Renovations are a hassle to deal with – but if you’re well-prepared and organized, this can make the process more manageable and less painful.

In this article, we share 9 things that you can do in order to prep for a major renovation. Read on to find out more!

1. Manage Your Family’s Expectations

If it’s just you and your partner at home, and you’re both involved in making renovation decisions, it’s easy to be on the same page.

But if you have other people living with you (your parents, grandparents, children, etc), you’ll need to make sure that they’re aware of what’s going on, and manage their expectations of the entire renovation process.

For example, if your kids often have their friends over for sleepovers, they won’t be able to do that whilst the renovation is ongoing. This might seem like a small thing, but make sure you communicate these early on, so you get rid of any last-minute stress or temper tantrums that might occur.

2. Inform Your Neighbours

If your renovations will last for longer than, say, 3 days, it’s a good idea to inform your neighbours and give them a heads up.

This is by no means necessary, but it’s definitely a nice gesture.

3. Make Alternative Plans

This is an important one – think about how your renovations will affect your day-to-day operations, and make alternative plans.

For example, if you’re renovating your kitchen and you won’t have access to it, how do you want to deal with your meals?

If your home is going to be noisy and filled with dust during the renovations, and your kids’ examinations are coming up, what’s the plan? Should they head to the library to study?

In extreme cases (for instance, if you’re renovating your entire home), you might need to rent a serviced apartment or move back in with your parents (assuming they have space) for a bit.

Again, think about these things early on and make the decisions you have to, so that you minimise stressful situations further down the road.

3. Organise Your Contracts And Receipts

Of course, all homeowners hope that things go smoothly with their renovations, and they won’t need to pull out their contracts and pore over the T&Cs.

That said, it’s still a good idea to organize your contracts and receipts, to make sure you have everything handy in one place.

This can be super simple – we recommend having a central folder where you file everything, plus taking pictures of your receipts and uploading them to cloud storage so that you have backup copies.

4. Plan Your Schedule

As much as we’d love to go off-grid during a renovation and come back home to a beautiful, brand new home, that doesn’t often happen.

In most cases, homeowners will have to drop in to check on the progress, or perhaps make some last-minute decisions or answer questions that the ID or contractor has.

With this in mind, it’s important to plan your schedule properly, and coordinate with your partner.

When is each person available? Who is responsible for what? Make sure you’re on the same page, so that you won’t need to scramble last minute.

5. Make A Contingency Plan

A contingency plan is basically your plan B.

Say your ID tells you that the renovation works will be complete in 6 weeks, but the works get delayed and you still don’t have access to your home.

What happens then? Are there any major events (examinations, work appointments) that this will clash with? If you’re staying with someone for the time being, will you be able to lengthen your stay or will this be too intrusive?

Seeing as how renovations often get delayed these days, making a plan B is the wise thing to do!

6. Declutter

Time to Marie Kondo your home!

After every renovation, there’s always a ton of cleaning, packing, and organizing involved.

To make your life easier, go through all your belongings and get rid of anything that you’re no longer using. With fewer items around, it’ll be much easier to get your home back into livable condition once your renovations are done.

7. Pack Up

This is the tedious part – you’ll need to pack up your items (that are in the room that’s being renovated) into boxes, and move them out of the way.

If you still need access to a few essential items during your renovation, one good way of keeping them on hand is to store them in a movable trolley or rolling unit. You can get one of these for cheap from IKEA, and they’re lightweight and easy to move around.

(On a side note: if you have any valuables at home, consider moving them to a storage unit or asking your friends or family to safekeep them for the time being. You know what they say – better safe than sorry!)

8. Think About Home Security

During a renovation, you’ll have loads of people moving in and out of your home. As such, you’ll want to be extra careful about security.

If you have a digital lock, you can program your lock to give your renovation team a special passcode (that’s different from your regular password) during the renovation period. Once the renovation is over, you can reprogram the lock to remove that code.

For those who have smartphone controlled locks and/or CCTVs, you can also use these to monitor the goings-on at home.

9. Kid-Proof The Renovation Zone

Renovation areas are dangerous for children – that much is obvious.

If possible, try to call in a favour and leave your kids at your parents’ or friends’ during the renovation.

But if that’s not doable, make sure you put up child safety gates at all entrances surrounding the work area. Do tell your contractors that you have kids around as well, and ask them to keep the safety gates closed at all times.

10. Take Pictures!

If you’re a sentimental person who likes to reminisce, we recommend taking pictures and videos of your original set up before you renovate.

A decade down the road, you can reminisce how your home used to be like when you were at that particular stage in your life.

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