Renovations of home or business are a bit like moving to a new location. Both are exciting and come with hopes and visions of the future, and both are a little stressful and potentially frustrating at the same time. One way of reducing the stress and making more room for the enjoyment is by staying organized before and during the renovation of your High Desert home or business. Here are a few ideas for keeping the stress down with a little advanced planning and organization before the start of a remodeling project.

Planning Your High Desert Remodel

Planning a remodel involves a great deal of creating a vision, researching products and materials, and meeting and discussing these details with your contractor, but there is also some planning closer to home worth considering. Construction projects take time, delays can and do happen, and the unexpected and unforeseen are always a possibility. These are the realities of remodeling projects. Being personally prepared for this ahead of time means less stress and frustration while your project is underway.

If you will continue to live in or work from the building being renovated, pare down your activities to the bare minimum and set up what you need the most in an area as far away as possible from the work site. Talk to your project manager well in advance about what areas you want to continue using, so dust barriers, access, and utility arrangements can be accommodated.

Moving your most valuable possessions out with you, or packing them securely away, may give you greater peace of mind about anything becoming lost or damaged during construction. If you are relocating, besides packing the practical necessities, consider a small box of personal items like family photos, important books, and sentimental treasures to take along with you for comfort, especially if you have children.

When you began to dream about your remodel project, you may have started collecting articles, flyers, and photos in a binder, folder, or storage box. Keeping a file like this going throughout the project and adding estimates, contract documents, receipts, and project photos reduces stress by having everything related to the project in one easy to access place when you need it.