Reno Diary #5: I Built My Renovation Execution Schedule (So No One Could Disappear on Me)
Updated: Aug 31
14 days to closing
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I had my renovation project list.
I had the funds.
I knew how much time I had to complete the reno’s pre-move phase.
Now I needed to figure out—at a granular level—how to get it all done, and who I would need to do it.
Why I Acted as My Own Contractor
I considered using a contractor, but one thing stopped me. From my mom’s experience as an expeditor for a prefab building company, I knew it was standard practice for most building contractors to manage multiple jobs simultaneously.
Virtually all building contractors accept multiple jobs, and work on them at the same time, because none of them feel that they can afford to turn down any business.
But what that meant was that sometimes a work crew would mysteriously disappear mid-project and reappear without explanation days or weeks later.
It drove my mom crazy.
Her experience tracked with friends’ recent experiences with contractors. They seemed to spend more time managing the contractor than it would have taken to manage the trades doing the actual work.
In my previous homes and my ten-year stint managing a condo property, I always worked directly with tradespeople, and the work got done on time.
I had less than 60 days to complete a whole-house renovation, and I didn’t want anyone to disappear on me for even a minute.
If I acted as my own contractor, I would control sequencing, communication, and scheduling.
After my initial research, I knew that, because my house was small, no single project would take more than a week. Some projects could be done in a few hours or a day. That would make it easier to schedule people when I needed them and reduce the worry that they would disappear mid-job.
I just needed to build a realistic but super-efficient renovation schedule.
Scheduling My Reno for Maximum Efficiency
Homes aren’t built room-by-room. They are built in layers starting with a frame that includes the foundation, joists, studs, and rafters.
After framing, the roof is added.
Once the roof is installed, the exterior components are layered into the frame, i.e., sheathing, windows, weather-resistant barrier, and cladding (like brick or siding).
When the exterior is underway, interior components—plumbing, electrical, insulation, HVAC—are added. Interior finishes come last.
Renovations happen in reverse. In order to create the house I saw in my head, I had to demo much of the interior and fix the underlying systems before getting to the fun stuff.
My Pre-Move Reno Plan for the Home’s Interior
Assessment, planning, design, and budget were done. The electrician would pull the permit for installing the new electrical box.
Electrical box replacement could start the day after closing so subsequent jobs wouldn’t be delayed due to lack of electricity.
Demolition:
The kitchen and laundry room cabinets and sinks
Living room wall paneling
Carpet and original flooring underneath it
Living room wall (if I decided it could go after getting the new kitchen layout)
Structural repairs if I found anything awful after demo
Kitchen plumbing assessment/installation
Framed inside wall in kitchen
Complete the kitchen cabinet layout so the electrician could plan the wiring
New electrical wiring install. This project could be done simultaneously with carpentry and interior/exterior painting. The only caveat here was that the kitchen outlets needed to be installed prior to wall tile installation.
New wallboard in the kitchen
New wallboard and coat closet door installation in the living room
Paint all ceilings
New hardwood flooring throughout except the bathroom; new baseboards
Interior electrical—installing new outlets, light switches and lighting.
Select kitchen faucet (so installers could cut a hole in the countertop to fit)
Kitchen cabinets, countertops, and sink/faucet installation
Tile installation (kitchen and hearth)
Replace the toilet
Paint
Décor, including window shades and bathroom fixtures
Exterior Execution Plan
This could happen simultaneously with the interior reno.
Replace front porch posts
Replace fascia
Inspect back porch and address any issues
Paint exterior
I reworked my spreadsheet line items in order of execution. To get to the reno timeline, I needed to figure out how long each step would take to complete, any dependencies, and what work could be done in parallel.
How I Built My Renovation Timeline
This was easier than I thought it would be, mostly due to the collective wisdom of the internet. You can Google a question like “How long does it take to paint a 10 x 10 room?” and get a reasonably accurate answer in split seconds.
To build the reno timeline, I created columns on a new spreadsheet to represent the weeks between close and my estimated move-in date.
Break Reno Projects Into Tasks
First, I broke every reno project into tasks in order by execution. I added a column on the far left of the spreadsheet to list each task. To the right of that I added a column for the calendar date (or date range) when the task needed to be completed. All tasks were color-coded to represent who was doing what.
Listing tasks rather than projects allowed me to see potential conflicts at a high level of granularity. For example, until the new electrical box was installed and the house had power, scheduling other work was an exercise in futility.
In another example, the floor vapor barrier had to be installed before the hardwood, and the hardwood had to be installed before the baseboards.
No do-overs allowed.
For tasks I wasn’t doing myself, I added two days to account for delays not in my control (I planned to get my tasks done on time come hell or high water). As I got estimates and scheduled the work, I could refine the Timeframe column.
For the more complex projects, like the electrical systems update, the estimator had done a lot of the work for me, breaking the project into tasks listed in execution order, with time estimates for each task. I made a mental note to ask the kitchen cabinet supplier for a similar breakdown.
Once I had the sequence worked out, I wanted to see whether the schedule actually made sense.
Looking at rows of dates was making my eyes cross.
So, I converted the schedule into a Gantt chart so I could see which projects overlapped, which depended on each other, and where delays would potentially cascade through my timeline.
Timeline Complete and Next Steps
I finished the timeline with ten days left to closing. Now I needed to engage tradespeople from the list my real estate agent gave me, focusing on the projects that needed to be done first.
After talking with my agent about my potential return on the condo sale, I knew that the money side of the reno was solid.
Now that I knew what services I needed exactly when I needed them, I could wrangle the right tradespeople to show up at the right time in the reno sequence.
My real estate agent had already recommended a handyman jack-of-all-trades who could fill in the gaps in services between tradespeople. Our first meeting would be at the post-close get-together at the house when my agent officially handed over the keys to the property.
Time to wrangle the rest of the tradespeople.
I reached for my phone to call my agent for referrals.
Tools I Used to Build My Renovation Schedule
Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets (the templates for converting my timeline into a Gantt chart are pretty good)
Dry erase board (to map phases and shift things around quickly)
Sticky notes or moveable labels (so you can physically reorder tasks without rebuilding everything)
I built my schedule visually first—then translated it into a timeline.
It wasn't pretty, but I didn't miss anything.
One Thing I’d Add If I Did This Again
A prebuilt renovation schedule template.
You can absolutely build your own (I did), but having a starting point would have saved time—and a few rounds of second-guessing.
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