Surviving the reno - A personal perspective by Tracy Trager.

I have renovated many homes as a house flipper, but most of those have been done where I buy the property and renovate quickly before I move in. Recently, however, I renovated my kitchen while living in the home, and hats off to my clients who do this.

I have a renewed respect for the inconvenience and disruption it causes.

I have two teenagers, two dogs, and two cats who I had to bear the disruption, and I had to try and manage and continue to provide meals. Unfortunately, I couldn’t put the meal providing on hold for the two weeks!

I made a makeshift kitchen area in the laundry, complete with fridge, kettle, and toaster. And then there was the air fryer and BBQ for the meals.

Then there is the dust. Admittedly, I removed the tiles in the floor which contributed majorly to the dust. I covered everything with drop sheets, which was fine, until I very eagerly uncovered everything two days into it and gave everything a good clean, thinking that was the end of the dusty stuff. I was wrong. Please keep those drop sheets on for the majority of the works.

And I found for my own sanity, I gave the floors a vacuum and quick mop at the end of every day just to square it away so I could sleep better at night. That might have just been a me thing, but it definitely helped.

I think the toughest thing though was the relentless getting up in the morning to move the cars from the driveway, get the pets contained, and be ready to say good morning to the trades. No sneaky sleep in for me. I just missed the routine of my morning. But the trades were just brilliant and got on with the job while I went about my day.

And here I am basking in my new kitchen. Something I should have done years ago. So, there is pain, but it was short-lived and well worth it!