Living in Your Home During a Flooring Renovation: How to Prepare
Even if you hire a floor contactor, preparing for and living through a flooring renovation can take some effort and patience. There are a few important things you need to do before flooring contractors can begin work. Considering these pre-renovation steps may ruin the renovation high, but trust us: doing them will prevent delays and make sure you can enjoy your new space sooner.
Keep reading. Here are our top tips to help you live in your home as normally as possible during your flooring renovation.
Pre-Flooring Renovation Tips from The Brothers Flooring Contractors
1. Clear the Floor
This may seem obvious, but getting all your furniture out of the room prior to renovation will help keep the reno on track.
Of course, depending on the size of your flooring renovation and the size of your house, relocating your furniture may not be as easy as moving it to another room. If your reno encompasses a large room or many rooms, you may need to move your furniture to the garage or into storage.
Pro-tip: Out of space and have a big reno coming up? Resist the urge to put furniture outside under a tarp. Weather and pests can damage your furniture, no matter how well you think it’s covered.
2. Don’t Forget the Decor!
Anything on your wall should also be removed prior to a flooring renovation. Renovating is a dusty business and you can spare yourself a lot of cleaning later on if you get rid of decor occupying your vertical space.
3. Prepare for Dust
Dust travels, so in addition to removing furniture and decor from the space being renovated, it’s a good idea to cover the furniture in rooms in close proximity to that room. Old bedsheets will do.
You can also reduce the spread of dust by hanging plastic sheets in doorways to contain the dust. Don’t forget to cover vents, ducts and air returns. Even better, if the time of year allows, consider turning off your HVAC system so that any dust that makes it into the system isn’t being blown around the entire house.
4. Have Reno-Room Shoes
In some cases, you may not need to enter a room during renovation at all. However, if the flooring renovation is happening in your kitchen or bathroom, you may need to enter the room — when possible (e.g. not when tile thin-set is setting or the grout).
Have a pair of shoes that you can slip on when you enter the space and off when you leave. This will help you prevent tracking dirt, dust, and general renovation debris to other parts of the house.
Pro-tip: We lay plastic on the floor for our clients to prevent tracking dust throughout the house. Unless you want to spend a lot of time cleaning up, be sure to ask your flooring contractor about their tidy-up policies.
5. Schedule Waste Removal
If you’re doing the flooring renovation yourself, be aware that while good flooring contractors will take the site garbage with them, demo waste is another matter altogether. Either make an arrangement with your contractor or get rid of it yourself.
Be warned: many municipalities won’t take renovation waste so you may have to schedule a waste pick up or prepare to take the waste to the dump.
However, if we’re your flooring contractors, we take the waste with us when we leave and save you the trouble.
Flooring renovation is bound to have moments of stress when you’re living through it–even if you’re not doing the renos yourself. However, a little planning can go a long way to make the process a lot easier during the renovation and after.
Have questions about your flooring renovation? Contact our expert flooring contractors. We’d be happy to answer them.
