Avoiding the quiet pressure to keep a renovation moving – the rooms we’re choosing to leave alone (for now)
We've discovered that not every space needs to be finished immediately
Committed home renovators David and Andrew Harrison-Colley (better known on Instagram as The Home Boys) are part of Ideal Home's new Open House contributors, sharing their thoughts on making a home together and living through the tricky parts. See the rest of their articles here.
One of the questions we get asked most often about the renovation is surprisingly simple:
“So what’s next?”
Article continues belowIf anything, the longer we’ve been renovating, the more comfortable we’ve become leaving certain rooms exactly as they are.
Not every room needs to be finished immediately
At the moment, there are two rooms in the house we’ve consciously decided to leave for later: what will eventually become our main bedroom and the snug.
Both rooms will get their turn. But neither of them feel urgent right now.
Before the build began, we renovated a smaller bedroom to create a calm sanctuary - somewhere finished and comfortable that we could retreat to while the rest of the house evolved around us. Having that space already working means there’s no real pressure to rush into renovating the larger bedroom immediately.
The snug is a similar story. It’s a room we’re really excited about eventually - a softer, quieter space that will contrast with the more open areas of the house - but with the lounge opening straight onto the garden, we know we’ll naturally gravitate there over the summer months.
In other words, the rooms we’re leaving for now aren’t being neglected.
They’re simply waiting for the right moment.
The pressure to finish everything
One thing we’ve noticed about renovating - especially when you share the process online - is the quiet pressure to keep moving.
There’s always another room people are curious about. Another space that “must be next.”
Another reveal that feels like it should be just around the corner.
But houses rarely unfold in a perfectly satisfying order.
Sometimes the most visible rooms take longer because the decisions feel bigger. Sometimes the less glamorous spaces - hallways, structural work, or the endless small jobs that keep a house running - quietly take priority instead.
And sometimes you simply reach a point where you want to enjoy the rooms that already work before diving into the next project.
For us, having that sanctuary bedroom finished before the build began made a huge difference.
It gave us somewhere calm to retreat to when the rest of the house was mid-renovation - something we’d now recommend to anyone tackling a large project.
Not every room needs to be under construction at the same time.
The jobs that get left behind
There’s also a very practical reason some rooms end up waiting.
When trades are involved, you often find yourself jumping from space to space just to keep things moving.
Plasterers need access to one area. Electricians need decisions made in another. Plumbers want to finish a run of pipework before they leave. And before you know it, you’ve been pulled through half the house in the space of a week.
It means certain small jobs quietly get pushed down the list.
At the moment, we still have a few of those lingering. Our cooker hob works perfectly well, but the extraction hasn’t been vented outside yet - one of those jobs that got parked while other parts of the renovation moved ahead.
Then there are the smaller design decisions that didn’t feel urgent during the build. We’re still deciding whether to add kickboards to the kitchen units or leave them looking slightly freestanding - something that felt minor at the time but becomes more noticeable once the bigger work slows down.
These aren’t dramatic projects, but they’re the kinds of finishing touches that take time to resolve once the dust settles.
And that’s another reason some rooms are waiting their turn.
Before starting something new, we’re making space to circle back and finish the things that quietly slipped down the priority list while the build was in full swing.
The value of living with a space
Some of our best renovation decisions have come from living in a space before rushing to “finish” it.
Our kitchen layout is a good example. What looked balanced and symmetrical on paper didn’t quite match how we actually used the room once we moved in. Only after a few months of cooking, storing things and navigating daily life did we realise we needed to tweak the layout slightly to make it work better.
Living in a house reveals things that drawings and moodboards simply can’t.
Where light falls in the afternoon.
Where clutter naturally gathers.
Which routes through the room people actually use.
Those small observations often lead to better decisions than anything we could have predicted at the planning stage.
Why leaving things alone can be a decision
Earlier in the renovation, leaving something unfinished felt like failure.
Now, it feels more like strategy.
Choosing not to rush a room gives you time to gather ideas, live with the house a little longer, and make decisions that feel considered rather than reactive.
It also keeps the renovation sustainable - financially and mentally.
Because renovating an entire house isn’t just a design project. It’s something that sits alongside work, life, travel and everything else that fills a week.
Sometimes the best decision you can make for a room is simply to leave it alone until the right moment arrives.
A house that evolves
One of the biggest shifts in our thinking has been accepting that the house doesn’t need to be “finished” in order to feel like home.
Some spaces will always evolve. Furniture moves. Paint colours change. A vintage find appears that shifts the feel of a room completely.
And honestly, that’s part of what makes living in a house interesting.
So when people ask what we’re renovating next, the answer is sometimes surprisingly simple:
Nothing new.
At least not until we’ve finished the jobs that quietly waited their turn.
