and sifted through every single aspect of how you want every room to look, it’s time to start renovating the property. But the big question arises, do you decide to stay in the property during the process, or should you move out during this big renovation project?

The budget-conscious among you would argue that renovating for cheap is the priority here, and so it is vital for you to stay in your property, especially if you are trying to do it with a keen eye on your finances. But does this have a big impact on your personal life? The safety aspect is the big thing to think about here, and if you decide to stay at home with the various bags of cement, rubble, and a severe lack of coffee making facilities, you need to do a few simple things to save your sanity…

Set Out A Construction Schedule

Working with contractors can be difficult at the best of times, so if you pre-plan a construction schedule in the first place, this will ensure that you get the space you need throughout the whole process.

Keep Children And Pets Away From Danger Zones

This is common sense, but it will also cause additional damage and delay the construction if anything happens. You can lay out some basic safety equipment, such as safety mats or temporary bridges from Northern Mat, as well as make sure that you communicate to your children that certain rooms are completely off limits.

Prevent Dust Flying Through The Air

If you plan on living in your home during the renovation process, you need to be aware of potential health implications, especially if you have family members that have breathing issues or asthma. So to minimize this, turn off the HVAC or run an air purifier to remove any sort of impurities floating around in your home.

Decide On The Best Time Of Year To Renovate

This may not have crossed your mind because you want to get it done as soon as possible, but especially when you’re renovating space like your kitchen, where access to cooking appliances is extremely limited, you would be better off doing it during the summer months. In doing this, you can cook food outdoors, so you don’t need to access your kitchen as much as you usually do. If you need to get on with it and renovate your kitchen space during the winter, the best approach is to batch cook meals and wash them up before freezing them. Keeping a freezer full of items that you can just take out and heat up in a microwave will take a lot of the problems out of the equation.

Living in your home safely is not just about saving money, but it’s also about the planning and preparing just in case any issues arise, from the perspective of the contractors, but also to save your sanity. Always remember to get out and spend time away when and where you can. But money doesn’t always dictate for this, and so you are probably thinking about staying in your home to save money, but you need to think about breaking the whole process up into manageable chunks, this will stop you stressing out!