Did you move out during home renovation?

[niccig]

Porta potty. Our crew had a porta potty, so didn’t use our only bathroom. Then a neighbor saw a worker from next door using it... we were paying for the neighborhood contractors to use the toilet! Neighbor called him out on it and told him to use the restroom at the park a few doors away


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[smiles33]

So many more comments! Wow, clearly many of you have lived through renovations!

westwoodmom: My very responsible and mature DDs will be nearly 10 and 13 by the time the renovation starts, so no, I wasn't planning on hiring a sitter just for the renovation. They haven't used a sitter all year. Now, I do understand the risks of having adult men in the house with them. I think what I'll suggest is that they go to the master bedroom and lock themselves in until I return at 6 pm. Also, DD1 has a cell phone and both have studied self-defense for 5 and 8 years, respectively. I'm not saying they can easily take down a large man, but I know they're used to punching, kicking, disarming, and putting larger male opponents in chokeholds. They practice with teenage boys, not adult men, but I'm hopeful they won't need to defend themselves against contractors in our own home.

Thank you twowhat? for also adding such a detailed and helpful post! There's so much to respond to in your post so I'm just going to try to do it as best I can. This is a little stream-of-consciousness!

We are still finalizing the plan with our architect, but I don't think they can finish the kitchen or preserve access to our second bathroom unless we do the demo in stages. I'm guessing it makes sense to just demo all at once and build fresh rather than trying to preserve access to the bathroom or the kitchen. 2/3 of the house has to be re-done. I actually asked if it would make more sense to tear down the entire house. However, he and the contractor both said the large bedrooms are perfectly fine so there's no reason to tear it all down.

One version of the new layout has us swapping the family room and the kitchen (which requires new pipes and electrical lines). We are also demolishing the attached garage to expand the kitchen and add a bedroom. So no, we can't put the fridge in the garage. We're fortunate that the bedrooms are unusually large for a house built in this era. We can keep our furniture and still fit in a 4' folding table for small appliances (Instant pot, rice cooker, etc.) and fridge. It will be a tight squeeze, but we can still walk by. DH had suggested moving the fridge outdoors, just under the covered porch by the front door. But doesn't a major appliance need to be in a more stable temperature environment? Winters here can get down to 40 degrees and summer will be in the 90s. I don't think that would be good for the fridge, right?

We only have 2 bathrooms, so once the girls' bathroom is being renovated, all 4 of us will be in the master bath. I'm definitely renting a Port-a-Potty for the crew as I do not have the energy or willingness to scrub my bathroom every evening after the contractors have used it! Thanks for the idea, Niccig! I'm already sad about losing my cleaning crew while we're renovating. It doesn't make sense for them to drive this far just to clean one bathroom and mop the bedrooms. Did other people try to keep their cleaners? If I did, I think I would still have to pay the full price for cleaning 1/3 of the house because we're minimum 1/2 hour from them (over an hour during rush hour traffic, which is anytime after 2 pm!).

DH is used to cooking without a kitchen, actually. When the kitchen fire happened 2 months after we moved in, we fought with the home warranty company for more than 4 months because they refused to cover the repairs. They said they don't warranty improper electrical work, even though it wasn't something we could discover unless we had uninstalled the stove and oven to inspect the electrical wiring. DH cooked on the BBQ grill, with the instant pot, his sous vide, and his smoker for those 4 months. In fact, the fire happened a few hours before we hosted a holiday party for 25 relative so he ended up cooking his baked beans in a Le Creuset over the fire pit as he ran out of heat sources! I could still wash dishes/pots/pans indoors throughout that time, though. After 4 months, we finally caved and paid to fix the electrical wiring and buy a new induction stove ourselves.

We're lucky California has a temperate climate so he can cook outside most days of the year. Still, if we start in Feb., there is likely going to be occasional rain between Feb. and May. I imagine the biggest issue is the clean-up as I won't have a giant sink so it will be the bathtub or outside.

Our "laundry room" is just a walkway next to the garage and kitchen (so no giant laundry sink). Plus, I won't have access to it once renovation starts. I'll still be hitting MIL's laundry on the weekends we don't go to our vacation house.

