Seven Steps to Keep Your Renovation on Track
Updated: Aug 31
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Renovations rarely fail because someone picked the wrong tile. They fail because the project slowly drifts off course.
Every renovation encounters surprises. The goal isn't avoiding them—it's preventing them from derailing the project.
Even the best-managed home renovations yank you out of your comfort zone and into a noisy, dirty, stressful reality where strangers suddenly become the most important people in your life.
One delayed delivery becomes three (ask me how). One "small change" becomes five. The budget grows, the schedule slips, everyone gets tired, and suddenly you're eating takeout in a construction zone wondering how everything went sideways.
Your home renovation doesn’t have to become a Death Spiral. With the right approach, you can stay in control of your reno—and your sanity.
Here’s how.
1. Define Your Renovation Goals
What positive effect do you want the completed renovation to have on you, your family, and your friends? How will the renovation improve your quality of life and of those around you?
If you haven't yet defined what you want your renovated home to do for you, start by reading Making Your Home Move-In Ready (For You), Part 3, where I explain how to evaluate your space so you make meaningful home improvements.
Here are two examples for how to define your renovation goals:
Do you want enough kitchen storage to be able to put away all the kitchen equipment that’s currently cluttering your counters and overflowing into your dining room, making it difficult to prepare meals and actually eat in your dining room?
Do you want a spa-like bathroom that you can retreat to at the end of a tough day for a long, uninterrupted, healing soak in a deep tub?
Note that neither of these examples include details about cabinets, countertops, tile, wall color, furniture layout, TV size, etc. But both will drive fundamental reno priorities, details, and decisions.
Let’s take the first example. The outcome is frictionless kitchen operation because everything you need is stored where you actually use it.
To get to that outcome, the reno should add a 36” wide utility cabinet to your new cabinet run instead of opening up the wall between the kitchen and family room (why—so everyone can get a better look at all the kitchen clutter?).
Once you’ve defined your reno outcome, write it down in a few sentences. Share those sentences with your contractor, designer, or other renovation expert. In my experience, renovation experts would much rather understand your desired outcome as a first step in the project so they can recommend the best approach to get you what you want.
Defining your desired reno outcome will also make it much easier for you to get through it. When the noise, dirt, commotion, and inconvenience start getting to you, you can shift your focus to how you, your family, and your friends will benefit post-reno.
2. Build the Renovation Plan
Once your contractor/designer knows your desired outcome, they will recommend a course of action and provide you with a renovation timeline, materials list, and costs. If you want to gather that information before engaging an expert, Google is a great place to start.
Having always acted as my own contractor, I would figure out the plan and then confirm details with the tradespeople (plumber, electrician, etc.) I planned to hire. If some of your reno tasks take place outdoors, consult a resource like weather.com to help you build potential weather delays into your schedule.
Before you finalize your timeline, ask your renovation expert The Magic Question:
I’ve found that contractors and tradespeople love this question because it shifts the project from an HGTV fantasy to reality and reduces hysteria when things do go wrong.
For example, a friend selected Italian tile for her kitchen reno but forgot to use all her words with her contractor (i.e., ask The Magic Question). Standard wait time for the tile was three months. When the tile arrived, half of it had broken or cracked in transit, forcing her to place a new order and wait another 3 months, sending her schedule, budget and new kitchen delivery date to hell in a handcart.
For a real-life example of this process, read how I built my own renovation schedule in I Build the Execution Schedule.
3. Get Local Permits
Building permit requirements vary from state to state, so check with your local municipality on what permits you’ll need (usually there’s a published list of the types of work that require permits), when you need to apply, and how long your permits will take to get.
If you’ve decided to use a contractor, tradesperson, designer, or other expert, they will help you safely navigate any compliance challenges and can usually pull the permits themselves as part of the job.
If you plan on doing some of the work yourself, most states will allow the home’s owner to act as their own contractor and pull permits (called owner-builder permits). Two caveats: it will take longer to pull permits yourself, and your municipality may restrict the type of work that you can do under that permit.
4. Build the Renovation Budget
You are probably wondering why finalizing your budget comes at this point in your planning process. Shouldn’t it be earlier?
