5 Things to Never Do Unless You Want Your In-Laws Staying Longer Than Planned

Nelson Baguio
2 days ago
2 min read

Temporary accommodation during a renovation always feels more manageable in theory than it turns out to be in practice. The following mistakes are extremely common. They're also, to a remarkable degree, entirely avoidable.

1. Don't Take the Builder's Timeline at Face Value

Builder timelines represent the best case under ideal conditions. In practice, weather delays, supply issues, subcontractor availability, and the low-level chaos of an occupied renovation combine to shift most projects by weeks sometimes months. Build a buffer into your plans. Not because you expect your builder to fail, but because construction timelines are optimistic by nature and "just a few more weeks" has a way of compounding.

2. Don't Wing the Accommodation

Assuming you'll manage without a plan is how families end up in caravans in winter or doubling up in ways that quietly damage relationships. If the renovation will make part of your home genuinely uninhabitable, sort accommodation before the build starts. Know where everyone is going, for how long, and what happens if the timeline extends. That conversation is much easier when there's no urgency behind it.

3. Don't Underestimate What Living Through Construction Actually Feels Like

Dust gets into everything. Noise is relentless. For anyone working from home, sleeping lightly, or managing a health condition, an active renovation site is genuinely hard to live alongside. If you have older parents, young children, or anyone with respiratory sensitivities in the house and the work is extensive, temporary relocation isn't excessive it's just practical.

4. Don't Skimp on Physical Separation

If the plan involves multiple generations sharing a home during or after a renovation, privacy matters more than most families expect. Separate entrances, separate kitchens, clear boundaries around shared spaces these aren't nice-to-haves, they're the things that determine whether the arrangement stays workable over time. Design for separation from the start. It's far harder to retrofit.

5. Don't Forget That Renovation Fatigue Is Real

Six weeks of construction feels very different from six months of it. What starts as manageable disruption can become a genuine source of stress particularly for people who had little input into the decision or the timeline. Keep everyone informed, involve them in milestone decisions where you can, and acknowledge when it's hard. Projects that are communicated well are tolerated better. That's not a soft observation it's a practical one.

A cabin on the property solves the temporary accommodation problem before it becomes a problem — and once the renovation is done, it keeps its value. If that's a conversation worth having, we're here for it.

— Freedom Cabins NZ | Built the NZ Way, People-First | freedomcabinsnz.com