How do you survive a total kitchen renovation.

[ncbyrne]

Our kitchen has been gutted down to the studs. There is a coating of dust on everything, and I mean everything, in the entire house! WHAT a mess!! So far, the plumbing is in and so is the electric, and now we wait five days for the inspection. (grrr)
Living without a kitchen (and esp. the sink) is challenging to say the least!
We have the refrigerator in the living room, and a microwave and a toaster hooked up in a spare bedroom, and we prep food in the bathroom, but really, it's the pits! Anyone else go thru this? What did you do for food. I'd love to eat out three meals a day, but that's not gonna happen. I need some suggestions on how to feed us until we have a kitchen again.

 

[shortbun]

Our kitchen has been gutted down to the studs. There is a coating of dust on everything, and I mean everything, in the entire house! WHAT a mess!! So far, the plumbing is in and so is the electric, and now we wait five days for the inspection. (grrr)
Living without a kitchen (and esp. the sink) is challenging to say the least!
We have the refrigerator in the living room, and a microwave and a toaster hooked up in a spare bedroom, and we prep food in the bathroom, but really, it's the pits! Anyone else go thru this? What did you do for food. I'd love to eat out three meals a day, but that's not gonna happen. I need some suggestions on how to feed us until we have a kitchen again.

They just remodeled the kitchen in my old house(after we moved into the new house; I'm not crazy!) and we never had to wait more than 2 days for an inspector. I was prepared to be without my kitchen but when the contractor told me he wanted my formal dining room for his work room - I made him wait til I had moved. I still almost killed him, lol!

 

[momtosam]

Travel through Europe for a few months????

Good luck!

 

[ncbyrne]

Travel through Europe for a few months????

Good luck!

We actually thought about traveling while it was being done, but DH wants to be here to make sure everything is done the way he wants it.

 

[MM27]

we did our kitchen and dining room and it took way longer than we thought it would. The guy that was doing it had too many jobs going on at once and he would show up and then you wouldn't see him for a few days. We put the microwave in the living room and used that and a hot plate for all cooking needs. We washed dishes in the bathtub and I must say it was not fun at all.

 

[mybabesuz]

We were without a kitchen for only five days.
We did a lot of grilling and got Pizza two nights...

Breakfast and Lunch shouldn't be too bad.

Good Luck...

 

[AlexWyattMommy]

When we remodeled our kitchen in our old house, it took almost 6 months. Lots of delays. From the cabinets to the counter tops being remade THREE times because they messed up measurements and color choices. The flooring took forever also.

Anyway - Sam's Club is your friend. Paper/Styrofoam plates, plastic utensils, plastic cups. Just throw away when done. Save the cleaning up for the cooking pots & pans.

I also used my crock pot a lot. Most dinners where in that. Toaster oven, hot plate and microwave the rest.

My refrigerator was in the living room, but everything else was in my finished basement. We used a length of the old counter top and two cabinets for support. Thankfully we could use plastic on the door to keep most of the ick upstairs.

We will be remodeling this kitchen in our new house with in the next two years. I will be moving most of my stuff to my second floor bedroom [has a large sitting area] with the refrigerator still on the first floor. Again, plastic for the stair well will be needed for sure.

I used a plastic square bucket in the tub to wash pots and pans and my crock pot.

At least twice a week we did do take out - something that would last at least two meals [lunch and dinner, stay at home mom]. Pizza reheats in the toaster oven, Chinese in the microwave.

Good luck.

PS- grilling is also an option with the nicer weather now.

 

[neatokimmo]

I am working on my kitchen too. Get an electric skillet, it will really help. That with the microwave, we are eating 90% of what we ate before.

 

[mistysue]

When we did ours we ended up living with my parents for a couple weeks of it.

When we were home we ate a TON of pizza. It is easy and everybody seems to eat it. Plus if any of you eat it cold you don't need a plate. We also had a lot of bananas and raw produce.

This could be a good opportunity for you to go crazy at one of those sales on cereal combined with coupons where each box is so cheap it's hard not to buy it because for once you actually would eat all that cereal.

 

[pixie921]

We did our kitchen down to the studs last summer. I know what you're going through, OP!

We did our best to keep plastic sheeting taped up to control the dust. That helped a lot. And we made ourselves a "mini kitchen" in another part of the house with our toaster and microwave and paper plates, plastic cups, etc. Not very "green" but essential when you have no kitchen sink or stove.

I look at this type of home improvement project like childbirth ... agonizing to go through, but the results are SO worth it, you almost forget the pain!