My plan is that only my family will enter the master bedroom and we can do so via the French doors in the back yard. The crew can use the front door, side door, or family room French doors since that entire area is being renovated. Thus, there shouldn't be any traffic into my master bedroom other than the 4 of us (and my dog). The bigger issue is that the girls' bedrooms are past their bathroom, so they will have to exit our master and walk down that hallway to their rooms. The current back door by the girls' bedroom is going to lead into a new bedroom so there will be renovation right near their rooms. So I'll definitely use your cardboard idea for the hallway between their bedrooms and mine since the crew will walk by my bedroom to get to the girls' bathroom.

Given how extensive this renovation is, I just assumed our central HVAC system is completely off-line until renovation is done. They also have to move the AC condenser for the new bedroom. We already have room air filters given our bad allergies, so I'll budget in more frequent filter replacements and keep them cranked high in our bedrooms for all the new dust.

Yes, our dog is chipped! He is definitely an explorer/wanderer, but I don't think he'd get very far. The one time he made it to the other side of our driveway gate, he just sat there until I noticed he was there and let him back in!

Whew, I think I covered it all.

[MSWR0319]

You shouldn't have to rent a porta potty. Your contractor should do it. When we were having our house finished, the contractor took care of all of that without me even bringing it up.

[twowhat?]

The porta potty is a great idea and definitely expense should be on contractor. Wow, you're doing so much of your house. I think your having an entry/exit point just for your family that is separate from the contractors will help a lot. I don't know how you'll deal with dishes and food prep without a dedicated sink but sounds like your DH has it figured out. Might be worth considering buying a utility sink that you can maybe place outside (hook up to hose?) if there's a convenient place for it to drain to. Like this:

https://www.amazon.com/ErgoTub-ELT20...s=utility+sink

Fridge - it's better for them to be in temp-controlled environment BUT if you're in CA and temps won't dip below 40, you could just get a garage kit for your fridge and then keep the fridge outside. The garage kit is for colder climates, and it will warm up the sensor so that the freezer doesn't defrost.

[marinkitty]

We've lived through four major renovations - two that took the kitchen out of commission. In the ten years we have lived in this house, it has probably been under construction for a full four of those years, so we are now pros at living through renovation. It is totally doable (although a pain, for sure).

When we had the kitchen out, we set up a very bare bones temporary kitchen. There wasn't a good way to have an oven/stove since we have always had a gas range and since I really didn't have a place to wash dishes, I opted for no hot plate either. That left us with a microwave, small fridge (we rented one but given that our main kitchen reno went on much longer than expected we should have just bought a small one), electric kettle and coffee maker. We ate a lot of no cook or microwavable meals. Picked up roti chickens, salad bar from the grocery store, take out. Again, not ideal, but honestly cooking a full meal every day in those conditions just wasn't going to happen for me. We grilled a lot when the weather was nice enough. We all appreciate our kitchen and home cooked meals more after those months without, for sure!

We had one phase where the washer and dryer had to be relocated into the garage. They ran a pipe through the wall, built a temporary plastic wall on DH's side of the garage and we made that into the laundry and mud room for eight months. While I was flexible with the kitchen, no way could I go without full sized in home laundry with my crew.

As others have said, your contractor will provide the porta potty and that is what the workers will use. Think about where you put it in your yard, as other people will definitely use it if readily accessible. One of our phases we had it off our driveway and it was pure comedy seeing who stopped in to use it - mailmen, sanitation workers, little old ladies walking their dogs, joggers etc. The last two phases, we put it in the backyard and didn't get any visiting users. Also less chance of it getting tipped by teens - happened to a neighbor of ours.

We always ran the HVAC during construction, but had the contractor clean out the vents and change the filters at the end of the project. All ducts into the workspaces were covered too. How they cordon off the work spaces from the living spaces is super important. Plastic off everything, leave zipper doors with edges taped down, put down resin paper and board over floors if they aren't being worked on. And insist that they vacuum daily at the end of the work day to keep dust under control to the extent possible. We've used four different contractors and one was amazing at this, two fine and the last terrible and I had to be on them all the time to leave things cleaned up. If you set the expectation right away and stay on them, I've found they get in the habit and do a better job all through the work.

