How to Survive a Home Renovation!

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How to Survive a Home Renovation!

No matter if it is a minor update to a room or a complete home renovation, things can become stressful… FAST! After spending the last 2 months (and still not done) renovating our entire first floor, I have come up with tips and tricks to keep your sanity and help you survive a home renovation!

If you follow us on Instagram, you have seen a lot of photo sneak peeks at what we have been doing over the course of the last few months. This is also why I have been kind of absent in the posting department lately. Our house has been a renovation nightmare and with things scattered across the house, it has been hard to keep everything together. Thankfully I just finished my degree (yay!) and have a week off of school to hopefully get things done!

How to Survive a Home Renovation

1. Keep it organized! During the renovation we used our linen closet as our central hub for tools. We have a pretty large closet so we were able to keep screws, nails, power tools, and everything else we would need together. This helped to prevent us from having to search through the house to find what we needed to run out to the garage or shed to find it. Of course, larger tools like the miter saw stayed in the garage, but the things we used on a daily basis were all centrally located.
2. Plan ahead! This may seem obvious, but is important. Our original plan was to just update the two bathrooms, which turned into raising the floors in half the house, laying new flooring throughout the entire house, new drywall in the hallway and laundry room and installing new cabinets in the laundry. We made a plan of what we would need to do, used a large roll of brown butcher paper and made the list in the order we would go. This way, we could mark off what was done and see exactly what we needed to do next. 
3. Prepare for surprises! We totally had plans on doing everything ourselves, but we quickly realized that we were over our head. Drywall may seem like a simple thing to do, all of the YouTube videos make it look so easy! Well, I am here to tell you that it is NOT easy… it is a nightmare! So we went and looked at our budget make some sacrifices and hired a pro to do it for use. It was surprisingly cheaper then we thought it would be and then kicked ourselves for not hiring out sooner. We lost about 2 days of work time because we were trying to tackle it ourselves.
4. Budget and then budget again! We had a strict budget in mind when we started this project, and so far, we have stuck to it (with the exception of having to order speciality doors because of our odd door jambs). When you think you have thought of everything you will need, think about it again. Walk the area the you are going to renovate and write down everything you are going to do and what you will need to do it. Don’t forget to budget for specialty tools (like a butt load of trowels, work gloves, knee pads) and add 10% to your final cost to cover any unexpected events. 
5.  Stock the Freezer! This may sound strange, but even if you are not renovating your kitchen, it is still a good idea to stock the freezer with pre made meals (your own or store bought, we don’t judge). I know after working on sanding or painting or plumbing, the last things I wanted to do at the end of the day was cook! Plus, with all of the dust from the drywall, everything in my kitchen was coated in it. So, each morning I would grab a frozen meal and throw it into the crock pot for dinner that night. It was just one less thing I had to worry about, because it was already done.

The better organized and prepared you are, the easier the whole process will go. They say that if you want to test the strength of your relationship, renovate a home together, and this is true. There were times that hubby and I wanted to kill each other, but at the end of the day we were still laughing and enjoying the time we spent together. If something goes wrong, it is not the end of the world, it can be fixed. We took this renovation as a learning experience. Like we learned that drywall is the devil, and just because it looks easy in a YouTube video, does not mean it really is!

Are you planning a renovation? Or survived one? What is your least favorite thing to do when renovating?

Be sure to follow us on Instagram to see some the updates as we get through this last push!