if you have small children, how do you renovate?!?!?

[redwellybluewelly]

Ok.

Last summer bought a 1930's semi. Not touched decoration wise or it seems cleaned since the seventies when a rather lovely but eccentric couple bought it. Not only that but the truly beautiful garden was left pretty much to rot.

We knew there were repairs to be done (roof, electrics, gutters) and full redecoration with some rooms requiring plastering, new doors, new floors and a downstairs cloakroom fitted. Much of this we have paid to have done but the money pot is running dry. We have also paid out for a work gang to clear the garden.

We just about managed to get some work done in the eveninhs and weekends by tag teaming when we just had DD1 but we've now got a 3mo baby too and I can say hand on heart neither of us have manged ro even so much as lift a finger on the house since she was born.

Any tips? The cloakroom desperately needs finishing, the garden beds carefully dug are being shat in by cats and weeds growing. We haven't money to buy in help - if you woeked on your house/garden with young children please please tell me the secret!

Do you have parents or family who would be willing to give up a weekend and let you get one project - such as the cloakroom - finished? If you can work out jobs that need a finite amount of time - a weekend to finish the cloakroom/two weekends to dig over the garden or whatever - and you don't take the piss, you might be able to talk people into taking the children off your hands for the daylight hours.

If you don't have that back up, then it's a question of one of you getting on with it solo (probably not you if you are the main carer). Perhaps ease off a bit until you are both getting decent night's sleep?

I no longer have young children, but used to start painting when they went to bed, or when DH got in from work. The gardening's easier, as the DCs like to be involved; fit it around the baby's nap.
Above all though, as an almost empty nester, enjoy the DCs while they are small. The house can wait!

Our house was a total wreck. We've been doing stuff with our 20 month son plus me 6 months pg, and quite honestly, the only real choices have been:

• OH does a shift in the evening after work of an hour or two while toddler in bed (I guess you'd have to hold baby)

• I or OH take toddler out for a weekend excursion, other one of us stays in and paints and decorates for the day.

I have to say, if we don't get it finished by baby number two (seriously, I'm planning on being up a ladder 9 months pg to get the flipping thing done) I'm not expecting to do much more until we've got our DC2 into a sleep routine. 3 months is pretty hardcore to be attempting this stuff.

I do a lot of stuff once the kids are asleep (they have always been good sleepers so I can do a lot after 8pm) but the really big stuff I tend to do when they're away. They go to the grandparents for a weekend or a week a few times a year. When we were doing our garden, my parents came and sat with the kids in the living room while I got it done and I popped in and out during the weekend. I painted our floors and repainted the hall in a week they spent with the GPs. I have to say that our garden remained a shit tip until I finally gave in in May and put weed control membrane down over all the beds and mulched with woodchip. Took a bank holiday weekend to do the whole thing (on my own, without DH and wrangling the toddlers) but I barely have to lift a finger now and the weeds have gone into remission not just in the beds, but across the whole garden.

When DS was teeny, I would strap him onto my back and do painting and gardening etc. Once he got to holding his head up well, it was into the jumperoo and he would sit in that for a bit while I did stuff (two year old DD was easily distracted by the TV/running around the garden/'helping').

How much is left to do in the cloakroom? Getting someone to sit with the kids while you crack on (but are nearby for feeds etc) might be the best way if there's not much to do.

Nothing really to add - we moved into this house 3.5yrs ago with 4 yr old twins and a 6 month old baby. We have done bits to it, mostly when we've had a childfree day here and there (if grandparents have had them), a few late nights but its mostly in the same state as it was when we bought it!!