Little things that I've learned along the way - (1) make sure the workers leave you a bit of space on either side of your driveway for backing out - it can be nerve wracking if you have no sight lines because big vans are parked all the way in on either side of the driveway. (2) make sure they don't put any food into any construction trash that might not get picked up right away. We had issues with them bagging up construction debris in between dumpster drops and adding their lunch trash and we had issues with raccoons getting into it and making a huge mess. (3) We usually buy donuts and coffee for the workers every couple of weeks on Friday mornings - they really appreciate it and I feel like it cannot hurt to have them feeling positive about the people whose home they are spending so much time at. (4) If you can swing a separate in and out for family vs. workers that is ideal. A couple of our phases we could do that and it really made the whole project feel less intrusive. Think about family privacy if the work comes right up against spaces where you will be sleeping/doing homework/showering/getting dressed. You don't want anyone walking through any of those areas if it can be avoided. Or, if it can't, arrange the work hours so that everyone is up and dressed before it starts.

I kept my housekeeper during all the phases. Even with great clean-up and protection between work zones and living zones, things definitely get dustier than normal and if everyone is crammed into a smaller space, everything gets dirtier. I just paid the same and asked them to do a very complete deep clean on all the available areas each time. Really helped me to keep my sanity.

After the work is done, change the locks on the house and any code you have on the garage key pad etc. No matter how trustworthy the crew is, it's just smart to assume someone could have copied the key in the lockbox.

I let my kids be in the house with the main crew who I felt we'd gotten to know and trusted. But I wouldn't let them shower while I was out. Luckily, the work areas and non-work areas were usually pretty separate or sealed off so there wasn't a need for the kids to interact with the workers. We did have a flooring subcontractor whose crew gave me the heebies and I insisted that our contractor be there if they were working when I wasn't home and kids would be in the house. In fact, I actually think I made him have someone there anyway because I wasn't sure they wouldn't wander the house. They ended up having to come back and I asked that one particular guy not come into my house again - he just pinged my radar. So pay attention and if you get a bad vibe - talk to your contractor.

99.9% of the workers who have been in our house have been wonderful and respectful. Do put away any small tempting valuables to avoid temptation.

[smiles33]

Wow, marinkitty-- four major renovations? You must be an expert on living through renovations by now! Not to be too nosy, but did you have an emergency (e.g., burst water pipe, small fire) that required 2 kitchen renovations in less than 10 years? Wow!

Thank you so much for taking the time to type up your advice. I'm going to try to reply to some of your points.

As for food and a temporary kitchen, I'd happily live on restaurant food and Trader Joe's frozen meals if it were up to me. I'm a lazy cook (I only liked to cook when I had time/energy so not at the end of a 12 hour day), which is why DH completely took over 20 years ago. I do dread trying to wash pots/pans in the bathtub. I'm wondering if we can set up a "permanent" outdoor sink (instead of just a temporary one that twowhat? linked to) out on the deck or near a drain but keep it for when DH grills/smokes (since he does that a lot anyway). We very rarely get many consecutive days of heavy rain, so I feel like I could use it nearly year-round.

The temporary hook-ups for washer/dryer sound interesting, but I am also lazy about laundry and usually only do it on the weekend to begin with. So I think it's fine to lose access to our own washer/dryer. Long ago, I made sure we all have more than 7 days' of underwear and clothing since I was the only one to do laundry and didn't want to stay up 2 more hours to do it on a weeknight after I got home late.

We're behind a gate and have some space, so no worries re: porta potty location. It does make me wonder where I should ask the crew to park, as I want to ensure DH and I have room to get in/out without being blocked in. Thanks for that tip!

I'm surprised you always ran the HVAC during construction! We have 2/3 of the house that will be re-done and likely open to the elements at some point, with only the bedrooms left untouched. Doesn't it seem inefficient to run HVAC? We also have to move the outdoor unit so I'm not planning on using the HVAC until the reno is done.

All the tips you learned along the way are very helpful! May I ask a few clarifying questions?

- You mentioned the trash issue and food getting mixed into the dumpster trash. I assume we'd rent a giant dumpster for the demo phase and then rent a smaller dumpster for ongoing construction trash. Are those dumpsters only picked up when they're full and you call them? If so, then yes, that would be gross to have food waste in them since we'd get all sorts of scavengers.

- What are "typical" construction hours? I leave the house at 6 am and don't return until 6 pm. I'm guessing I won't normally see the crew. DH and the kids are usually gone by 7:45/8 am. Kids return by 3:30, DH by 6 pm. Are we even going to see the crew or do we need to request a 7:30 am start so DH can at least check in with them briefly before he rushes to leave for work?

