Staying in/on Your Property During a Kitchen Remodel?

[Woody01]

Originally Posted by hunterseat

Lord help your contractor. [/b]

Yep, right....?

[Mr78609]

Stay in it if you can but if any demolition is being done the dust can make you sick.

[wac_432]

Thanks for all the input! It's a small house. Around 1700sqft. 2 floors. Kitchen remodel on the ground floor and possibly adding a closet in a bedroom on the 2nd floor.

I'm trying to determine if there's any value in having a used RV available to which to retreat during the worst phases of construction. We have another refridgerator in the garage, but I wouldn't cook out there. The layout of the house is such that the Kitchen/Living Room remodel is central to the bedrooms and bathrooms (they all feed into the living room). There are no other entrances.

We have 4 bedrooms, at least 3 of which will remain untouched. 2 of those have have no carpet and could host a fridge and a cooktop, but no sink. 1 full and one 3/4 bath should stay available for use (when the water is on). For an actual sink/dishes, I could rig up a utility sink outside (year-round good weather), draining into a tub that I'd have to empty by hand, or--more ambitiously--remove one of the bathroom sinks and connect to water and sewer. We can make do, the question is: how bad does living in a remodel get?

The RV is something I'm looking to acquire anyway. We live in a vacation hotspot, and I can make a decent side income renting out the RV when we're not using it. Of course, if it's going to save me lots of headaches (and the money of a rental) to just have a ready-made untouched bed/bath/kitchen motorhome on site, that just gives me more impetus to get the RV.

[kwong7]

Originally Posted by WildCard~

We went the RV rout while building 15 years ago, and worked out great! We were there on sight if issues came up and I do beleive it keep theft from happening since we were there, and it was remote building sight! Plus we have RV we enjoy for trips, so it has paid off! ...

Good point on the theft element. A friend of ours bought an old mid-century house on a hill that was an estate sale. She spent about 1 year having major remodel work done and used that year to buy all her appliances and furnishings when they were on sale. She locked it all in a secured workshop by the garage. Her house was just about finished when she was burgled. She suspected it was the painters and was watching eBay and Craigslist for a few weeks to see if anything popped up. Oddly, her GC told her a few other clients of his also lost stuff too... The guy had a thief amongst him and he was completely clueless.

Fortunately, my friend had all her receipts for insurance coverage. Unfortunately, because she bought everything on sale, they covered her actual costs and not the replacement costs so she had to spend an extra $12K on items that were FOR sale, but not ON sale.

Two months later the painter was caught by the police trying to sell her fancy and uncommon cooking range; again, she kept her receipts and bill of sale that included the serial numbers.