Tips for surviving a kitchen remodel

[ktzmoh]

Those of you who have been through this- how did you manage eating and food? We don’t have a ton of space. So we were thinking of putting a fridge in the garage, and keeping a crockpot, microwave, toaster oven and rice cooker in the family room. We have two kids (12 and 8) who are super picky eaters so it’s going to be a PITA to figure out meals they are willing to eat that we can do in the family room.

What did you do to prepare? Did you do a ton of frozen casseroles? Did you just limp along on takeout and a crockpot? Any other tips?

[atarianna]

Honestly, it’s awful.

Plan to be without a kitchen double the amount of time your contractor estimates. Eating out gets old super fast so I would recommend detailed meal planning to try to avoid it as much as possible. Take and bake type dinners from Costco or the like saved my sanity, we also did a lot of steamed salmon/sweet potato in the microwave and steamed veggies. Whole rotisserie chickens pulled apart for quick dinners, and portioned out for quesadillas, pesto paninis, chicken salad, etc.

We had our fridge in the living room, toaster oven/crock pot, instant pot and microwave in the laundry room and just barely survived.

It was all worth it in the end but it was really, really hard to live through.

[k3am]

We had our fridge and a toaster/convection oven set up in the living room. We did a lot of BBQ, take out, sandwiches, and cereal for dinner. Disposable plates and cutlery. Breakfast and lunch were eaten at work, and DD was not on solids yet, so that made life easier. I had a co-worker take pity on me and she would bring me leftovers for lunch, and we took up any offer from anyone willing to have us over for dinner with the promise of hosting them once we had our project finished.

Honestly, the hardest part wasn't cooking - it was the cleaning. You never realize how useful a garbage disposal is until you're trying to wash dishes without one. I ended up cleaning all my pump parts at work since I just couldn't get past washing pump parts in the bathroom sink.

[aprilsails]

We set up in the laundry room in the basement since we had a basin sink down there. I had a rice cooker, crockpot, panini press, vegetable steamer, and griddle available to me. We left the stove plugged in (electric) as much as possible, and the fridge was moved to the dining area.

We ate lots of sandwiches, grilled cheese, soup or chilli in the crockpot, lentil curries, and breakfast for dinner.

We didn’t eat out much at all, but we were on a tight budget. We have ourselves Friday night off only,

If I were to do it again I would 100% buy another induction plate. We have one now that we got super cheap and it would have been so useful. Even though our stove was generally functional, it was a pain to cook in a construction area.

[mrsukyankee]

We're going to be doing this in Jan/Feb. We're going to move our fridge to the living room and use our microwave, slow cooker and a electric camp cook top. I think we'll already be used to doing a bunch of this as we won't have a stove in our kitchen (they are taking it) and we won't buy anything to replace it until our kitchen reno.

[Waffles]

Disclaimer - we did this without kids involved.

We had access to a fridge, microwave and toaster. We lived on cold plates/salads/sandwiches and take out.

[candreco]

We set up a temp kitchen in the utility/laundry room with the microwave, toaster oven, slow cooker, and electric kettle, plus the old fridge in the garage and the grill outside. It was manageable, but honestly just a PITA. We gave up and used paper plates/cups/etc because there was just so little space to wash and dry stuff, and then store it after.

We ate a lot of rotisserie chicken, salads, sandwiches, microwave veggies, shredded beef/chicken from the slow cooker, and grilled frequently (it was June). I think the only thing I made ahead of time was a bunch of pasta to keep in the fridge, and we hoarded ice for drinks until the fridge was moved downstairs. Instead of dealing with the coffee maker we would buy a box of coffee from Starbucks each week and just kept that in the fridge to drink iced.

[bullygirl979]

Living through this right now. LOL. I have: fridge, microwave, crockpot, toaster/convection oven, grill, panini press/griddle. I honestly thought we would do a lot of grilling but we haven't touched it once. The cooking isn't the PITA, it's the washing dishes. And not having anywhere to really do food prep. I guess I could set up a folding table outside but it's just a hassle.