- Thanks for mentioning you kept your housekeeper. I use a crew and I just feel overly extravagant having them come weekly for 1 bathroom and 3 bedrooms. But I think you're right that it's going to get filthy fast with 4 of us using 1 bathroom and spending more time in the bedrooms since there will be nowhere else to eat dinner/do homework/relax.

- Your comment about the subcontractors that gave you the heebie jeebies is a concern. I don't think I'm ever going to meet most of the crew/people on the job given my long commute and workday. This almost makes me lean toward renting a small RV and setting it up so the girls can unlock it and hang out there and do homework until we get home. We don't need the space of a large 5th wheel RV if we can still access our bedrooms. I think sleeping in our regular bedrooms will be far more comfortable. Plus then I've have a kitchen sink to wash pots/pans and DH would have an indoor kitchen that isn't crammed into our bedroom. I just don't know if we'd lock our dog in their during the day instead of my bedroom. I assume he'd be in a quieter space in the RV.

If we don't have to use the RV's bathroom, then we don't have to regularly drive it somewhere to empty the toilet. But does anyone know how we'd refill the sink water and dispose of the sink's wastewater? I've never rented an RV before.

Thank you again for all the tips. Anyone else with additional tips, please chime in!

[twowhat?]

Dumpster: your contractor should take care of that. Think of where they could put it that won't impact your getting in and out. And don't put your own recycling cans anywhere near this dumpster unless you want subcontractors tossing all their trash in it.

Also be prepared for them to leave trash everywhere - some guys were really good about cleaning up after themselves but an equal number were AWFUL. Before sheetrocking, we made sure to remove alllll the cups, cans, wrappers, etc sitting between studs, behind studs, nestled in floor joists and insulation, etc. It would have bothered me to no end if I knew there was trash in our walls and under our floors.

[marinkitty]

Wow, marinkitty-- four major renovations? You must be an expert on living through renovations by now! Not to be too nosy, but did you have an emergency (e.g., burst water pipe, small fire) that required 2 kitchen renovations in less than 10 years? Wow!

Thank you so much for taking the time to type up your advice. I'm going to try to reply to some of your points.

As for food and a temporary kitchen, I'd happily live on restaurant food and Trader Joe's frozen meals if it were up to me. I'm a lazy cook (I only liked to cook when I had time/energy so not at the end of a 12 hour day), which is why DH completely took over 20 years ago. I do dread trying to wash pots/pans in the bathtub. I'm wondering if we can set up a "permanent" outdoor sink (instead of just a temporary one that twowhat? linked to) out on the deck or near a drain but keep it for when DH grills/smokes (since he does that a lot anyway). We very rarely get many consecutive days of heavy rain, so I feel like I could use it nearly year-round.

The temporary hook-ups for washer/dryer sound interesting, but I am also lazy about laundry and usually only do it on the weekend to begin with. So I think it's fine to lose access to our own washer/dryer. Long ago, I made sure we all have more than 7 days' of underwear and clothing since I was the only one to do laundry and didn't want to stay up 2 more hours to do it on a weeknight after I got home late.

We're behind a gate and have some space, so no worries re: porta potty location. It does make me wonder where I should ask the crew to park, as I want to ensure DH and I have room to get in/out without being blocked in. Thanks for that tip!

I'm surprised you always ran the HVAC during construction! We have 2/3 of the house that will be re-done and likely open to the elements at some point, with only the bedrooms left untouched. Doesn't it seem inefficient to run HVAC? We also have to move the outdoor unit so I'm not planning on using the HVAC until the reno is done.

All the tips you learned along the way are very helpful! May I ask a few clarifying questions?

- You mentioned the trash issue and food getting mixed into the dumpster trash. I assume we'd rent a giant dumpster for the demo phase and then rent a smaller dumpster for ongoing construction trash. Are those dumpsters only picked up when they're full and you call them? If so, then yes, that would be gross to have food waste in them since we'd get all sorts of scavengers.

- What are "typical" construction hours? I leave the house at 6 am and don't return until 6 pm. I'm guessing I won't normally see the crew. DH and the kids are usually gone by 7:45/8 am. Kids return by 3:30, DH by 6 pm. Are we even going to see the crew or do we need to request a 7:30 am start so DH can at least check in with them briefly before he rushes to leave for work?

