Taking on a major renovation project & living in it

snowcat75

Iv renovated 1, built 2, and done most of the work myself, all living onsite...... Its doable but hard if your young with no children it should be a breeze!!!
How much work are you planning to do yourself and how much are you getting trades in for...?
Both will bring different problems...
Cash is always going to be a problem, buildings just eat budgets and old ones have a habit of turning into worms....... Jobs like rewires are simple and you can save a big chunk of money by chasing everything back yourself, or even have everything surface mounted then chase the walls as you decorate and renovate.

Id still prefer though to live in a caravan on site with the major works , this is fairly miserable however it makes progression of the job much quicker as your not always needing to get temporary supply's sorted at night.... also the dust will be in everything once you start the major works. 

warwicktate

snowcat75 said:

.... also the dust will be in everything once you start the major works. 

THIS!!!!!!!!

I lived in my house during major renovations, and most things are livable i.e. no hot water, basic living conditions, microwave dinners etc, but the thing that really got to me was the amount of dust that kicks up. You feel dirty and dusty CONSTANTLY, even after a shower, as, unless you can completely separate the 'work' area from your living area, the dust will get into your cupboards/clothes in wardrobes/every-frickin-where.....

It can be done, and my advice would be try to live on one floor whilst renovating the others, and keep large plastic sheeting separating the areas. This won't completely eliminate the dirt and dust moving around the house, but it will keep it to a minimum. Also, if you can, keep the doors in place for as long as possible, and keep them shut. And one last thing, make sure you have access to a shower every night, especially if you plan to do a good chunk of the work yourself. Going to bed covered in plaster dust and other grime is proper horrid!!!

Good luck

MoneySeeker1

OH YES to the dust - tell me about it. I was clearing it up for quite some time afterwards and I hate housework with a passion and needed my time/energy to get to know a new area (instead of spending it on that).

In the end - I sorta compromised and "let the dust settle" (literally) and that meant giving whatever room had just been done a few days to "settle" and then giving it a good clean and just resigning myself to having to give it a springclean level clean a few months down the line (so as not to be cleaning and re-cleaning and re-cleaning yet again). Other people might be more houseproud than me - but I didn't see why I should be doing repeated cleaning because the house wasn't "ready to move into" state that was what I really needed/wanted. So that was the compromise I made - ie putting up with excess dust for a few months until I was pretty sure it had all settled at last.

When you add in that I'm living in a "unreliable tradesperson area" I don't think I could have handled both that and the excess dust and trying my hardest to actually "have A Life" at least to some extent whilst all this was going on.

Would have loved a ready-to-move into place...

FreeBear

MoneySeeker1 said: OH YES to the dust - tell me about it.

Gets everywhere doesn't it..

One thing that is very good to help control the dust is a spray bottle. I picked up a 5l garden sprayer with an adjustable nozzle. A quick spray round after doing any dusty work, and the dust drops out of the air fairly quick. Spray again whilst sweeping the dust up and very little gets airbourne again. The sprayer is also handy for damping down surfaces prior to doing stuff like plastering.

starving_artist

It may sound obvious but when you decide on the area you are going to occupy for the duration, make sure you always take off your shoes and wear slippers/go barefoot when you enter it - a huge amount of dust and grime collected when you pass areas where the works are going on can get carried in on your shoes.  Strongly recommend you try to do it in the Spring/Summer - the cold and dark nights in winter somehow make it much much harder psychologically.