Saving grace is that I made a ton of freezer meals and given it's just the two of us, they last multiple nights. I froze batches of pot pies, shepards pie, chili, mushroom rice soup, baked ziti, lasagna, etc. Other than that, living off frozen pizzas, make and take meals from grocery store, grilled cheese and soup. I'm pleasantly surprised at how little we've been eating out.

As for tips, I organized my pantry in to plastic bins. I organized it well so it's easy to find food. I also bought a smaller bin that serves as our dirty dish sink so dishes aren't piled everywhere. Depending on your house layout, have them do a stellar job sealing off the area. I have doors leading from the kitchen to the entry and kitchen to dining room. Because they are sealed off really well, it's contained most of the mess in the kitchen and basement. Lastly, do yourself a favor and stalk groupon for duct cleaning and house cleaning services. You'll probably need both.

Good luck!!

[dr.girlfriend]

We moved the fridge and microwave to the living room. It was a pain to dodge around it, but I wouldn't have it in the garage -- it's just too far to go when you need something. We also had a picky kid, but luckily most of the stuff he liked was microwaveable. DH is also picky but was able to pre-cook and freeze a lot of his meals. I agree that the dish issue was the worst...I was tempted to put them all in a big bin and wash them at a friend's house, but we made do with the utility sink in the basement. I would have done more disposable dishware, but that stuff you can't really freeze or microwave well, so it's probably a wash. We don't grill, so that wasn't an option for us, but it was summer so I had a lot of cold salads and that kind of thing. It is definitely worth it!

[kadams767]

The two biggest things for us were the sink and grill. Our contractor was able to build a temporary base for our existing sink out of scrap wood and a piece of our old countertop, so we weren't without a kitchen sink and small side counter for more than a few days (out of the 4+ month renovation). We did most of our cooking on our grill and ate on the patio or in the living room basically every night, because our dining room was also out of commission for the entire process. We are lucky in that our gas grill also has one of those side burners, so we were able to use that a lot for things I would normally heat and cook in a pan on the stovetop. Frozen casseroles would have been useless for us because we didn't have use of a stove to reheat them and our old microwave was so old, it literally would have taken an hour to do anything like that in the microwave anyhow.

Other than grilling, we did set up the toaster oven and microwave on a table in the living room. We also used our rice cooker a bunch. We'd cook a big batch of rice once so we only had to wash the cooker once a week or so, and then just ate a lot of simple things like burgers/veggie burgers, grilled chicken, grilled veggies, toasted sandwiches, microwaved soup, cold salads, etc. If you have a pizza stone, you can put that right on the grill and a frozen pizza cooks really easily and well on there.

The best thing I found for my sanity was just "cooking" once or twice, to basically get the pain over with in one day rather than trying to cook actual food and deal with cleanup and hassle everyday or even multiple times. It was just more stress than I could deal with trying to prep every day on limited space, trying to clean and utilize as few pots/pans as possible. I found it a lot more tolerable to just cook larger batches of things at the beginning of the week and clean it all up at once, and then just reheat or pick different toppings and combinations the rest of the week. So I'd cook rice or pasta, a pan of beans, a bunch of veggies, grilled chicken or sausages all on Sunday and then just mix and match throughout the week with different sauces or dressings, and then supplement with quick stuff like salad or sandwiches, a cheese and fruit plate, and the aforementioned frozen pizza.

This all assumes you still have use of the fridge/freezer. We never lost use of ours, it just got moved to different places depending on the stage of the renovation.

[devonpow]

Our contractor made a temporary kitchen in our dining room. We moved the fridge in there and he installed a cheapo counter and sink from Home Depot (it went against the doorway into the kitchen so they could easily plumb it). The counter space was a huge help. We put a few bookshelves in there for pantry items and used the built in buffet that was already there for dishes etc.

we had a hot plate for boiling water, an electric griddle, and a microwave. DH would grill on Sundays and I would have him grill several different types of meat which i would then dole out for dinners along with a steamed veggie side. 

it was a 4 month renovation - painful, but worth it! 

