Living Expenses During Renovation

Depending on what part of your home you are planning on renovating, you may need to take into consideration what your day-to-day activities are going to look like and how construction might interfere with them. Usually when you are doing an addition or finishing off your basement, these types of renovations usually don’t get in the way, however if you are planning to remodel your kitchen or primary bedroom, then you will need to make some adjustments. No matter what area of your home you are planning on changing, you will need to make sure you have room to relocate the furniture and items that are in that room. This may require obtaining a temporary storage unit, which will add more to the total renovation costs so keep that in mind. If you are renovating your kitchen, you will not have access to your major appliances, so don’t plan on cooking during that timeframe. You can always set up a makeshift kitchen in an area of your home where you can relocate your refrigerator, coffee maker and microwave along with a cart or an area with shelves where you can store dry goods, snacks and other items you may want to eat. Plan on using paper plates and plastic utensils since you won’t have access to your dishwasher as well. Additional costs might be eating out more often or spending money on delivery when you would have cooked from home. On a side note, be ready for DUST – there will be dust everywhere and it is unavoidable. We will talk more about post-construction cleaning in our next blog.