Our 7 Tips For Surviving Home Life During A Renovation

Renovations can be exhausting and messy but they don’t have to completely uproot your home life. Here’s our tips for surviving a renovation.

My goodness, friends! Has it really only been less than two months since we started our master bath renovation? It seems like we started years ago. Renovations have a way of dragging themselves out. They never quite end soon enough! Honestly, I knew that it would be a long road with this space. It’s one of the last rooms we’ve renovated for a reason. The entire space needed to be gutted and not one single thing is staying in it’s original place. Josh and I were talking last week about how this renovation has been one of the hardest on us. I’m not sure if it’s because with this house we’re older than the last or if it’s because this space has pushed us skills and has been so labor intensive. Either way, I’m more than ready to wrap the space up and call it another room done.

This renovation has had me thinking though. If we’re not careful our entire lifestyle and home life will become chaos. It’s quite the fine line. Over the years we have learned some tricks to keeping things in order during a reno. We’re no experts but we have picked up a few simple tips for keeping us grounded over the years. I thought I’d share a few thoughts and tricks with you in case you’re planning a renovation or are in one currently and feeling as though you’re drowning. Here’s the things we do to keep ourselves sane and our house some-what orderly.

1. Create a time line with a desired deadline.

Before we start any kind of makeover or full on renovation we make a list of every little detail that needs to be completed. We use Trello for this. We use their free version and I can’t recommend it enough. I also use it to keep the blog organized. It’s fantastic for keeping just about anything organized and on track. You can set deadlines for each of your tasks and as you complete a job you simply move it to the completed folder. It’s been a life saver for us during this long renovation! Some dates will creep up on you and before you know it you’re behind. Give yourself some grace and just know that’s going to happen. Life has a way of doing what it wants when it wants.

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2. Create A Clean & Restful Space

I can’t preface this one enough. It is so important for your mental health to have a clean and restful place to relax in your down time. Typically our clean room during renovations is our master bedroom but since we’re working on our master bathroom this space is now our family room. It’s a room that I make sure to keep clean and clutter free. No one wants to finish up their reno work to then only try and relax in a mess of a room. Creating your “clean space” allows you to fully relax and escape the renovation mess.

3. Close off the renovation space from the rest of the home.

Our master bathroom is connected to our bedroom. We’ve been lucky enough to be able to close the bathroom door and walk away. If the space you’re working in doesn’t have any physical doors, I would suggest tacking up a plastic drop cloth in the door ways to keep the dust contained. This will prevent your joining spaces and furniture from getting covered in dust as well as keeping and paint and or construction fumes from taking over the rest of your home. Don’t forget to close up all air vents in the space as well.

4. Keep a dust broom & your working shoes just outside the room.

As you can see in the photo above, I keep my favorite floor duster just outside our bathroom door to pick up any dust that might trail from the bathroom into our bedroom. We also keep the tennis shoes that we use to work in just outside the door. This way we don’t tract any dust throughout the rest of our home. When it’s time to work our shoes are right there. I’ve tried keeping paper down but it always seems to destroyed so quickly. If you can use the brown paper on the floor I would do it. It saves the floors for sure!

5. Have a storing area for all materials.

We have so many bathroom fixtures and items for the room that can’t exactly be in the space during the construction phase. We’ve been keeping all of those things in the back corner of Josh’s office. It’s a corner that isn’t been used and everything is out of the way. By keeping everything in a staging area you know where each item is and there’s less chance for anything to get misplaced. When it comes to our tools we do this same method. We have a corner in the bathroom that we’re storing all of the tools being used. As we finished a job if a tool is no longer needed it’s put back in it’s home in the basement.

6. Use a crock pot, pressure cooker, or one-pan recipes for healthy & easy meals.

When it comes to renovating getting meals cooked is always fun. It takes a little bit of planning but eating healthy meals while renovating can be done. Past renovations have taught us that unless we want to eat Chick-fil-A every meal we’ve got to have easy recipes handy. I love to use my crock pot and pressure cooker on days we’re working in our bathroom. I’ve also been doing some sheet pan meals as well. Salmon, sweet potatoes and green beans make a great sheet pan dinner. Throw the seasoned and diced sweet potatoes in the oven on a sheet pan at 375 degrees for 15 minutes and then take them out and stir them up. Throw on some seasoned salmon and green beans and bake for another 15-18 minutes and you’ve got dinner! Here’s a great crock pot cookbook that I’ve been using during the reno. Healthy meals can be done during a major reno if you plan. I’m still learning this myself. It’s so easy to get off track. In those times I’m glad Chick-fil-A is just done the road, ha!

7. Take time to get outside and spend time with friends and family.

This tip might just be as important as the renovation itself. Taking breaks and spending time with loved ones is a must. Having little ones and renovating can be hard at times. We’ve found that Charlie is happier and much more content when he knows that we’ll have some time to just have fun each weekend in-between working. It also allows for you to take a mental break and to be inspired again. I also feel my most inspired after getting outside and getting away from the mess of our bathroom. Josh and I are going to be attending a comedy show in a week and a half that I’m really looking forward too. We thought we would need a good laugh after a couple months of hard work. No matter how busy you get make time to take a breather. You wont regret it!

I hope you’ll join me right back here later this week for the first week of the One Room Challenge. I’m going to share the design plan for our master bathroom and each week for six weeks we’ll share the process we’ve made. After six weeks we’ll share the reveal. Be sure to come back and check it out. I’m dying to share everything with you guys! Until then have a great week!