[ktzmoh]

Oct 15, 2019 1:24:19 GMT -5 aprilsails said:

We set up in the laundry room in the basement since we had a basin sink down there. I had a rice cooker, crockpot, panini press, vegetable steamer, and griddle available to me. We left the stove plugged in (electric) as much as possible, and the fridge was moved to the dining area.

We ate lots of sandwiches, grilled cheese, soup or chilli in the crockpot, lentil curries, and breakfast for dinner.

We didn’t eat out much at all, but we were on a tight budget. We have ourselves Friday night off only,

If I were to do it again I would 100% buy another induction plate. We have one now that we got super cheap and it would have been so useful. Even though our stove was generally functional, it was a pain to cook in a construction area.

this is such a great idea! I had no idea these things existed and they look like they would be really really helpful. Thanks for that tip!

[ktzmoh]

Oct 15, 2019 9:36:47 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

The two biggest things for us were the sink and grill. Our contractor was able to build a temporary base for our existing sink out of scrap wood and a piece of our old countertop, so we weren't without a kitchen sink and small side counter for more than a few days (out of the 4+ month renovation). We did most of our cooking on our grill and ate on the patio or in the living room basically every night, because our dining room was also out of commission for the entire process. We are lucky in that our gas grill also has one of those side burners, so we were able to use that a lot for things I would normally heat and cook in a pan on the stovetop. Frozen casseroles would have been useless for us because we didn't have use of a stove to reheat them and our old microwave was so old, it literally would have taken an hour to do anything like that in the microwave anyhow.

Other than grilling, we did set up the toaster oven and microwave on a table in the living room. We also used our rice cooker a bunch. We'd cook a big batch of rice once so we only had to wash the cooker once a week or so, and then just ate a lot of simple things like burgers/veggie burgers, grilled chicken, grilled veggies, toasted sandwiches, microwaved soup, cold salads, etc. If you have a pizza stone, you can put that right on the grill and a frozen pizza cooks really easily and well on there.

The best thing I found for my sanity was just "cooking" once or twice, to basically get the pain over with in one day rather than trying to cook actual food and deal with cleanup and hassle everyday or even multiple times. It was just more stress than I could deal with trying to prep every day on limited space, trying to clean and utilize as few pots/pans as possible. I found it a lot more tolerable to just cook larger batches of things at the beginning of the week and clean it all up at once, and then just reheat or pick different toppings and combinations the rest of the week. So I'd cook rice or pasta, a pan of beans, a bunch of veggies, grilled chicken or sausages all on Sunday and then just mix and match throughout the week with different sauces or dressings, and then supplement with quick stuff like salad or sandwiches, a cheese and fruit plate, and the aforementioned frozen pizza.

This all assumes you still have use of the fridge/freezer. We never lost use of ours, it just got moved to different places depending on the stage of the renovation.

This also seems like solid advice.

[ktzmoh]

Oct 15, 2019 20:21:34 GMT -5 devonpow said:

Our contractor made a temporary kitchen in our dining room. We moved the fridge in there and he installed a cheapo counter and sink from Home Depot (it went against the doorway into the kitchen so they could easily plumb it). The counter space was a huge help. We put a few bookshelves in there for pantry items and used the built in buffet that was already there for dishes etc.

we had a hot plate for boiling water, an electric griddle, and a microwave. DH would grill on Sundays and I would have him grill several different types of meat which i would then dole out for dinners along with a steamed veggie side. 

it was a 4 month renovation - painful, but worth it! 

oh my gosh. 4 months ?! I'm hoping to keep ours to 8 weeks but it's possible I'm being painfully  naive.

[ktzmoh]

Thanks everyone for this advice. THinking it through I think we will probably replace the utility sink in the garage (its very old and one of those plastic ones so it is falling apart and barely drains) and have a small refrigerator in there. We will not likely have room in there to put the microwave, crockpot etc. So we are going to maybe take over the guest bedroom for that. There's a long sideboard in there we can use and book shelves to store food.

