How to be organised while (long-term) renovating??

[Pannacotta]

We are in the very slow process of renovating our ramshackle victorian house and it is taking far longer than I had anticipated.

In the meantime we have very little storage and the house always looks a tip. It is really starting to get me down. I find it hard to keep the place tidy and organised and never know where anything is.

I am also rather messy, as is DH and also the DSs.

We will be doing re-wiring/plumbing, sanding floors, putting in a new kitchen, bathroom and loo plus some moving of walls downstairs, which will be messy and disruptive. Once it's done we'll have built-in shelving and a big hall cupboard.

How can I make the house run smoothly until this work is done? I dont want to buy new furniture now as it just means more to move around but I do need to create some proper temporarary storage for books/paperwork/toys etc etc.

Any thoughts?

TIA

Cheap stacking plastic boxes? From your local pound shop place. Try ebay for an old filing cabinet. Really pare down what you actually need for the next few months and if it is superfluous for now box it and shove it in the garage - or even a self storage place.

I am feeling your pain. We are living in a static in the front garden - most of our stuff is in storage (never moved into house before starting work) so I am living with not much stuff and the mess due to the lack of space can do my head in.

Also all those things create the most outrageous amounts of dust. OMG the dust. And we are not even living in the house! Really truly get it out of the house, boxed up and save yourselves the need to clean absolutely everything when you are finished.

I would by an expedit unit from ikea ( with however many spaces u need), they are cheap enough and you can either keep or sell/ give away down the line. They sell canvas boxes in black that fit exactly for 2.99 for two. Perfect for all storage needs and hidden and tidy

Thanks for the suggestions.
We dont have a garage but the shed is big and watertight so lots could go in there I think, will check out the Pound shop for boxes too.

We do have one Expedit but a few more would be useful, they do seem to swallow up lots of gear.
Am really keen to get rid of lots of stuff but find decluttering hard work!

I would love to get someone round to go through the house with me and suggest the best ways to store all our clobber but not sure who would do this...

Get temporary furniture from Freecycle or Gumtree and then give it away or re-sell it when you get your permanent stuff.

You could use a professional organiser (google APDO) to help you with the decluttering- they charge about £200 per day but everyone I know who has ever used one thinks it's money very well spent. You only need them to help start you off, and the momentum and the tips they've taught you help you get the job done.

Buy peel-off Washi tape and use it to label EVERYTHING- cardboard boxes, drawers etc.

Thanks for the tip re APDO/declutterers oldgirl, may do that.

Have you sed Washi tape? I looked it up and it is on all the craft websites. I hadnt heard of it before (craft not being my strong point)...

I'm not sure I agree with the advice about putting non-essentials into storage. I could buy my belongings several times over with the money I've wasted on off-site storage over the years.

You're also unlikely to use your student Ikea and hand me down sofas in your swanky new renovation either. Use it, or get rid of it. Store only sentimental items, and things that you completely adore which really cannot be replaced.

not sure what to say other than do not decorate upstairs beautifully to then remove walls downstairs. you will get cracking and movement! very depressing. sequence any structural works early on so that you dont have to repair stuff upstairs.

Lots of plastic stacking boxes (get the ones with lids). If space, underbed boxes are great.

Dust from the building work will get trampled everywhere - something to bear in mind if your are intending to lay any carpets, buy expensive curtains etc.

Also from experience (wew've had two concrete floors laid, one of which we did ourselves, we've bricked up two fireplaces and had another two lots of brick work redone, plus all the associated plastering), consider if you can actually live in the house through that. (What age are DSs? Does anyone have asthma?) With the best will in the world, while walls are getting moved or plastering is being done, your house will not be clean, although didn't find it too much of a struggle to keep a couple of upstairs bedrooms reasonably fresh & a bathroom.

Oh and if the tradesmen don't do this themselves, one thing I found incredibly useful was buying a big roll of plastic dust sheet & some gaffer tape and using this to 'close off' clean bit of the house from building dust.

Also, what tricot said. bloody wish I'd thought about that before laying damned carpet

Thanks.
We wont actually be knocking down walls, rather creating new doorways, but I do realise it will be very messy. We re-wired the bedrooms a while back and there was dust everywhere from that, it was not nice...

Luckily its quite a big house and there is room for us to escape when we need to and I will be closing off/taping up the messy areas as soon as the serious work starts.

Any suggestions for car-accessible places to get hold of cheap plastic boxes and also plastic tub trugs?

Check on line for prices but Argos/B&Q/Tesco/Homebase probably all have value-esque plastic boxes if you do not have a pound store accessible. Or try a place called Family Bargains - there are a couple of these around our area (one on a retail park) which may be another good bet.