5 Home Renovation Mistakes That Make Living Through a Project Harder

You’ve been thinking about home renovation for a while now and have spent hours scrolling through Pinterest. 

You finally decide to take the plunge, and then it’s like you get tunnel vision. All you can focus on is the end result, which is understandable because you’re so excited, but you can’t forget that you have to actually live through this renovation and not lose your mind in the process. 

You can’t avoid the dust from construction, but the chaos doesn’t have to bring you to the brink of a mental breakdown if you prepare beforehand. 

So before you even see a paintbrush and/or sledgehammer, you might want to get acquainted with the mistakes that most people tend to make. 

Planning Mistakes That Make Renovations Much Harder

Every renovation comes with its share of mess and chaos, but there’s a difference between chaos you can handle and chaos that sends you over the edge, and it usually comes down to preparing and knowing what not to do. 

Let’s talk about the latter. 

Not Planning Where Furniture and Belongings Will Go

A lot of homeowners wait until the contractors are at their door to figure out what to do with the furniture and their belongings. So what happens then? They’ll cram everything into the closest room and, although that will clear some space out, it will make a ton of clutter. And when you move stuff around without a plan, it will inevitably block a hallway, a passage, or an important room that you need to use later. 

What you should do is plan storage before the project starts, and you’ll avoid this mess. One of the easiest ways to do this is with portable self-storage units. And, best of all, they’re easy to find; you can buy portable self-storage units in Arkansas, California, New York, Nevada, literally anywhere. 

You just need to think of them on time. 

Not Creating Temporary Living Zones

If you’re remodeling a kitchen, for instance, you have to have a backup plan because you won’t be able to use it for a while. 

So why not think ahead and set up a small table with a microwave, a coffee maker, and an electric kettle? That way, you could have a temporary kitchen. You could also move the dining area to another, quieter room.

As you can see, this isn’t complicated at all, and it doesn’t require too much work, yet it makes all the difference once the construction starts. 

Underestimating How Far Dust Can Spread

Oh, the dust. You’d think people wouldn’t be surprised by dust because it’s to be expected during the renovation. 

But the thing with dust is that it doesn’t just stay contained in that one part of the house you’re renovating. It moves all over the house, through doorways, halls, vents, and ends up everywhere. 

The biggest problem is not that it’s annoying and messy, but that it’s actually bad for your health. 

So you’re either stuck with constant cleaning, or you can seal off work barriers on time, cover furniture, and close vents. You’ll still get dust in places you don’t want it, but at least you’ll contain it a bit. 

Poor Staging of Materials and Tools

You’ll notice that, once the renovation starts, there will be a lot of materials arriving before they’re necessary. Wood, drywall, tiles, paint, and a lot of other stuff might come really early, and you have to have a place for all of it, or they’ll end up around the house. You don’t want that because, not only are they going to be hard to find, but they’ll also make movement difficult. 

Set aside a designated staging area so that you don’t run into this problem. When you have a specific place for tools and materials, you’ll be able to stay a lot more organized. 

Ignoring Planning Around Noise and Work Schedule

Renovations are loud. MUCH louder than you’d think they’d be, and you need to plan around that, or you won’t be able to get anything done. 

Drilling, hammering, sanding, cutting, it’s all noise all the time. If you have small children, pets, or you work from home, this noise will make normal life impossible and, for some, traumatic. 

So talk with contractors ahead of time about schedules and ask them if it’d be possible to plan louder tasks for times when members of the household are not home. 

As exciting as home renovations are, they also come with a good amount of chaos, and it’s important to keep that in mind and plan for it. Of course, you can’t plan EVERYTHING, and there will be some surprises sooner or later, but still, do what you can do. 

Before the tools come out and before the work begins, take a day or two to prepare your space. 

You’ll be happy you did.

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