We bought a completely unrenovated house in 2017 and have been slowly updating it. We’ve never moved out for a renovation thus far, including adding HVAC, renovating (in separate projects) kitchen, front porch, sleeper porch, and a full basement gut. It’s totally doable but you have to take your time saving and planning. And you probably would save money doing it all at once but if you don’t have the money now, I don’t regret doing it bit by bit. We have spent about 200k thus far and still have about another 100-150k to go.

Pop-ups are very expensive. In the hundreds of thousands.