Renting an Apartment – The Best Solution During Renovations

Those who have experience living in their homes during renovations know what it means to have gritty sand crunching between your teeth and houseplants that have little to do with the color green. Both options – whether living in an apartment during renovation or renting a temporary one – have their pros and cons. You can't always afford to renovate your entire apartment at once, and updates have to be made room by room. If renting an additional apartment is beyond your means, we recommend doing it nonetheless.

Renovation is completed faster

The first and biggest advantage of moving out during renovation is, of course, that everything gets done faster. It's also possible to update your home room by room, but if major electrical and plumbing work is planned and perhaps even demolishing a wall, it's good to escape the dust.

We ourselves have experience living in our home during renovation, but we'd rather erase these extremes from our memory. And especially our cat would like to do that.

Renting an apartment can also be a financially smart decision

If the renovation is done on a larger scale, the workers can accomplish more at once, you can save on tool rental costs, etc. This, of course, provided the work doesn't stall and something is being done all the time.

Space for tools

Renovation is also speeded up by the fact that rooms are empty for tools and don't have to be hauled up and down the stairs every day. Nowadays there's a special tool or device for everything, and when a worker arrives, he usually brings quite a lot of equipment. All of it needs to find a place, and if the apartment is empty, it's easier to do. Sometimes space is still lacking.

Dust and children, dust and pets

Construction dust is not good for anyone's respiratory tract, especially not for small children's. Animals also can't understand what's happening and why living conditions have suddenly become completely unbearable – dust, noise, nothing is in its place… The aforementioned cat Tõnu even went to see a veterinarian because his owners thought he was sad. And when the vet wiped a layer of plaster dust from the cat cage with his finger, there was no more question – the cat was stressed.

The rental apartment should be as close as possible

Finding temporary living space can be quite a challenging task, because first of all, apartments are usually not rented for short periods, and renting for a few months at a time is significantly more expensive. Second, the apartment should be located as close as possible to your own home so that running between the temporary and permanent homes doesn't consume too much time.

We encourage you not to be too picky about temporary space. What's important is to get through those few months, and really, you just need one place to be.

This space doesn't need to be very large or very expensive either. You have to remember that in addition to rent, you're also paying double utilities – for your apartment and the rental – and depending on the apartment, these can be quite substantial.

Spread the word about your need for temporary housing to your Facebook friends; often one of them is willing to temporarily rent out their apartment or knows someone – you know how these things work.

What time period should you plan for?

It depends, of course, on the apartment size and the scope of work, but if a thorough renovation is planned, for a two or three-room apartment you should plan for three to four months. Because something always happens and something always takes longer. But this means that the work should be going on constantly, otherwise there's no point in moving and taking on double expenses.

How to find workers

The best way is if you can get hold of renovation workers through word of mouth – those who did excellent work for your friends. Word-of-mouth marketing still works best, and such men don't need to advertise themselves. The work speaks for the workers themselves.

If you can't get workers recommended by acquaintances from anywhere, you'll of course have to find them with Google's help. A fairly common recommendation is not to choose the cheapest workers, because they ask for a low price for a reason, and you probably don't want to know what that is. When taking bids, it's worth asking for phone numbers of previous clients and requesting honest feedback from them. If someone has nothing to hide, they'll provide the numbers too.

Don't move in too quickly

Yes, this is an easy mistake to make. You want to move into the new home already. And you certainly don't want to pay rent anymore, not to mention double utilities. But if everything isn't finished and in place, things tend to drag on, and ten years later you discover that you're still missing that molding from the entryway. That's why it makes sense to complete the renovation properly and only then move in.

Don't start renovating right after purchase

Here's one more piece of advice that might be useful if you've just bought a new home and are planning to renovate it. If possible, live in it for a while before you start tearing things down. This way you can find out, for example, what layout would be most practical and where and how many outlets you should have.

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