New baby + renovations - what would be reasonable timing (re planning the renovations rather than the baby!)?

[MrsFogi]

We've just moved house and it seriously needs major work (although we can live in it as it is at the moment although kitchen/bathroom facilities are not my ideal). We can live on a different floor of the house as each of the other floors is done but everyone tells me that a new baby + renovations aren't a great plan (kitchen fitter, builders, in fact everyone has their next slot in Jan of course).
So, as the baby's arrival date is pretty fixed (due - 8 Jan) when would you say would be the earliest I could envisage getting work done? When things get really dirty/noisy baby and I could go and stay with my parents but I'd prefer to stay at the house the rest of the time so that dh can be with new baby (+ me!) in the evenings after work. Or should I not even be considering doing a house up in the first year or so?

get on with it

renovations, like babies, get more complicated and stressful the longer they go on

but it may take you a bit of time to find a good builder. If so start as the weather changes so you can escape outside when things are hellish.

Oh I've been there and done that!! I have vivid memories of standing in the hallway of my house with 3 weeks to go until dd was due looking up and seeing no ceilings or floorboards at all - just roof tiles!!

Have to say that I'd agree with what everyone else has said so far - get as much as you can done sooner rather than later. For me, noise wasn't the issue, privacy bothered me a little bit but in the early days it was actually nice to have a bit of company - so long as you get on with your builders of course and you do have a room to take yourself off to if you do want some peace and quiet. My builders were excellent and made me cups of tea all the time!!

Biggest issue is the dust - specifically if you're going to be knocking down walls or sanding. Not only will this be a nightmare for you - but it'll be pretty bad for a newborn too. So make sure your builders give you a clear timetable of what they're going to do and when so that you know when the best time to vacate are. I went to stay at my sisters for a week when dd was 8 weeks old as this coincided with our staircases (we have 2) being ripped out and relpaced with new ones in a different place!

DD slept through all the rest of the noise without a problem and since then has been really chilled about mess and disorganisation. We just finished our second phase (dd is now 2) and it's been harder to deal with the older she has been - so interested in step ladders and circular saws and builders just do not appreciate the need for storing things away properly!

By the way - everyone else thought I was mad too...but I have to say the biggest benefit of doing it when dd was young was that I was always on-site to a) check that the builders always turned up on time, b) could answer on the spot questions which otherwise would have meant delay or something needing to be redone and c) had peace of mind that I knew exactly what was going on in my house.....!!

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

we renovated our entire house before I got pregnant. Looking back at the mess and looking at my baby (now four months), I'd say this is the first time I'd have considered it.

If you wait four months, the weather will be better and you will feel better too. It's so much easier to bear the mess when the workmen aren't treading mud in constantly and if it's summer, you can get out and walk the baby in the sunshine and eat out in pub gardens when you can't enjoy your own garden.

Good luck with it all!

Thanks for all the replies, it's very refreshing to have something different to my mother muttering about me being mad and having no idea!

Not sure if this is relevant, but think of warmth, horrible being in a cold damp house with a baby.