- Thanks for mentioning you kept your housekeeper. I use a crew and I just feel overly extravagant having them come weekly for 1 bathroom and 3 bedrooms. But I think you're right that it's going to get filthy fast with 4 of us using 1 bathroom and spending more time in the bedrooms since there will be nowhere else to eat dinner/do homework/relax.

- Your comment about the subcontractors that gave you the heebie jeebies is a concern. I don't think I'm ever going to meet most of the crew/people on the job given my long commute and workday. This almost makes me lean toward renting a small RV and setting it up so the girls can unlock it and hang out there and do homework until we get home. We don't need the space of a large 5th wheel RV if we can still access our bedrooms. I think sleeping in our regular bedrooms will be far more comfortable. Plus then I've have a kitchen sink to wash pots/pans and DH would have an indoor kitchen that isn't crammed into our bedroom. I just don't know if we'd lock our dog in their during the day instead of my bedroom. I assume he'd be in a quieter space in the RV.

If we don't have to use the RV's bathroom, then we don't have to regularly drive it somewhere to empty the toilet. But does anyone know how we'd refill the sink water and dispose of the sink's wastewater? I've never rented an RV before.

Thank you again for all the tips. Anyone else with additional tips, please chime in!

Hi.

So, the kitchen thing. The first time we just pulled out the island, refrigerator and part of the cabinets because we had a structural issue where the prior owners renovated the kitchen, pulled out a bearing wall and the back of the house was sinking. The kitchen is on the first floor and its a three story house, so it was a big problem - and our first reno was re-roofing the house and renovating the entire third floor. We had to dig in the basement, pour new concrete footings, add huge beams and then jack the back of the house up - it went up five inches so everything above it cracked and shifted (plaster walls rippled, tile broke - a huge mess - so we had to move things out of the kitchen so they wouldn't get damaged). We hadn't planned to actually renovate the kitchen at that stage, so after all the structural work we put the old stuff back and waited another two years to actually address the kitchen. We had to make that fix before we could add anything new upstairs or it all would have been at risk later when we did the correction. The joys of a 120 year old house!

Typical hours here are 7-3 or 4. The crew from my last job (basement reno) came at 7 and worked till 4:30 which is longer than we ever had before.

In our situation, dumpsters were dropped in the driveway only short term and then picked up when full. We rarely had a dumpster sitting for long periods of time. Our village isn't a fan of that and we weren't either as we have a short driveway and with a dumpster in it we have to park on the street (also a hassle long term with the village). The problem we ran into this last go round was that when there wasn't a dumpster here, the guys would bag and store construction debris in the back yard or under our deck until the next dumpster drop and that was where food was getting mixed in and causing the problem with animals.

We never had anything open to the elements in our house (we are in Chicagoland) so we weren't heating or cooling the outside - all outer walls have always stayed intact an when we bumped out for a dormer window or something it was very well protected from outside and very short term. This house has a boiler system (hot water heat), and two different furnaces - an electric one that heats part of the third floor and a gas one that heats part of the first floor - those we sometimes turned off but the main boiler system was on in the late fall/winter/early spring and we used a/c in the heat of the summer.

[mom2binsd]

Ask your contractor about his twhether his crew will be smoking, they often smoke on the job and the smell can linger and permeate your house. You can request a non smoking area within your house/yard and request they smoke away from the house.

[smiles33]

Thanks all!


twowhat? I, too, would be so grossed out knowing that garbage is in my walls! The problem is that I won't be around to check on their work as they're doing it. I hope I'll be able to check each evening and just toss trash as I see it. I'll definitely also talk to our contractor to make sure he checks for trash in the walls, too.

marinkitty: I'm so sorry to hear it wasn't a more "fun" reason like you just felt like updating your kitchen sooner than expected! I figured it must have been something unexpected as kitchens usually don't have to be updated so soon. That sounds like a massive renovation!

mom2binsd: that you for the tip re: smokers! I don't even know any smokers anymore and am always surprised when we go on vacation and smell cigarette smoke! I will explicitly ask the crew not to smoke indoors and maybe buy an ashtray or something to put out in the side yard to designate where they should go.

I started a Google doc with all these great tips so I can easily share them with DH. Thanks all!