Five Tips for Surviving a Whole Home Renovation

You may have seen our post “How to Prioritize Rooms to Remodel.” There’s no doubt it can be a tough decision on what to remodel first. Rather than wrestle with that decision, some of our clients take on a whole home renovation. Then the trick becomes surviving the project!

Here’s our insight into surviving a whole home remodel to achieve your dream home without enduring a nightmare in the process.

Planning is Absolutely Essential

This is where a professional remodeler can really make a difference. They have been through a number of these projects and know how to plot out every aspect. This includes timing the delivery of the materials along with the work of each type of craftsman needed for your home renovation. With a solid plan in place, you’ll have a realistic idea of how long you’ll be staying in temporary housing.

Empty Your Home: Everything and Everybody

Attempting to live in your home during most remodeling projects can be very challenging. But living in it while you’re renovating the entire home just doesn’t work. Your contractor needs access to everything in order to time the key activities with the availability of staff and materials. Trying to live in the home and moving room to room can be very cumbersome, stressful, potentially hazardous at times and add to your project time.

So you’ll need to move into a temporary apartment or extended stay hotel. You’ll also need to get all your furniture and clothing out of the house and out of the way. You may be able to use some of your furniture in a temporary apartment, but most if it will need to be in storage.

Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.

We’ve written at length about communicating with your contractor. In this situation, it becomes absolutely critical to communicate expectations around timing as well as all the specifications for the work.

If you’re staying in a hotel, you don’t want the work held up while you review tile or flooring choices. Not only that but because you will not be in your home, you’ll need to set up a schedule to review progress and keep in touch with the contractor to tackle any decisions.  At the start of the project, we set a status meeting day and time with our clients. This is when we will both be on the project site, walking it through and discussing progress and changes if any.

Patience is a Virtue

As with any project, working through communication challenges and project surprises requires patience. That certainly applies to your contractor but also pertains to working with everyone in your family. Your spouse and children are going to get tired of living out of temporary housing. They’ll need to develop their own patience and that growth can be supported through your communication and flexibility.

Channel Your Inner Yogi – Always Flexible

Our experience is that a whole home renovation can take three months or longer depending on the complexity of the project. No matter the extent of the effort, there will be challenging circumstances. Ideally, you’ll view those challenges for what they are: something to be overcome working together and not a massive disaster of epic proportions. Gaining that perspective often requires being flexible to each particular challenge.  Think of channeling your inner Yogi; maybe even sign up for a yoga class to fully practice flexibility.

That last thought also highlights another important tip—have a sense of humor. It can lighten the moment and, as a result, help you gain needed perspective on what’s really important. After all, in just a few months of exceptional effort, you’ll actually have the home of your dreams.

Exceptional, Personal, Craftsmanship.

If you’re thinking about a whole home makeover or simply want to brainstorm your home renovation ideas, you can reach us at 972.951.1932 or use the contact form.