Featured on the Show:

Only Girl On The Jobsite Course

What you will learn from this episode: 

• Living in your home during a construction project

• Your responsibilities even if you are renting during your project

• The importance of knowing your pain points

Today I want to talk about living in the house while your work is going on. This can, of course, look like lots of different things depending on what you are doing to your home. For the most part, I am seeing people stay in their homes during large projects, and I want to go over some of these reasons in today’s episode. 

As long as I’ve been doing this, I don’t think I’ve found the perfect solution because it’s up to each individual how much you can take and your tolerance for change. And I’ve found that most humans don’t like change. 

So today, I want to break down these choices and see what will be your best fit. 

 If you decide to stay in your home, I really want you to have a more positive reason than keeping an eye on the work that is going on. They’ll need someone to help manage the project, make selections, but they shouldn’t need someone to babysit them. 

I want you to stay in the house for positive reasons. It’s more convenient for you, or the budget just doesn’t support moving out and renting somewhere.

I want to give you a few examples of my clients and what their experiences have been. 

I have a client that was renovating their bathrooms. Because they had children at home, didn’t want the contractors to be sharing a bathroom with the kids, so they rented a port-a-potty. Perfect solution for that, since I’ve never seen contractors keep a tidy bathroom. 

I have another client where we are in discussion about renting a port-a-potty, but we are also talking about writing up some rules for the contractors so that they clean up after each use or daily. 

We also have to decide what time works best for each client to have the contractors come. Depending on your work schedule and if you are working at home or away, you will need to figure out a schedule that will help you mentally deal with your house being invaded for a long period of time. 

I highly caution clients when they want to have the contractor come 7 days a week, as long as they want, just to get the project done. Many projects go on for months. And you will get burnt out, and want to have a day to just hang out in your home alone. So I strongly caution against this. It’s much harder to go in and ask to change your schedule because the contractor will have his schedule made out due to what you asked for. 

It really comes down to knowing what your pain points are. What really gets to you. I don’t think people do enough self-evaluation, and that can go a long way before starting your project.

You have to really think things through. You’re going to put provisions in place, not only with time but the areas of the house you will be living in and making specific rules for the contractor. These seemingly tiny decisions will add up to a much more successful project both mentally and physically as the weeks go by. 

But keep in mind just because you’re renting, doesn’t mean you don’t need to have rules in place for the contractors. Do not stay in your home because you feel like you have to babysit them! If you do the proper research and steps ahead of time, you will feel confident about who you are bringing into your home and you won’t’ feel like you need to watch their every move. You will walk into your project confident that the right team is in place and that you are a part of that team!

Like this Episode?

• Be sure to check out Episode #12 : Red Flags and Rules of Thumb in Renovation Projects

• Don’t miss an episode, listen on Spotify, and follow via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or RSS.

• Leave us a review in Apple Podcasts.