Postcard from Day 1 of the home-renovation project

The first day of the renovation project is behind me -- laminate floors, check -- which meant another round of household-item musical chairs. For today's recarpeting effort, Mr. Wonk and I needed to get the office cleared out (other than furniture and cats).

But we don't have any spare space at this point. Our washer and dryer is doubling as a bookcase, for Pete's sake. So for the time being, our living room looks like this:

Wonk reader Kim, who's about to do a renovation project of her own, has a good idea: "I am renting one of those pod things. ... I was going to do the furniture shuffle but decided against it. Too much stuff."

Mary, meanwhile, feels my pain: "We've been working on house projects since we moved in and since we're changing EVERYTHING there's no safe place to stash our stuff--we just keep shuffling it from room to room. I don't recommend this approach!"

And Paul remembers his renovation days with thank-God-that's-over enthusiasm: "When my wife and I put a new floor in our kitchen all the furniture as well as refrigerator and stove ended up in our dining room for 3 days."

I appreciate your stories of woe, in a misery-loves-company sort of way. And I'm eager to hear ideas -- like Kim's -- for cutting down on that misery.