Whole house refurb a bit at a time.

[audley]

Can anyone advise me on how to organise our schedule for doing up the house. We have savings available in three years for the major job of knocking a few walls down and refitting the kitchen. The en suite is happening asap. Otherwise the whole house is now shabby. I would like to skim ceilings, replace skirting and doors. Change my bathroom at some point.
My question is then, what order to do things to get maximum impact for minimum disruption? Do I do a room at a time or a task at a time, ie skim all ceilings, then paint all walls etc?

Ideally work from top to bottom with access areas last. No nice flooring until walls demolished - dust gets everywhere.

Top down means least risk of trashing nice new things.

The advantage of doing things together is if you are organising separate trades they are more cost effective if there's enough to keep them busy all day for a full day rather than needing to wait for stuff to dry in one room.

From my experiences, moving out is the best option (we lived in a caravan on the front drive for our last project!)

Second option is to 'camp out' in 1 room - make this space your cooking/eating/sleeping/living

Yes it will be s**t & hard but I promise you it is better than having all your stuff ruined & dust/mess spread all over the house. You can keep that one room clean. It's easier for trades to get on with jobs too.

You can then get on with all the 'messy' jobs first such as knocking down walls, electrics, plastering etc. Then decorate each room.

You could start at the top of the house & work your way down as others have said, but from my experience dust & rubbish gets into everywhere no matter how hard you try.

Depends how big of a renovation job it is

Tell us exactly what you're doing & I can help with a schedule :)

Sounds like a lot of disruptive stuff. I'd probably prefer to move out and have it done in one go. It'll be much easier on the builders and they might charge you less. Working around people and their possessions can be a nuisance.

Thanks for your replies, sorry I went awol!
Jobs to do include skimming ceilings, replacing en suite, bathroom, skirting, new doors. Main job is the kitchen which has a very long narrow utility behind it and the playroom, plan to knock out the downstairs wc to incorporate space into the kitchen, divide utility in half, moving wc into new smaller utility, knocking through left over utility at the back of the kitchen to enlarge kitchen space. Change back door and window to double doors.
En suite is urgent, kitchen is longer term plan. Ceilings, skirting, doors and decorating over the next couple of years until money is available for the kitchen job.
I don't think moving out in an option, no room for caravan!