How to Prepare for a Major Home Renovation:

Thinking about a home renovation project can be both exciting and overwhelming. There are so many details to coordinate (hopefully you’ve hired a contractor to take care of most of them for you!), and so many moving pieces to keep track of when planning a home remodel. Or sometimes, a natural disaster or other accident forces a major home renovation project upon you, whether you like it or not. In either case, there are things you can do to make your project go faster and easier, both for the people doing the work and for your family in the meantime.

When you take the time and effort to prep your home before a big remodel, your family and belongings stay safe, and life can be much less stressful for everyone involved.  This is why preparing your space for your home remodel matters. Here are a few ways we’ve learned, through several remodeling projects over the years, to get everything ready at home before the work begins.

This is a collaboration post. However, please know I stand behind everything written here, and only include links to products/services/resources I’m willing to recommend personally.

Prepping your House for a Major Home Renovation:

1. Clear Out the Areas Getting a Makeover

Renovation work moves more smoothly when the space is cleared and safe to walk through. This is especially true if you’re renovating the attic, bedroom, living room, or any other area with plenty of clutter. Thoroughly clearing out the area helps workers reach everything they need without extra stuff in the way; it also helps protect your belongings from dust, debris, and damage during the renovation process.

For projects that only involve the edges of the room – say, getting new windows, or new paint on the walls – then piling everything in the center of the room and covering it all with drop cloths or protective sheeting may be an option. (This is what I do every time I repaint a room, and what we did recently when we got our windows replaced.) But if you’re having an entire room redone, from floors to ceiling, you really need to empty it completely before the workers arrive to do their job.

There are several simple steps in this process that will make your life easier post-renovation:

1. Pack your things into sturdy boxes. If possible, think uniform size boxes that will stack neatly and can hold the weight of being stacked. If you have access to computer paper boxes from work, these are a great choice; heavy-duty banker boxes are also a good bet.
2. While you’re packing things away, think about whether there’s anything you can get rid of along the way. Packing things up for a move or remodeling project is a great time to evaluate whether you’re holding onto things you no longer use, and could perhaps afford to get rid of.
3. Label the boxes clearly to make unpacking easier later. If you’re having several rooms renovated, you should also label the boxes by which room(s) they pertain to. It’s also useful, especially if you have a notebook or electronic file where you’re tracking project details anyway, to number the boxes and make a master list of  what’s in each box. That way, if you have multiple rooms to unpack after your project is complete, it will be easier to find things as you go.
4. Finally, think about where those boxes will stay during the project. If your renovation project will only last a few weeks, you can always store them in your basement or garage. But for projects that will last longer (or if your basement and garage are part of the reno project!), you can also rent driveway storage containers. These temporary storage solutions are a great way to protect your belongings without crowding your living space.

2. Prepare For Dust

Renovations tend to generate a lot of dust – and if you’re not careful, that dust can spread throughout your entire home. This is particularly a huge concern if you or your kids are sensitive to dust. That’s why it’s a good idea to do what you can to allergy-proof your home before and during the construction process.

Here are some things you can do to help minimize the spread of construction dust and debris:

1. Seal doorway gaps with draft stoppers. If possible, hang plastic sheets over doorways between construction zones and non-construction zones to help contain dust and debris.
2. Keep interior doors closed as much as possible throughout the construction work. If regular transit from construction areas into non-construction zones is unavoidable, consider putting doormats just inside the non-construction areas so people can wipe their feet, or use temporary disposable shoe covers whenever you must enter the work area (your workers will likely already be doing this).
3. Run an air purifier in nearby rooms. And if you have a whole-house HVAC system, either seal the intake vents in the construction areas, or turn off the air circulation through the house during the renovations.

As we can vouch from every renovation project we’ve had done over the years, these small steps can really help keep  dust from spreading throughout your whole house.

Protect Your Floors and Furniture

But even with these precautions, you’d be amazed how far messes from your construction project can travel. The more you can do to protect surfaces before your renovations begin – especially surfaces that you can’t easily move out of the way – the happier you’ll be at the end of your project. This is because there will be less dust and debris (not to mention stray paint splatters and dents) needing to be cleaned up.

