Tips for Living in a House During Construction

Take a deep breath and listen up. It isn’t easy, but we have some tips that can help.

The first piece of advice I can offer is – don’t do it. If it’s at all possible, if you’re planning major construction, move out of your house. Don’t tell yourself it’ll just be a few months and you’ll put up with it. It will test you to the max.

If you can’t move out, you’ll need some advice. I can offer some from my personal experience and hopefully more readers can share their ideas and opinions in the comments section.

Here we go:

• However long you are told to expect the project to take, assume it will take 50% longer. If it doesn’t, you win. If it does, at least you won’t feel like you lost.
• Same goes for costs, but this post will not be dealing with finances.

• Accept the fact that you will have no privacy for the duration of the project. Your contractor and all the subcontractors will know everything about you by the time it’s over. You will step out of your bedroom in the morning and there will very possibly be men on the other side of the door. (Make sure your locks work…)

• Pack up your house as if you are moving out. We rented a storage container and kept it in our backyard. If you pack well and label all your boxes, you’ll be able to access what you need as the seasons change. You will need your Chanukah stuff – and the camp box – but not at the same time.

Whatever stays in the house will be covered in dust, so just move it out. Purge purge purge. When in doubt, just get rid of it. Throw it out or donate it, but don’t pack it up just to unpack it – and then throw it out.

• Realistically, you do need stuff when you’re living there. You will be moving things from place to place as the space is needed. For as long as the project lasts – and beyond – you will be moving things. And very often you’ll have little notice of when that needs to happen. So keep it to the minimum.

• If you have water and power at any given moment, put in a load of laundry. No guarantees that you’ll still be able to later in the day. Same goes for showers – don’t ever say you’ll shower in the morning. If the shower is working at night, use it.

• If some of the work looks wrong, speak up! It’s a lot easier to fix a mis-measured framing issue before the sheetrock goes up. At some point you will feel like you may as well be the contractor, and it’s true to some extent. Stay on top of whatever you can. 
• Even if you never use disposable dishes or a plastic tablecloth, embrace it for the time being. See the note above…

Things to buy or borrow that can help:

• A proper tape measure. You will be measuring constantly. (The subcontractors will take you more seriously if you have a real tape measure.)
• Wet/Dry Vacuum. Construction dust will kill your regular vacuum in no time. 
• Clothing racks on wheels. These can function as temporary closets and laundry facilities. You will probably need to move them from place to place.
• Shelving units on wheels. I had several sets in constant use. One held all my laundry and cleaning supplies. One held the seforim that couldn’t be packed up. Another was a mobile “office.” Sometimes you’ll need them for a bedroom. Don’t skip this. The wheels are super important!
• A couple of small folding tables. Better to have two small ones than a big one. It’ll be easier to maneuver and use where it’s needed. 
• Soft folding bins like Ikea Skubbs. These are lightweight and pretty affordable. They’ll help you organize all your temporary spaces, and also make transferring things from place to place easier.
• Noise canceling headphones. Don’t think this needs explanation.

Living Without a Kitchen (shoutout to @idymarms for her input):

• Use lots of disposables (cutting boards too!)
• Crock Pot, Betty Crocker, electric burner, and a toaster oven that holds a 9×13. Those are the appliances that will get you through. Choose which you need for meat and/or dairy based on the foods your family will eat. 
• Use shortcuts – frozen schnitzel, Meal Mart meatballs, falafel…
• Keep a bug zapper on a nearby shelf, but not too close to food. When you’re not in your kitchen, you’re more likely to get annoying fruit flies and other flying creatures.
• If you have space, set 2 smaller tables as your counters rather than one larger – one for dairy and hot water, the other for meat.
• Set up your “temporary kitchen” for longer than you anticipate needing it. Otherwise, you’ll keep telling yourself that it’s not worth it for only one more week and you’ll find yourself eating takeout for weeks on end.
• Accept Shabbos and Yom Tov invitations. 
• A mini fridge is great if you don’t have access to a large one. Get the biggest one you can afford and can fit in the space. Make sure it has a freezer compartment.