Any renovation can be nerve-racking. The mayhem of dust and debris, the deafening noise of various power tools and strangers walking around your precious home in their steel-toe shoes as if they were on some sort of outdoor construction site can drive anybody insane. In this type of situations, your main concern is keeping your home as clean and healthy as you possibly can until the remodeling project is done. And if your home renovation is making you too stressed to think, here are some useful tips for you to follow.

Isolate the renovation area

This means two things. First, you shouldn’t do the remodeling in several or even all of your rooms at once. Although it would save some time, it would also prevent you from using your home entirely until everything is done and it would create a dirty mess that would be hard to control. If you do the work one room at a time, you can limit the movement of the dust and make it easier on yourself to keep your home as clean as you can at the end of every day. Second, if you’re remodeling only a part of a bigger room, seal the part you’re not doing any work on by creating a temporary wall made of thick plastic sheets.

Take your furniture out

The best way to protect your furniture, as well as any artwork or other accessories, is by removing them from your home altogether while the remodeling is underway. This way you’ll also allow your contractors to move around more easily, without worrying if they’ll bump into something valuable. The safest and most affordable way is to rent a temporary storage unit, hire trucks and move your belongings yourself. For instance, the reliable Budget truck rental offers a wide range of vans and trucks at great rates, meaning that you can find the exact size of the truck for the amount of furniture you want to move.

Cover up what’s left

Once you remove what you can from your home, there’s a chance that some large piece of furniture or two will remain. Also, there are some things that are fixated and cannot be moved. It’s important to cover all of them with plastic, sealing it tightly with duct tape. It will drastically reduce the amount of dust particles which fill up any cracks and crevices of the furniture. Similarly, wherever there is a flat surface, due to its convenience you can expect it to become a storage spot for various tools, buckets and other materials. These flat surfaces should also be covered with cardboard, so that they don’t get scratched. Just make sure you secure the cardboard or whatever else you use with tape, so that it doesn’t fall or slide off.

Decide on a path

If your renovation is being done in an inner part of your home, not too close to the front door, make sure you decide exactly which way the contractors will move to the remodeling area and back. After that, use thick old carpets, cardboard sheets or plastic to build a path for them, so that mud, dirt and building materials don’t end up in other parts of your home if they don’t have to. This way you’ll also protect your floors and any sensitive tiles from cracking or being scratched. At the end of every day, you can pick it all up, take it outside and shake it off, then reuse it tomorrow when the contractors return.

Clean up daily

Make no mistake, where there’s remodeling, there’s mess, and a lot of it. So, don’t let things get out of hand by just leaving it all and thinking you’ll clean it all up once it’s done. Instead, grab your vacuum cleaner and vacuum the whole place thoroughly at the end of each day. This doesn’t just apply to the floors, but to other flat surfaces and your furniture and existing lighting as well. Be especially meticulous when it comes to corners, since it’s where dust gathers. And since normal vacuum cleaners aren’t really designed for this sort of heavy work, consider renting a construction vacuum while you’re renovating. They generally do a much better job and you’ll avoid ruining your regular vacuum cleaner. Any dusting and wiping of your furniture or floors should happen after you vacuum. If not maintained regularly, dust can actually wear down a surface despite the small size.

Don’t forget the air

Cleaning the floors and the furniture is just one part of what you can do. There will be a lot of cutting and polishing, which means there will be a lot of airborne particles you really don’t want to breathe in. One thing you can do to air your home out is open the windows, but remember to remove the fly screens as well, since they tend to capture the dust, debris and all the allergens inside them. Since opening your windows probably won’t be enough, invest in a purifying fan or an air scrubber with HEPA filters to keep the air inside your home as clean as you can.

Having a plan is always a good thing, so make sure you’re prepared for every aspect of your home remodeling project. When you have everything under control, the whole thing will go smoothly and you’ll save yourself the unnecessary stress.

About the author: Mike Johnston is a home improvement blogger and DIY enthusiast from Sydney. He is a regular writer at Smooth Decorator and Divine Magazine. He has also contributed to numerous real estate, lifestyle and eco-friendly blogs. Mike’s goal is to create and share meaningful content that helps and inspires people.