 

[taitai]

When we did it, we had the fridge in the garage and cooked in the laundry room (helped that it had a big utility sink). We bought an electric frying pan that helped a lot. Also, our existing microwave, panini maker, rice cooker and a toaster oven. Between those and the grill, we really did okay. It wasn't easy or spacious but we could pretty much cook everything we did before. The only thing we couldn't do was pasta. One night, we were all craving spaghetti and meatballs. I could make the sauce in the frying pan but the noodles were a problem. Ended up going to a neighbors to boil water.

The biggest issue for us was the lack of space. Doing food prep on a cutting board placed on top of the washing machine was not ideal but we managed fine.

Good luck

 

[C.Ann]

Soon my son-in-law will be gutting and renovating his mother's kitchen.. How is she going to handle it? By coming over to DD's every day and using her kitchen instead..

I'm sooooooo glad I'm up here at the lake - LOL.. (I live with my DD and her family during the winter months..) I get along with her MIL okay, but "moderation" is key..

 

[Pigeon]

Dh did the work himself and it took all summer. We grilled a lot and used paper plates. We also did takeout quite a bit. Annoying, but so worth it once you have your new kitchen!

 

[3redhedgirls]

The Grill, Crock pot, and Microwave all become your good friends! We lived through the same type of renovation last year..Yes, it was worth all the trouble. Sorta like child birth, you tend to forget about all the pain when you get your new kitchen.

 

[ProudMommyof2]

We went down to the studs almost exactly 2 years ago. We put the fridge in the living room and the office became a make shift kitchen with table/chairs, micro and toaster oven.
We went to Sam's club and got paper and plastic everything. We grilled a lot. We ate at the in-laws alot.

The worst of it was the plastering and hard wood floor finishing- we went to Washington D.C. over that week as it was APril vacation.

The whole project took a month and a lot of stress.

IT WAS SO WORTH IT!!!! I still come downstairs some mornings and I can't believe that is my kitchen. I think a prior poster is right- it is like giving birth- you forget most of the pain when you get the end result.


A fun idea- when we took our walls down- there was a newspaper from 1943. We put it back and added a 2008 newspaper with it. A very cool time capsule!

 

[ProudMommyof2]

More specific food ideas.

Grilled anything.
Frozen meals.
Did you know you can cook a meatloaf in a good toaster oven?
Crock pot meals were a staple- google some great recipes. You can cook a whole chicken in one.
Peanut butter & Jelly is yummy =)

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Last Thanksgiving we ate the holiday meal we ordered on a table made from a door on top of two sawhorses. Nobody minded, thankfully. We were lucky in that we kept our ceramic tile floor so we were able to keep the stove hooked up, we just pulled it away from the wall to get behind it. Aside from the floor, we were down to the studs. My DH was good and kept my coffee pot available for me on a stool, lol. That was a must. We also have an in-law apt so we could use my mother's kitchen if we needed to, which helped a lot. But we still had our share of dust and aggravation - during the holidays to boot. (What were we thinking? ) Fortunately it wasn't too, too painful and we're really happy with the results, so I'll have to agree with those who say it's worth it. Hang in there!

 

[extremesoccermom]

We have a camper so I will be able to use that kitchen for all my food prep and cooking. Otherwise I would think this is the best time of year to start that kind of project. I would do the majority of cooking on the BBQ pit. When we camp we use the Dutch oven to make pretty much everything from pizza, soup, cinnamon rolls, and baked potatoes. Good Luck!!
I am more worried about the bathroom remodel we will be starting later this year. Luckily we do have another one we can use. It has taken us over a month to move our basement doorway (in prep for the kitchen remodel) but we are doing everything ourselves.

 

[SandrA9810]

To help cut down on the grilling clean up, use lots of aluminum foil... it is your friend.
With an electric skillet, there's all those frozen skillet meals they sell. I've had a few different ones, and they taste pretty good.

It probably won't be the healthiest time of your life, but if you're doing some of the work at least you'll be burning off those extra calories.

 

[RNMOM]

We did this about 8 years ago. I put our table in the family room and put a folding table up against the wall with the microwave and electric skillet on it. Know what I found very useful? My electric fondue pot. I could get enough water to boil in it to do pasta and used it to make basic soups and things that need melting or heating together like beanie-weenie. We used the grill a bit too. I avoided using dishes to wash as much as possible. I got large packages of Dixie plates and a box of cutlery. We just tried not to think about the garbage/recycle issue during that time. I really just had to wash the pans we used and it wasn't so bad. I used the sink in my half bath as it is pretty large.

I was lucky as the dirt was pretty well contained and I loved my contractor for that. If you have a large clean up job, I would seriously consider hiring in a company or having a large party of friends and family along with a picnic and kitchen warming. What I mean is have a cleaning party and serve them a great meal from your new kitchen.