Protect Your Home During Remodeling

Marring a beautiful bathtub with a big, ugly scratch is not a good way to showcase a bathroom remodel. Protect a tub by covering it with a thick, tough rubbery coating. Tub protection products like this one are brushed or rolled on, and then peeled off when the job is done.

You'll usually need two coats. The product costs about $50 per gallon, and one gallon will handle two standard-size tubs. That sounds expensive, but it's cheap insurance to protect a tub that might cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Some remodeling projects involve walking back and forth across a muddy yard that has no pavement or grass, and keeping that mud out of the house is a challenge. Temporary plywood walkways are one option to keep the muck at bay, but plywood seems to sink into mud and eventually becomes as dirty as the ground around it.

When wood chip paths get muddy, you can just lay down another layer. Wood chips work better than stringy mulch, and are relatively inexpensive.

Any flat surface in a work zone inevitably becomes a workbench or storage shelf, even if that surface is an expensive countertop. Protect countertops from nicks and scratches by covering them in cardboard. Use clean cardboard and wipe the counter before laying it down. Tape the edges to keep out debris and to keep the cardboard from sliding around.

A daily parade of building materials, tool belts and tools is hard on finished walls. Even the most careful worker is going to bump one now and again. Fixing wall dingers is easy enough, but fixing a bent corner bead can be a real pain.

Protect outside corners with strips of cardboard. You can cut them out of thick shipping boxes or buy a box of premade protective corners online. Be sure the cardboard extends at least 4 ft. high, and hold it in place with painter's tape, which won't ruin the paint when it's removed.

Sure, all thresholds will get beat up eventually, but why not avoid the wear and tear until after the work is done. Some new doors come with plastic threshold protectors. Keep those in place until the end of the project. Use tape to protect those doors that don't come with a protector, as well as existing doors that will be used a lot during the remodel. A couple layers of exterior painter's tape should hold up great.

Avoid tracking filth all over the house with a pair of protective shoe covers. It's easier than untying and retying your shoes or boots when you need to run to a part of the house without floor protection in place. Booties are cheap and available at home centers.

Use a medium-adhesion tape for most jobs. These tapes have names like “Safe Release” or “Clean Release.” There are also low-adhesion tapes for delicate surfaces like wallpaper, and high-adhesion tapes for hard-to-mask surfaces like brick. A paint store often has the best tape selection. Remove the tape as soon as possible. The adhesive bond strengthens over time. Depending on the type of adhesive, masking tapes are meant to stay in place from one to 14 days. Check and heed the label.

The exhaust stream from a shop vacuum can raise more dust than the vacuum sucks up. And small particles (like drywall dust) can sail right through the vacuum filter to form a fine dust cloud.

You can solve both problems with some extra vacuum hose: Connect a hose to the exhaust port and run it outside, or set the vacuum outside and run the hose inside. If you want a filter that traps even the tiniest dust particles, try a high-efficiency version such as the CleanStream filter. These filters are pricey ($25 to $35), but they're easy to clean and last for years. Ten feet of 2-1/2-In. vacuum hose costs about $20 at home centers. CleanStream filters are available at Sears, Lowe's and Menards. For other dealers, go to www.cleanstream.com.

Carpeted floors are easily protected from snags and stains with a heavy canvas dropcloth. Safeguarding hard flooring isn't so simple. A hammer knocked off a ladder can dent wood flooring, chip ceramic tile or even puncture vinyl, and heavy foot traffic will grind grit into the floor. For protection against falling tools (and just about everything else), cut sheets of 1/8-in. hardboard to fit the room and duct-tape them together at the seams. Also tape around the perimeter with masking tape so grit can't get underneath the hardboard and scratch the floor.

For quicker protection of hard flooring, use strips of rosin paper taped at the seams and around the perimeter. While rosin paper can't match the impact and puncture protection of hardboard, two or three layers of it provide good defense against scratches and spills.

A 4 x 8-ft. sheet of 1/8-in.-thick hardboard costs about $10 at home centers. A roll of rosin paper costs about $12 and covers about 400 sq. ft.

Protecting stairs is tricky because you don't want to use anything that will cause a slip or trip. Rosin paper is a good choice for wood stairs because you can crease it over the edge of the tread and tape it securely around the entire perimeter. You can also tape separate sheets to the risers.

For carpeted stairs, use a long, narrow dropcloth (called a runner). Secure the runner by driving small nails right through the carpet and into the treads. A 4 x 12-ft. runner costs about $20 at home centers.

Remodeling means lugging tons of big, clumsy stuff through doorways and tight spaces and around corners. Even if an object isn't heavy, it's best to have a helper to steer big stuff through tough spots. With or without a helper, cardboard is a good defense against accidents. You can wrap door jambs with it, cover up wall corners, or even shield large sections of wall along main pathways.

To make sure the cardboard stays in place, crease it thoroughly to fit corners and don't be stingy with the masking tape. Doors can take a beating during remodeling too. The best protection is to remove them from the work zone. If removing a door isn't practical, clad it with cardboard.

Whether you're moving a ladder or stacking 2x4s, it's all too easy to bang up baseboards. But protecting them is simple: Just cut strips of cardboard about an inch wider than your baseboard, set them against the wall and tape them top and bottom. If nearby walls are at risk, don't hesitate to tape cardboard over them as well. It'll save you from having to spend a weekend repainting.