House hacking as you rehab? Wisdom/tips appreciated!

[Chris M.]

Hey guys, right now my plan is to get a 3-4 bedroom house that needs maybe 10-20k in mostly cosmetic upgrades/repairs. This will be my first house and I plan on living in it for ~2 years. Thus, after I buy it I was hoping to immediately seek out 2-3 roommates to house hack as I rehab the house.

Here's my question: have any of you run into trouble when rehabbing a house when you have tenants/people living in the house?

Obviously if a bedroom needs some serious rehab I'd do that first before renting it out, but I'm wondering if doing something like rehabbing the kitchen with people living there is a bad idea. Is there a liability risk? Other things I should be aware of before I attempt this? As my first house I feel like rehab might take me a while, this is why I'm planning it this way.

Thanks to anyone who can offer wisdom about house hacking/renovating a house with tenants actively living there.  

[Sarah D.]

We are house hacking a 4 unit, and rehabbing all units.  We rehabbed the kitchen of our unit while living there, and although we were ok with it I would have a real problem tolerating it as a tenant.  There's so many issues (definite liability on a lot of sides, finding insurers to tolerate risk, huge mess from rehab, lack of access to basic amenities).  Other issue is noise, lots of noise.  

I'd do the major things before getting roommates, or kick the roommates out before doing the major things.