Nope. Until you know the tasks, expertise and materials needed, you’re not going to be able to determine your reno’s total cost.
Start with reno tasks. If you’re using a contractor, designer, or other expert to manage the tradespeople working on the reno, they should be able to provide you with a list of itemized tasks, the number of hours generally required for each task, and cost per hour. If you’re dealing directly with the tradespeople working on your reno, they should be able to provide you with a similar document for their tasks.
Note that these estimates are based on the number of hours generally required for a task. If the task ends up taking longer than the estimated time, you’re going to be on the hook for the additional time and costs. This situation most often applies to older homes that have been poorly maintained and/or where the previous owner(s) was an ardent but haphazard DIYer.
For a real-life example of how to gather estimates for an older home reno, read I Start Getting Estimates.
Material costs come next. If you’ve already selected materials, and know who is responsible for ordering what, that should be fairly easy.
Now, add the people and materials costs and include an additional 10-20% to cover contingencies. Based on three decades of renovating older homes, I recommend budgeting closer to an additional 30% for surprises when renovating a home that's more than 30 years old.
When renovating a home that’s over 30 years old, add 30% to your budget.
If the total is in line with your expectations, awesome. If it isn’t, now’s the time to make adjustments to keep your budget realistic and doable.
I’ve found that it’s easier when adjusting your budget to start with materials. Before you start making adjustments, pull out your reno outcome description and reread it. Then, as you review the line items in your budget, ask yourself, “How essential is this line item to my reno outcome? Is this a ‘must-have’ or a ‘nice-to-have?’”
As an example, the kitchen reno outcome defined early in this post was to have storage space for every piece of kitchen equipment the owner possessed. But the exotic granite countertops included in the plan cost as much as a new, posh SUV—despite the fact that those countertops are far less critical to the desired reno outcome than the cabinets.
In most cases, adjusting material costs will not change construction costs. A quartz countertop costs much the same to install as an exotic granite one. Where you are going to save on construction costs is usually when you decide to forego an element in your reno, like heated floors or recessed lighting.
Additionally, if you’re over budget, talk to your reno expert to find out what they would recommend eliminating to stay within budget and how that would affect your desired outcome. (They will take your concerns seriously because they want to get paid.)
Many expensive "nice-to-have" features can become a Phase Two project without compromising the success of the renovation.
Once you finalize your budget, strenuously resist the urge to add items to your reno or change your plan to avoid spending more money and time that you have.
5. Order Renovation Materials
For many renos, selecting materials and waiting for them to arrive is the first step in the process. Start by working with your contractor or designer to create a detailed materials list, estimated delivery dates, and who is responsible for which items.
This avoids conversations that start with “I thought you were doing that!” and end with your reno stopping in its tracks until the MIA supplies arrive.
Materials management is essential to a smooth-running reno. Place orders promptly, confirm every order, get accurate delivery information, track order process, and inspect materials on delivery. Be pleasantly relentless.
I narrowly escaped an Epic Fail on a recent kitchen reno when I assumed that the salesperson at the tile store would actually order my tile from their central warehouse the same day I placed the order with her.
She did not.
I found this out three weeks later from a customer service rep, who just happened to find the unplaced order on the salesperson’s very messy desk. He placed a rush order immediately, so I got my tile on time. Whew.
6. Execute the Renovation Plan
When you have finalized your budget, circle back to your first draft of the reno timeline or the timeline received from your contractor/designer/reno expert. Eliminate tasks related to items you’ve eliminated. Review the updated plan with your contractor/designer and/or tradespeople to make sure you have included all tasks, the tasks are in the right order, and your timelines are realistic.
Usually your timeline can be broken down into logical steps or phases that track to the task order. For example:
Demolition
Structural work
Electrical and plumbing
Drywall and trim
Finishes (paint, tile, wallpaper)
Assign start and end dates to each phase as “anchors” to make sure your project stays on time. I renovated a 70-year-old house in just 60 days because every task happened in the right order and on schedule. I conducted informal progress reviews every few days with every tradesperson working on my reno to make sure we stuck to the timeline and work was completed by the end date.
