How to make your renovation project less stressful

Having your property renovated can be an exciting experience; however, it can also be enormously stressful. Read on to learn about some of the things that you can do to make your home renovations a little less trying.

Establish a good working relationship with your building team 

When, after a few days of construction work, your home begins to bear more than a passing resemblance to a rubbish tip and you start to feel tired of listening to the constant sound of drills and hammers, you may find yourself feeling irritated with your team of builders, as they are, of course, creating this chaos. This irritation may increase if you notice that they are, for example, tracking dirt around the house with their boots or working at a slower pace than you had initially agreed upon.

It's important to realise that your reaction to this type of scenario will determine how stressful your home renovations will be. If you choose to allow your irritation to get the best of you and begin communicating in an unfriendly manner with the labourers (or not communicating at all), you will probably find that they become very unaccommodating.

It's crucial to develop a good working relationship with the building team and to make an effort to maintain strong lines of communication so that if the above-mentioned problems arise, they will be easily addressed. Establish a regular weekly meeting with your building contractor, so that you have a set time during which to receive status updates about the progress of the construction work and to have them address any concerns you might have.

Additionally, if you need to discuss problems directly with the labourers, make sure to do so in a firm but friendly manner; whilst it's important that you get your point across, it is equally vital to keep the peace. Your building team will be far more likely to respond in a helpful way to your concerns if you present them with a smile and a non-aggressive tone of voice.

Consider living in temporary accommodation on-site

Some people prefer to continue to live in their home throughout the course of the renovation work. This enables them to keep a close eye on the project's progress and saves them the expense of paying for a hotel room.

However, trying to go about your normal daily routine amid the noise, dust and general chaos that comes with construction work can be incredibly stressful. This is especially true if you're having your kitchen and bathroom renovated, as you won't have anywhere to bathe, cook, wash dishes or do your laundry.

One possible solution to this problem is to rent a caravan that you can live in on-site for the duration of the project. Provided you opt for a basic, no-frills model, this would be far less expensive than staying in a hotel room and would enable you to carry out your usual everyday activities whilst still being able to closely monitor the renovation work.