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Babies And Building Work: Ten Things Kirstie And Phil Don’t Tell You

July 5, 2016

The Joys Of Babies And Building Work…And The Construction Dust…

Oh, the joys of home building work when you have small children. And renovating while you’re pregnant. And dealing with with construction dust and a newborn.

What are all the things Kirstie and Phil don’t tell you about house renovations when you have babies and toddlers?

Apparently we are a week away from our loft conversion being finished. But it’s been happening for so long I can’t imagine it ever being over. Or ever getting rid of the dust. Oh, the dust…

Babies and building work

Babies and building work - how not to do house renovations with children

I’m Obsessed With Property Programmes…So We Took The Renovation Plunge

I’m clearly a true child of the 80s as I am, like most people I know of my era, obsessed with house prices and property. And property programmes, of course. We watch them all, from Grand Designs to Small Spaces to Homes Under the Hammer (a maternity leave guilty pleasure…tell me it’s not just me?)

And two and a half years ago we took Kirstie’s Location x 3 advice and went for the worst, most woodchip-covered house on the street. Before then the most extensive DIY work we’d done was painting followed by drinking wine, or calling a parent to come down from Sheffield to take us to IKEA, again (sorry, Gill and Keith).

Since then, we have had everything done – from having a new downstairs loo put in, as well as new kitchen, new bathroom, new loft conversion, side return extension and completely redecorated the house. All while I was pregnant, or with a newborn, baby and toddler.

Renovating While Pregnant: House Construction During Pregnancy

Renovating has been a learning curve as steep as the stairs we had removed, especially renovating while pregnant – yes, true to form we moved into a new house, started a renovation and then I discovered I was pregnant again. When thinking about doing a house construction during pregnancy, we just decided to go for it as quickly as possible as we thought it was better to get as much as possible done before the baby.

However, bear in mind that renovating while pregnant can be super hard, especially in the first trimester when all you canto do is sleep or loll around feeling sick – and you have loads of tradespeople coming and going at all hours, noisy work going on and lots of dust. Everywhere.

Dealing With Construction Dust And A Newborn

Renovating with a newborn can also be tricky, especially when you’re dealing with construction dust and a newborn.

Advice I would give when it comes to dealing with construction dust and a newborn is:

  • Get an understanding builder who has children, and can work around things like naptimes (there’s nothing worse than getting your newborn to sleep and someone starts demolishing a wall).
  • Keep an area of the house – at least one room – clean and dust free. This way you can sit in here with the baby, away from everything
  • Have separate shoes to wear while looking at the building area that you don’t wear in your ‘clean’ room – this will help keep the dust out.
  • Put as many of your possessions in storage / in the shed / somewhere else, so there are less things around to collect the construction dust.

Home renovations with small children running around is a particular kind of project to manage. So two and a half years of building work in, here’s ten things Kirstie and Phil and Sarah Beany and George Clark and Kevin McCloud don’t tell you about the joys of building work when you add small children into the mix:

P.S. despite the fact we are never, ever moving again, ever, I still look at Rightmove, for fun.

