Baby on a building site - anecdotes please?

[brickbybrickbybrick]

Hi everyone, fist time I've started a thread please be kind!

Myself and my husband (royal we, it's mainly him) are in the midst of a modest 2 bed self build. In true Grand Designs fashion, we have had a baby during the process. We've been very fortunate to live with family nearby and are welcome to stay as long as required but have deduced we really need to move in to keep the momentum up and also ultimately because it's our home and we want to.

I was basically hoping for some cheering anecdotes of people who have had babies in half done houses to confirm this isn't total madness on our part! Words of wisdom saying don't even think about it are also very welcome. If it was just the two of us we'd have been in ages ago, not afraid of a bit of slumming it but things are a bit different with a little one around.

Some more context ..baby is 9 months and crawling. The house is in a great location and we are well set up with local baby groups and friends, we aren't ones to really sit inside all day. Downstairs is one open plan space (I know very un-MN) with a separate lootility. This is all done and has a door closing it from the rest of the house in terms of dust etc. The route upstairs is largely done as is baby's room. Our room is non existent, think it's likely we'd sleep on the sofabed downstairs. The bathroom currently only consists of a bath which is plumbed in and has a water connection - we use the big schnuggle bath and will probably continue to do so. Heating and hot water are working. The walk up to the front door and the back garden are as you'd imagine, so we'd be inclined to keep the pram in the car to avoid traipsing mud everywhere. For the most part we are completely self building (again in Grand Designs fashion we are on the dregs of our budget) so the outstanding works aren't going to be done particularly quickly as they are competing with life/work/cashflow etc etc but it also means we aren't sharing the house with builders..

Thanks!

Babies are super adaptable. They don’t know anything else. A friend of mine did a big extension when their first was a baby - it finished when he was 2.5 and had been ongoing for aaaaages because they (mostly her partner) were mainly doing it themselves with some help from mates. All last winter they were missing an outside wall. I personally don’t understand how, but they managed and didn’t even grumble about it. Their little boy has not been home much for his whole life because it’s not been very nice, but he’s become so easygoing about being out and about from morning til dinner.

We did a loft conversion when DD1 was 10months old which turned into a bit of a bigger project (lowering ceilings on the middle floor, which meant redecorating and new bathrooms on all the middle floor as well). It was manageable but not something I would want to repeat if it all possible. The main issue i found was what your flooring situation will be. We ended up without flooring upstairs for quite a while which meant we couldn't just let DD1 crawl around or be barefoot upstairs. Not good for her development as well as being a pain for us having to constantly move her from place to place. We are going to redo our downstairs space soon and have decided to wait until DD2 is walking so that we don't have to go through the same thing again.

We also had a lot of our belongings packed in boxes and stacked in the downstairs, which reduced our downstairs space as well.

The dust from the new / replastering was also such a nightmare as it got into rooms that had been completely sealed off from the work. So my advice would be if you can, don't move in until at least everywhere is plastered and ideally mist coated (so the dust is sealed) but appreciate that might not be realistic.

But the other thing that makes me a bit sad is in so many of our baby photos, it's just chaos in the house behind her 😅 I know its such a silly thing but it just reminds me of how stressful everything was!

I get your reasons for wanting to be in but I think you just need to be prepared for how quickly it will become quite annoying. If you can be super focused on getting finished, and not let things drag (like we did 🙈), it will be a lot easier. I think we became a bit immune to living in a building site and so things ended up taking longer than we envisaged.

We moved onto a full reno with a ten month old, although he wasn't crawling. Like you we had one safe open plan room with a kitchen and living space and just stuck a double mattress on the floor to sleep on. It was fine. I fact it was lovely because that room was finished so we could just pretend that the whole house was done. We did the rest of the work in the evenings or took turns at the weekends

A baby was actually the best age to live on a building site. So long as you have a safe done room for them to sleep and at least one room for you to hang out in. As well as some cooking facilities. They aren't exploring yet and will put them where you want them to be. We renovated our house with a baby and lived out of 2 rooms. But we had no choice, no family nearby to stay with and it was covid so we were stuck in A LOT! The only hard bit was naps and baby being woken up by building work. Honestly I think you're a bit mad to move from where you are and I'd stay with family until the project is done if I were you. How close is the project to completion? Being there and getting in the way isn't going to make it go quicker.

A friend of mine did this.

They had bought an absolutely massive wreck. Moved in with one room downstairs and bathroom done.

It's doable.

It is hard. I had a newborn in our building site. Didn't have a comfy chair to sit on so spent what seemed like 24hrs a day breastfeeding in the temporary kitchen on a wooden dining chair wearing all the layers I could find as the downstairs was open to the elements. It was miserable! She's 15 months now and we still don't have skirting boards, storage cupboards, some internal doors, a patio (just that sharp gravelly under layer that gets stuck in shoes and scratches our new floor). We spend our time in the one room downstairs that is finished and is safe. We paid builders for most of it but my dh is doing the end carpentry, decorating, patio etc on weekends and our baby is a won't be put down baby, so it's been really tough. I think as long as you've got the spaces that need to be baby safe ready enough then go for it. The dust will continue to just appear everywhere though, so be prepared. It sounds like it's ready enough to me. Good luck

Did a full renovation and extension with a baby and a toddler and a dog, and moving back in and having our own space was better. If you have a safe room for them to sleep in and a fully done downstairs, I think that would be fine.

Some things that helped us - get an amazing air purifier for peace of mind. We got one that measures air purity. And ran that for half an hour in the children's rooms before bed, and ran it in the downstairs rooms periodically through the day. Especially when any dusty, painty or smelly work was being done elsewhere in the house. Slippers to walk between the done areas - taken off in the doorway of the done areas. An outdoor storage like a Keter box - store the buggies and bikes in etc not folded down and right by the front door. Much easier. We still have it for that purpose, you can get wood effect ones. The zipper plastic door cover into the main area, to keep any dust out. Even with the door closed, some would get in without it.

It's really been okay, and you get used to it very quickly. And at least the kitchen is done it sounds like. Focus on getting somewhere ready for you to sleep also - somewhere nice to retreat to really helps

I spent my entire babyhood in a wreck of a cottage that my parents rebuilt. There are lots of cute pictures of me playing in piles of builder’s sand and “helping” my dad.