It depends on what you are doing, where you are going (always best if you move out ...but if you can't just understand it will take longer), how much you are spending etc. etc.
But another answer is "depends when you feel comfortable moving back in". There's done and there's done, you know?
Our most recently completed project (wait til you see the real photos .. it turned out SO well) was really quite complete when our clients moved in. They have twin cutie-pie little toddler boys, so wanted to avoid moving into any more chaos than necessary. So, we made sure to do all the little things in advance - the towel racks, the laundry room shelving, the mirrors, the door stoppers, the coatroom hooks. We wanted to make it as move in ready as possible.
But no matter how complete the renovation, there are always some little things that need to be done at the tail end of a project. Those finishing touches can actually sometimes drag on, even for the most well planned and executed projects.
For example, house numbers (aren't these great?): You can get them here: www.numbermyhouse.com - a Canadian company (two brothers from Calgary started it). We ordered these for our clients - they are 16" high. They come with a template and hanging gear. They are lightweight and weather resistant. We think they are fabulous.
And new decks (we had to wait for snow to melt .. which we were still doing well into April in Ottawa):
And there's always something that goes wrong. In this case, a stair runner was installed the wrong colour (supposed to be a grey-ish blue and if you can believe it the installers tried to convince the homeowner the colour was "kind of grey". Ugh. Our client is anti-brown and never agreed to the colour.) The new one should be in soon.
Some clients (and some home renovation company owners ... ahem...) are so anxious to move into their new space, they move in very early in the "ready" process (some would say too early). For example, when we moved into our current home, I'd say we were only about 85% done. Like, we didn't have a toilet until 5:30 the day we moved in (and we have four bathrooms!). And while we had a kitchen, we certainly did not have counter tops (we templated for the quartz). We didn't have trim, closets or railings. The first few nights, we all camped out on mattresses in one bedroom.
It felt kinda like this ...
To be fair, by the end of the month, we were done. By Christmas (the next month) we hosted Christmas dinner.
But it was dusty, disruptive and challenging. It's a good thing we know and enjoy our partners in the various trades so much - we spent a LOT of time together. They saw us in our PJ's a lot. This worked for us (and the temporary rental budget had dried up) but it likely won't for most.
Understanding that there is often still much work after the project is "done" is a critical part of setting expectations around the completion process.
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