Taking preventative measures to protect your belongings is important any time you’re giving your property a makeover. To help you keep your things safe and sound during the messy renovation process, here are five simple yet effective tips:
1. Put Everything In Storage
Storage units are designed to be safe, dry, secure, and affordable. You can get a unit as small as a gym locker or as big as a football field, so there’s no need to worry about whether you’ll get your money’s worth.
The contracts are also very flexible, and you can often sign up for just a month at a time, so there’s no need to worry about a long financial commitment when you choose self-storage. It’s the perfect solution for item protection during renovation, which is why it’s number one on our list. Whatever you want to protect goes into self-storage until the work is done – easy as pie.
2. Use Protective Coverings
Coverings are a great choice if you want to keep items protected from paint splashes and other renovation debris. Plastic coverings are waterproof, but be mindful that if they cover something for a while, moisture might gather and cause mold. For this reason, many experienced renovators instead opt for thick cotton or linen sheets to cover the furniture.
3. Stuff Gaps
One of the messiest aspects of a renovation project is not the rubble, the paint, or the contractors – it’s the dust. Dust particles get everywhere during renovation, and it’s not uncommon for them to find their way into the furthest corners of the house. Depending on what the dust is composed of, it can cause aesthetic damage to soft furnishings and could even compromise your health.
Moving your things into storage is all well and good, and you should definitely cover any items you can’t move to ensure they’re protected. However, you’ll also want to stuff gaps to prevent that dust from traveling. Rolled-up towels under doorways and tape around windows and other openings will stop dust traveling, keeping other areas of your home accessible but safe from residue and particles that will inevitably arise from the renovation.
4. Create A Path
Find out which areas contractors will need to access (e.g. a water source in the bathroom or an electricity socket in the garage) and then create paths for them to use. You can remove all breakables on or near this path and place coverings on the floor and surrounding furniture. You may create the path by backing furniture like chairs along its boundaries so it is clear where to go. This helps to protect your things and to keep tabs on any damage done by builders moving through your property.
5. Get Insurance
There are over 150,000 construction industry accidents annually, accounting for around 50% of all severe falls, slips, and trips in America. For this reason, insurance must be in place to protect you and the workers during this project.
You can get extra coverage for any breakages that occur during the renovations. Even with the very best efforts, breakages and damage can happen, and the only way to be protected against the financial impact of those kinds of incidents is by taking out extra insurance.
Protect Your House And Preserve Your Peace Of Mind
You can keep your things safe during renovation with the five tips above. Then, when the work on your house is finished, you can put everything back safe and sound, ready for exciting new times in your beautiful, refreshed, and rejuvenated home.