10 Things About Babies And Building Work:

loft conversions with children

  • Someone really does always gets pregnant…One of the things Alex and I always joke about is the amount of people who are pregnant on house renovation shows, always at a really tricky time of the renovation. ‘New baby, new house!’ my mum said to me when we first moved in here. ‘Haha!’ I said. Oh wait…Pregnancy does have the advantage of giving you a very definite deadline. But it’s no fun being pregnant with no bathroom. Or no kitchen. And it makes nesting very difficult when your nest is feathered with dust sheets. But it’s great fun when one of your strange pregnancy cravings is wallpaper removal.
  • You need to get a builder who tidies up each night. The children will be drawn magnetically towards DIY danger…If there’s a stray nail lying around, they will find it, 100% guaranteed. While lurching towards any kind of open hole in the wall, open paint can or the loft stairs with no banisters. Yikes. Thankfully they also get bored pretty quickly.
  • It turns your house into a giant version of Mouse Trap. You can’t go upstairs as they’re demolishing most of it. You can’t go out the back as it’s raining dust and nails and there’s the added excitement that a hammer might drop from three stories up. You can’t get out anyway as scaffolding’s blocking the door. You can’t get out of the front door with a pram as there are piles of stuff on the path. You can’t get to the kitchen as the future bathroom stuff is there. It’s like a very weird soft play. Or the Crystal Maze, if Richard O’ Brian was replaced by Bob the Builder.
  • It makes domestic life tricky. There’s no-where to dry the washing. Probably the most boringly domesticated point ever made on this blog, but there you go. You can’t dry it in the loft as it’s being demolished. You can’t dry it outside because see above. And the scaffolding is blocking the line. Obviously during this is the time of sick children and loads and loads of sheets and towels.
  • Having a serious conversation with a tradesman? One of the following will happen: your child will urgently urgently want something non-urgent. Your child will attempt to pull one or both of your boobs out of your top. Unexpected nakedness from one or both children. Surprise!
  • Your toddler, who wakes up in the night if you so much as breathe, will now be lulled to sleep in the day by the bone-scratching sound of the circular saw and even sleep through a wall being demolished right next to their bedroom. Building work = the new white noise.
  • The dust, oh the dust! Everyone tells you about the dust to be fair. It really does gets everywhere and in everything. No-one tell you you’ll be bathing both children and bits of the ceiling will be falling down around you. Or that water will come through the lights.
  • You’ll lose everything in the overwhelming chaos. Like all components of the ballet uniform. Matching pyjamas. Matching shoes. Your mind, somewhere in the sea of dust. The children will inevitably get ill at the worst time (see: chicken pox x 2). There will always be a delivery 30 seconds into naptime.
  • It *is* fun for children. I remember my mum making us a makeshift swing on the roof struts when they built my childhood home. E’s new game is ‘let’s climb half way up the ladder while mummy’s back in turned’ It’s unexpected and new for them. You can also kill many hours watching scaffolding going up or metal beams being winched over the house
  • But then you spend most of your time a) making tea for many people, when you remember b) wiping up dust, if you can find the wipes c) saying ‘Careful! Don’t touch that! Where did that hammer come from?’ If you’re a work from home parent, expect to get no work done due to chats with all the chatty tradesmen around. Where have all my mugs gone? When’s Location x 3 back on?

More posts…things they don’t tell you in NCT classes (but totally should) a mini toddler room tour and how not to leave the house with small children

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8 Comments

  • Fiona

    July 5, 2016 at 9:52 am

    Haha! Firstly, Homes Under The Hammer omg yes. I watched it OBSESSIVELY when I was on maternity leave with Ebony. At the moment we have no live TV but I need to rectify this before the baby arrives because Homes Under The Hammer. I need to see the shit holes! Also, we did decorating, not even building, recently and I actually thought I would die of the stress of never being able to find Ebony’s uniform. That poor kid had to go to nursery in a gothic hoodie one day because I couldn’t find her school jumper. Good luck with your final week of building work! x

  • Candy Pop

    July 5, 2016 at 8:10 pm

    Oh gosh, all of this, but without kids. I did up two properties and I feel your pain, and as for the dust….! x

  • Alice

    July 5, 2016 at 10:28 pm

    I have to say Gill, like a pregnancy, your renovations have felt like they’ve gone on FOREVER – so I expect it’s a million times worse for you, actually living in it. With babies. ARGH! Can’t wait to see the finished product though x

  • Jess @ Along Came Cherry

    July 6, 2016 at 7:30 am

    Oh blimey, it sounds so stressfull!! And the dust sounds like a nightmare but it will be so amazing when it’s all finished! x

  • Adele at Beautiful Tribe

    July 6, 2016 at 10:39 am

    That’s both insane and hilarious! We were planning big renovations to be happening now (while I’m 38 weeks pregnant!) and I’m quite relieved that we decided against it!

  • Polly

    July 7, 2016 at 6:40 pm

    sounds stressful!! I bet you can’t wait for it all to be done!

  • Lori

    July 7, 2016 at 10:45 pm

    I was always living in a renovation as a kid and totally chukled at mousetrap comment as it really did feel like that! lol It’s gonna be amazing though x

  • Laura

    July 8, 2016 at 12:31 am

    My family and myself are property obsessed as well. I honestly don’t know how my parents did it – before I turned four we had lived through 6 home renovations, with two kids in tow – they then used the money they made to buy their 7th property mortgage free. We have struggle to do the small renovations to our home since the baby arrived and that was 16 months ago – feels never ending. This loft conversion looks great btw – can’t wait to see the end results

    Laura x

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