Surviving a Renovation

I came across some pictures you might enjoy. These are from a project we did on our own house two years ago, and they show how helpful site preparation is when you’ve got workers in your house. We do site preparation like this on every job – as needed -- when people are living in the house.

Our project included custom cabinet work in the family room. Carpentry is messy and takes up a lot of space, so you have to plan for it. Often, the carpenters do most of the work in their own space off-site, but in this case the guys we were using live far away, so it was easier to give them space in the house.

We started by building a temporary wall out of two-by-fours and blue foam board.

The wall divided our kitchen from the breakfast / family room, and it had a door cut into it (the hinges were just made of tape.) Just for fun, we made a poster-sized picture of a familiar water view, and we taped the picture to the blue wall. Not beautiful, but cheerful in a goofy kind of way.

On the other side of the temporary wall, the carpenters worked all day. Their conversation and power tools seemed slightly distant from the kitchen, since we couldn’t see each other. We never allow radios on any of our jobs, so that wasn’t a problem.

Here’s the workers’ side of the room. The view below is actually of the breakfast table area, temporarily filled with tools.

The next is of the cabinets in progress....

and the last is the finished work.