At the beginning and end of each phase, schedule formal check-ins to make sure the just-finished phase has been completed to your satisfaction and all the permits, supplies, and tradespeople needed to complete the next phase are present and accounted for.
I suggest that homeowners order all the reno supplies that they are accountable for prior to starting the reno so they are available when you need them. For my most recent reno, I parked my car on the street and stored reno supplies in my garage. Some stuff sat in my garage for almost 60 days, but it helped keep my reno on track.
For bulky items that are difficult to store on-site, like kitchen cabinets, ask if the vendor can keep the item(s) you’ve ordered in their warehouse and deliver a day or two before the installation is scheduled.
A week before the end of each phase, compile a punch list that includes outstanding tasks, defects in existing work, or incomplete work, and review it with the tradespeople involved in that phase. Make sure the punch list is complete before moving on to the next phase. (If you’re using a contractor or designer, they should compile the punch list).
You (or your contractor/designer) should also create a punch list a week or two before the reno is schedule to be completed, and take steps to make sure every item on the punch list is checked off.
7. Track Your Renovation Progress Like a Project Manager
Update your plan at the end of every day. Check off completed tasks and make notes on hours used and progress made. Note receipt of reno-related supplies. I use a digital spreadsheet for tracking, but a good old-fashioned notebook, spiral binder, or clipboard works, too. You do you.
Keep receipts, invoices, estimates, permits, change orders, punch lists, paint, fabric, and wallpaper samples, everything related to your reno, in one place (I use a gigantic plastic accordion folder. The more you document every aspect of your reno’s progress, the better.
Keep Yourself on Track, Too
Create a reno-free room in your home to which you can retreat and take a breather (preferably a room with a door that you can close). Keep it clean, quiet, and uncluttered. Do not allow family members or anyone working on the reno to use that room for storage.
Conduct a daily clean-up. After dozens of reno projects, I am convinced that tradespeople, contractors, handymen, etc., are so accustomed to the chaos and dirt a reno creates that they are simply blind to it. So don’t waste your valuable emotional energy by getting angry at the mess they leave behind. Instead, spend 15 minutes at the end of each day doing small clean-ups for your own sanity’s sake.
Focus on small wins. At the end of each day, check off the tasks accomplished that day and celebrate them. Every completed action, no matter how small, gets you closer to your goal.
If you have kids, arrange activities for them away from home. Can you ask a relative, neighbor, or friend to plan an activity (a movie, a pizza lunch or dinner out, visit to the local zoo or park, etc.), with your kid(s) to get them out of the house for a few hours? Can you sweeten the request by offering to pay for the outing? Or what about a simple play date where your kid goes to a friend’s house for a few hours?
Make your reno objective your mantra. Meet your family’s reno-related complaints and exasperation (and your own) with a reminder of the good things that will happen as a result of the reno.
Get a Professional Clean. When I finished my most recent whole-house reno, I hired a cleaning service to do a deep-clean prior to moving in. Worth every penny.
Renovations will test your patience. They'll test your budget. They'll definitely test your flexibility.
But if you plan carefully, communicate constantly, and refuse to let small problems snowball into big ones, you can stay in control from demolition to move-in day.
That's how you keep a renovation on track.
Renovation Planning Series
If you're planning a renovation from start to finish, these posts build on one another:
Recommended Renovation Planning Supplies
Planning and Documentation
Clipboard — has a satisfyingly snappy clip to keep your important papers secured.
Heavy-duty accordion file — mine held every scrap of paper related to the reno.
Permanent markers — surprisingly useful.
Onsite helpers
Tape measure — it's amazing how often you’ll use it. Just don’t let one of your trades borrow it (you’ll never see it again).
Blue painter's tape — not just for painting (seriously).
Cleanup
Shop vacuum — once I got one, I literally don’t know how I did without it.
Microfiber cloths — effective yet inexpensive for end-of-day cleanup
Contractor trash bags — because there is always stuff to throw away when the tradespeople leave for the day.
Want Help Planning Your Renovation?
Download the Home Renovation Planning Guide so you can plan smarter and avoid expensive surprises.
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