I foresee a lot of sandwiches and toaster oven pizza - and some creative meal planning.

[bullygirl979]

Oct 15, 2019 22:13:22 GMT -5 ktzmoh said:

Thanks everyone for this advice. THinking it through I think we will probably replace the utility sink in the garage (its very old and one of those plastic ones so it is falling apart and barely drains) and have a small refrigerator in there. We will not likely have room in there to put the microwave, crockpot etc. So we are going to maybe take over the guest bedroom for that. There's a long sideboard in there we can use and book shelves to store food.

I foresee a lot of sandwiches and toaster oven pizza - and some creative meal planning.

I googled "freezer meal recipes" and "freezer meal ideas" and got a lot of ideas. When I made them, I used disposable foil pans and wrote the instructions for cooking on the tin foil top. While leading up to the renovation it created work, I will say having some home cooked meals with no muss and fuss has been amazing.

[heliocentric]

Our kitchen reno took about 4 months and luckily we had a pretty sweet temporary set up.

We moved the fridge to our dining room and also set up a "snack kitchen" there by adding our small old microwave and an electric kettle on our buffet. I took the contents of the buffet out and put some dishes, utensils, and snacks in there instead. This way we could heat things in the microwave and grab quick snacks easily.

For meals we set up a basement kitchen. We already had a stainless steel counter with a few drawers there. We also had a keg fridge with we converted back to a regular fridge. Then we put a piece of our old countertop on an old console table next to our utility sink for dish drying and food prep. We also removed stuff from our IKEA storage shelves and used those as a pantry. That's also where we set up the new microwave, toaster oven, and electric kettle. We bought a single induction burner for our main cooking. We supplemented with the instant pot and our grill. The table from our nook was moved into the space so we were able to do most prep, cooking, cleaning, and eating in the same area. The only thing we really had to haul around was food from the upstairs fridge & dirty dishes from the "snack kitchen." I used plastic totes for that.

Honestly, it worked out surprisingly well and it was mostly business as usual. I mean, we were eating next to the washing machine, so the ambiance wasn't there, but functionally it was very good.

Oh, we also set up our kitchen computer on the IKEA shelves, so we could look up recipes and watch TV. And we did make some freezer meals ahead of time (in toaster oven size containers) just in case, but since the set up worked out so well we didn't really need them.

[mrsukyankee]

heliocentric , 4 months? What did you do that took 4 months?  I would just move our of our house because we don't have a basement or a way to set up anything other than in the living room. Holy shit. 

[heliocentric]

Oct 17, 2019 1:52:05 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

heliocentric , 4 months? What did you do that took 4 months?  I would just move our of our house because we don't have a basement or a way to set up anything other than in the living room. Holy shit. 

We gutted our kitchen. Our house was built in 1929 and so we needed insulation and new electrical. We didn't want to order cabinets until the walls were back up. So by the time we gutted, did the internals, got the walls back up, ordered cabinets (which took several weeks) and then finished the install it took about 4 months.

I'm glad we did that it that way, though. It turns out our house only has wood framing & the exterior stone. (No plywood or whatever they make exterior walls with today). There wasn't enough space between the framing and the exterior stone to add insulation. They needed to build out the framing for it to fit, which slightly changed the dimensions (and the cabinetry).

[jamaicam]

We also did a kitchen renovation that took nearly 4 months... and we did it when I was on maternity leave with kid 2. It expanded our kitchen into a laundry area and also merged our dining room and kitchen so we were without our laundry, kitchen and dining rooms for that period.

We set up the kitchen on our back patio. Moved the (electric) stove, fridge, microwave and a large sideboard out there, as well as our dining table. And then washed dishes in the guest bathroom sink which is right beside that patio. The key was being super organised - I only kept out 6 plates, 6 sets of cutlery and 6 bowls. 1 large and 1 small saucepan etc. So minimize what you need. And then just envisage the new kitchen whenever you get super frustrated.