Should You Move Out During Remodeling?

When you’re dealing with kitchen and baths remodelers about your home, this can be a big project. Kitchens are one of the biggest rooms in a home and require massive amounts of work for full remodel. Bathrooms, similarly have a lot of complex plumbing and water management issues that need to be considered. Neither of these is as simple as slapping a new coat of paint in a room and moving some new furniture to change it from a bedroom to a home office to a home theater.

That’s why, for some, a major remodel can be a very intense, even stressful experience. If you’re talking to kitchen and baths remodelers about a large project for your home, you might want to consider temporary accommodations.

The Ideal Situation

For some homeowners, kitchen, and bathroom remodeling, while substantial, have little impact on the owners’ daily lives because they bought a home but haven’t moved into it yet. This leaves the remodelers with the full run of an empty house to do the work as needed.

Not everyone has this situation, however. If you’re already happily living in your home, but you’ve always dreamed of a luxurious master bathroom with a deluxe tub and a new, up to date kitchen, this will take a lot of effort. If you’re still living in your home when you decide to remodel these things, it will also create a lot of inconvenience.

The Living Factor

If you have decided to get your kitchen and your bathroom—or rooms—remodeled at the same time, you may want to consider temporary accommodations seriously. While a kitchen is being renovated, it’s not going to be available for use. This can be remedied with temporary kitchens, such as hot plates and microwave ovens, or dining out more frequently.

However, bathrooms being remodeled means losing the use of sinks, showers, bathtubs, toilets, and even running water in general until the work is finished. If you are going without access to a bathroom and shower for several days—or even weeks—you’ll need to think about other alternatives. Moving out while the work is done can solve these issues.

The Benefit

Choosing to live in temporary accommodations while work is being done may help the job go faster. When people are still living in a home, the kitchen and baths remodelers have to make certain work concessions on the residents’ behalf. They can’t work until they are let in, for example, and may have to stop work early for resident comfort. They may even be interrupted by children or pets, all of which adds to the time required for completion.
With an empty home, the contractors can work as thoroughly and efficiently as they need to.

The Options

Fortunately, people today have many options when it comes to other accommodations. Hotels are expensive, but they’re not the only choice. People can choose from:

• Staying with relatives
• Using crowdsourced alternatives like Airbnb
• Short term rentals of apartments
• Corporate housing solutions for short-to-mid-term stays

These are much more comfortable than trying to live in a home with no functioning kitchen and bathroom.