1) Give me an easy way to eat meals somehow in the rest of my house! :)

2) Keep the destruction contained to the actual room(s) being renovated.

3) Compress the cost-speed-quality triangle into a perfect point.

You did say *magic* wishes, right??

Hi ACM - Thanks! Would love to hear more about your experience with cost-speed-quality triangle. I agree, that is probably the biggest problem - how might we improve that one specifically?

* Unlimited budget

* Nearby refuge so my dog and I can escape noise and dust

* Huge ShopVac and someone to run it 2-3 times /day, then mop

If possible, order, receive and inspect all new product prior to demolition. I have seen so many kitchens ripped apart in all the excitement to begin the project, then discover that something crucial is on back order for 6 months, or something comes in in a wrong finish or size, and the replacement is in another country....

Oh, I don't have anything to add -- I think it's true in any endeavor that you can have any two from the three choices of Cheap, Fast, or High-Quality. One wishes, of course, to have all three, but in practice you should decide up front where your threshold for each and relative prioritization lie.

(hat tip to my cousin, who does big-time event-wrangling and sound engineering in New York, for this way of expressing the truism.)