Living in the house while the work happens

Moving out for a renovation costs somewhere between £1,200 and £2,500 a month in this area, plus storage, plus the cost of moving twice. Against a project of eight to twelve weeks, that is a meaningful proportion of the budget, and most households decide to stay.

Staying is usually right. But the thing that wears people down is rarely the noise or the dust. It is the loss of the small routines that make a house feel like somewhere you live, and those can be protected with a bit of planning in the week before anyone starts.

Set up one room properly

Choose one room, as far from the work as the house allows, and make it complete before the work begins. Not a room with a kettle in it. A room with the kettle, the microwave, a washing up bowl, the mugs you like, a lamp, a chair that is comfortable, and the things you would reach for at the end of a bad day.

Seal it properly with a zip door in a dust sheet, not a sheet pinned across the frame. A proper temporary door costs about £30 and it is the difference between a refuge and a slightly quieter part of the site.

Put a bin in it. That sounds trivial and it is the detail people forget, and a room without a bin fills with the debris of temporary living within four days.

Dust is the real enemy

Dust from cutting, chasing and demolition travels much further than anyone expects, and the fine fraction stays in the air for hours and settles everywhere. It gets into clothes in wardrobes two floors up.

Ask your contractor about dust control specifically and get an answer before you sign. What we specify as standard: dust sheets and zip doors on every route between the work and the rest of the house, an extract fan in a window venting outwards to keep the work area at negative pressure, dust extraction on the tools themselves rather than a broom afterwards, and floor protection on every route.

On the domestic side, close wardrobes, bag anything textile you are not using, and take pictures off the walls in adjoining rooms. Ceiling work upstairs shakes the walls downstairs.

Agree the practical rules in week zero

Write these down before the first day. They take five minutes to agree and they prevent almost every source of friction on site.

Start and finish times, and whether Saturdays are worked. Which toilet the trades use, and if it is one of yours, who cleans it and how often. Where vans park, particularly on a street with permits. Where the skip goes and for how long. What time the radio goes on. Whether the dog is in the house. Who has a key and how the house is locked at the end of the day.

Agree one point of contact each way. One person on your side speaking to one person on the contractor's side. A household where three people give instructions to five trades produces a building nobody designed.

Expect the middle to be worst

There is a shape to how projects feel. The first week is exciting, because things are happening. The last week is exciting, because it is nearly done. The middle, which is first fix and plastering and everything looking like a building site with no visible progress, is where people lose their nerve.

Nothing is wrong at that point. It is simply the phase where the work is inside the walls. Knowing that in advance helps more than you would think.

It also helps to have dates. A programme with the phases marked, even roughly, means the week where nothing appears to happen is a week you were told about.

Kitchens and bathrooms, specifically

If the kitchen is coming out, work out where the fridge is going on day one, not day three. It needs a socket that is not on the circuit being worked on. A temporary sink is rarely worth the cost of the plumbing, but a washing up station in the bathroom with a bowl and a drainer is worth setting up properly.

If you have one bathroom and it is being replaced, that is the one situation where we would tell people to consider moving out for the two or three days it is out of action, or to arrange somewhere nearby. A household of four with no bathroom is a different order of problem from a household with no kitchen.

In the kitchen in a Victorian terrace the family stayed for all eleven weeks with two young children and a temporary kitchen set up in the front room. It worked because it was set up in advance rather than improvised in week one.

The thing nobody says

You will get used to it, and then, about ten days before the end, you will suddenly be unable to stand it for another day. This happens to nearly everybody and it happens right at the point where the snagging list is being made and calm judgement is most useful.

If you can, book two nights away for that week. It is the cheapest thing in the whole budget and it is the one piece of advice clients come back and thank us for.