It’s a truth universally acknowledged that living in your home while you do major renovations is a really bad idea.
Okay, so let’s be clear here – I’m not talking about serial renovators. I’m sure you know the ones I mean – basically, they buy a house, renovate it full time, sell and move on to the next one. Mostly they just camp out at the house while they’re working it, rather than actually make it their home. It’s over and done with in a matter of weeks, couple of months tops.
No, I’m talking about your average family who decides they’re pretty handy, they’ve watched a few seasons of The Block, and they want to give renovating their own home a go.
Look, if that’s what you want to do, go for it. But here’s some things to think about before you take the plunge of doing major renovations to your home while you’re still living there.
Dust. Everywhere. In Everything.
I’m not gonna lie – renovating makes a MESS! Often even a small handyman job produces a small pile of dust and wood shavings. Now multiply that a few thousand times. Add in plaster dust. I’ve seen some pretty creative attempts to block out dust in my time, mostly involving lots of heavy duty plastic. They might help, but they rarely work 100%.
The only bright side is that if your renovations take a long time, there are likely to be periods of calm between the dust invasions. Enjoy them while they last.
Shifting Stuff. Constantly.
Generally the easiest way to tackle this type of renovation is to do it room by room. That way, if it takes a long time, you can just decomission one room while it’s been updated, and move the room’s contents somewhere else. That’s certainly a strategy that works up to a point, and is even better if you have 2 bathrooms. It does get harder at certain points, such as installing new flooring, where you need to have most of the rooms clear at the same time.
Rather than constantly shifting stuff from room to room, trying to keep ahead of the renovations, maybe take a look at hiring some temporary storage. This can either be offsite at a regular storage facility, or you can hire an onsite storage shed for the duration.
Or better still, hire a big skip and ruthlessly throw out most of what you currently have stashed away in cupboards and other nooks and crannies. You won’t regret it.
It Never Ends.
This is one of the hardest parts about renovating your own home while you live there. It’s really hard to kick back and relax, because everywhere you look you see bits and pieces that haven’t been done yet. Maybe you need to rehang that door. Or that room needs to be prepped for painting. It can be quite discouraging to be halfway through and realise just how much more there is to be done before you can finally chill out without pulling out your to do list.
I’ve heard some experts suggest that a good approach is to make sure the first thing you do is completely renovate one room. Sometimes it’s a bit more expensive to do things that way, for example if you need to have carpet layers come twice, but the peace that comes with walking into a room that’s finished more than makes up for it. Sometimes your sanity just needs the comfort of a tranquil, perfect space to escape the chaos still reigning everywhere else in the house.
So there you have it – renovate at your own peril! Seriously, though, there are plenty of things you can do to make renovating your own home way less stressful. But that’s a topic for another article! Happy renovating.