The easiest way to protect these surfaces is to cover them as much as possible:

1. Lay down canvas drop cloths or old blankets in high-traffic floor areas that workers will pass through on their way to the construction zone, to help absorb extra dust they might otherwise track through.
2. Cover upholstered furniture, open bookcases, cabinets, and other hard-to-move items with old sheets or plastic tarps to protect them from dust. To keep paint splatters away, cover them instead with plastic drop cloths.
3. For anything that is delicate or fragile, don’t chance it – get that item out of the way and store far from your work zone. If it’s something you absolutely can’t move to a different room (say, a piano), wrap it securely with plastic sheeting and slide it as far out of the way as you can.

Make a Plan for Daily Living

When parts of your home are torn apart, you may not have regular access to things like the kitchen, bedrooms, and/or bathrooms. That’s why it’s important, as much as possible, to time your renovations around the rest of your family’s schedule and activities – and have a backup plan for how you’ll survive for the duration of the work period.

Here are some things to consider, if you have any control over the timing of your project:

• Is there any way at least some (if not all) of the work can take place when people aren’t around? For example, I always plan to paint a room when my kids are away at sleepaway camp, because it’s easier to put a room out of commission for a few days when there are fewer people around.
• If your project will put one or more bedrooms or bathrooms out of commission for awhile, what’s your plan B for while those spaces are unavailable?  Figure out ahead of time who will sleep and shower where. If the most intense parts of the work make this impossible (as was the case when our previous house needed major sewer line work), consider whether it’s a good time for some of you to stay with nearby friends or family for a few days, or perhaps camp out in a hotel.
• How (and where) are you going to eat and prepare food, if your kitchen and dining area are under renovation? Meal prep without a working kitchen is doable – but only if you plan ahead.

Speaking of which,

Here are tips for keeping your family fed during major renovations:

• If you’re a meal planning novice, this is the perfect time to give meal planning a try. Aim to cook ahead and freeze several simple meals that you can easily reheat in the microwave or a toaster oven, like casseroles. You can also prep and freeze bags of meat and chopped vegetables so they’re ready to go into a slow cooker .
• Also figure out in advance which appliances (microwave, coffee pot, electric frying pan, toaster oven, and/or slow cooker) you can set up in another area to cook with. I get it – sometimes you’ve got family members who just can’t live without their fresh scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee in the morning. But also keep in mind that other parts of your house may not be wired to handle all these appliances running simultaneously, so be careful not to blow a fuse or trip your circuit breakers by using them all at the same time!
• While it’s certainly tempting to just do a lot of takeout and store-prepped meals during a major construction project, try not to rely on these exclusively. Not only will this get pricey really fast, but eating this way all the time is not the best choice for your family’s long-term health. Instead, focus your “convenience” purchases on prepped items like bagged salads, precut or frozen veggies, and simple-to-prepare cuts of meat (e.g., preportioned burgers or something equally simple to grill).

These simple plan-ahead meal tips will help keep you calmer, your family well-nourished, and everyone less stressed even when construction chaos is at its worst.

Create a Construction-Free Respite Zone

Finally, as you’re thinking about how to reconfigure your daily activities so that everyone can function during your renovation work, make sure you have one or two “safe spaces” to which your family can retreat to avoid the chaos. As much as possible, these areas should be spaces that are clean, comfortable, quiet, and free of all construction messes.

You’ll want to pick a corner, area, or room that is as far from the construction zone as possible, so that it’s easier to avoid the noise and dust of the active work area. Be sure you have plenty of comfortable seating for everyone, as well as a place for all your family’s essentials (pet-related items, computers, device charging station, etc.). Also set aside dedicated space for your family’s entertainment needs, such as your home sound system and TV, or the kids’ favorite toys and books.

Whether everyone needs to escape the mess or regroup at the end of the day, having this safe zone will ensure that all of you have a spot where you can do homework or remote work, play, and relax. Having a dedicated space for all these things will also help your family make it through your construction project with less stress.

Final thoughts

It’s hard to avoid ALL of the stress that can come with a major home renovation project. But by taking the time to prepare your space (and your family!) ahead of time, you’ll find that things will go much more smoothly than if you don’t. Before you know it, your remodel will be complete, and you will be able to fully enjoy your new space!

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