Eating tips while kitchen is replaced?!

[egdehsdrawkcab]

Finally having a new kitchen installed next week, and we'll be without one for 2 weeks. I've got space in the lounge for the microwave and a mini fridge - but what are your top tips for surviving with no kitchen??

We just survived 7 weeks using a camping stove and a pressure king pro. It was fine but I’ve eaten a lot of rice and wet stuff like curries and stews! The worst bit was washing up in the bath.

The 2 ring portable induction hob has been a life saver for me. It was about £65 -VonShef . I only use one ring but it's useful to have the second one to put hot things on. I was thinking of ebaying it afterwards but I might keep it for camping.

www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/eiqicbtw/electriq-eiqicbtw-1-zone-induction-hob?refsource=APadwords&refsource=apadwords&mkwid=skFXpQXvh_dt&pcrid=293402692460&product=EIQICBTW&pgrid=65715155464&ptaid=pla-447535721694&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIl5jy8J6x3gIVReaaCh3AagA2EAQYAiABEgKrYvD_BwE

www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/kitchen-products/appliances/hobs/tillreda-portable-induction-hob-white-art-40331630/

I bought a single ring induction hob (make sure your pans are compatible!), slow cooker, batch cooked meals, microwave meals.

It was the loss of the sink that was the worst- our builder kept us plumbed in for as long as possible - we only lost our washing machine for about 5 days.

Lidl do a mini oven for £20.

We are 13 months in of not having a kitchen. Have mini oven, microwave and slow cooker in dining room.

Buy lots of easy cook stuff - spatch cooked chicken in a big tray that you can add potatoes round and bake, ready made lasagne etc

Not having a sink is the hardest. I refuse to wash pots in the bathroom (yuk) but will tip liquids away and rinse odd thing there. We eat anything dry (sandwiches, toast) from tinfoil and reuse. Have melamine plates and mugs and take to a family member a few doors away each day to wash. (Real crockery is v heavy to carry, paper plates crap for hot food). Use sturdy plastic cutlery and reuse.

Once a week or so I go to my mums and prep veg and make dump bags up for slow cooker which can use straight from
Frozen . If I can I will batch cook curries etc at mums too for freezer. Slow cooker liners are your friend as no washing pot after.

Beans etc can buy in snap pots that go straight in micro. Micro rice etc. Porridge pots and frozen smoothie mix - kids take nutriblend cup straight to bathroom, rinse and put it back for next day

It’s manageable but hard work. We have our old fridge which helps and use a lot of baby wipes. It is not eco friendly.

We had no kitchen or bathroom for 3 weeks!
I set up the spare bedroom with some kitchen stuff - micro, kettle, fridge, but we lived mainly of microwave meals. The house was too dirty, no hot water lots of the time, nowhere clean to sit apart from the bedroom. It was grim!

bawbles you’re frightening me! Why have you not had a kitchen for 13 months?

Bawbles - that’s awful, I don’t know how you have coped for 13 months.

I did it for 4 months when the children were small ( 2,3,5) and that was bad enough. And I had a 2 ring hob and a sink with cold water and drainage as well as fridge / freezer and microwave .

That’s why I knew what I was doing when we had to do it again this summer for 6 weeks ( different house ).

No way would I do that for more than a year. Ditto living in a caravan on site .

OMG bawbles 13 months and i'd be looking for a new house instead

God. Its just painful. Isn't it?
Mine wasn't as bad as some of you here, but I found it awful. 2-3mths.was very hot in may, so we bbq'd a lot, and used the microwave as much as possible.
I boiled a kettle outside in the garden and then used that to wash up in a washing up bowl, before throwing it over the remaining flowers!!

We've just (and I mean just) survived 5 months without a kitchen and the only thing that made it possible was our amazing slow cooker / crockpot. That was the main lifesaver along with a countertop Ikea Induction hob (£35.0 and worth every penny). The microwave was also a great help.

Those frozen Birds Eye vegetable pouches that you microwave, they were brilliant.
Porridge made with boiling water from the kettle and add dried fruit.
Cup a soups.
Chocolate, lots of it.

Ooh, I'd forgotten about washing up in a bowl by the outside tap.

Get an instant pot and join the Facebook group

@bawbles 13 months??😱

This is the 5th week for us without a kitchen- was supposed to be 3 but enexpected delays and problems meant it had gone on longer than anticipated. Struggling with the ready meals now as they taste so salty and samey. We’ve eaten out a fair bit, had salad a lot, soups, beans on toast, sandwiches, been to my mums a couple of times, dd has a scoop dinner. Instant noodles!!!
We are craving crispy food- pizza, pies, fish fingers and chips!!!!

We had to demolish the part of the building that the old kitchen was in and rebuild it - got carried away rebuilding. Costs were huge so we have preserved the budget by DH DIYing wherever possible which slows everything down. It structurally is complete now but there was a lot of stuff that needed to take priority before we could think about a kitchen (installage new sewerage under the space and new water pipework to whole house etc)
We are lucky that we had a good sized dining room so apart from the obvious (lack of running water) I have space for the fridge/a temporary setup and make it work.
There’s times when I felt tempted to remortgage and get it sorted but the rate we are going we get a little progress each week and are on track for completing within budget.
I envy people who can get a company in and have it done start to finish

You're all scaring me..... (bawbles?!??)

I've been told absolutely 2 weeks!

That's to take down ceiling, replaster, do electrics, tile floor, and install kitchen....

Try and keep cooker fridge etc there as long as you can even after you’ve ripped everything else out. Or plug fridge in somewhere else.
Agree with washing up in the bathroom sink being a nightmare stock up on paper plates and cutlery,stick to cereal simple microwave stuff or things on toast or sandwiches.
Better still eat out or takeaways or go and visit some family you haven’t seen for a while

I’ll put a tenner on 2.5 - 3 weeks.

Assuming the replastering is just a skim coat on the ceiling.

What about your splashback? Plumbing would be handy too.

Have you already taken delivery of alll the units, appliances, sink and Tap, tiles, ?

That 2.5-3 weeks is assuming that you have one main contractor and are not managing it as seperate trades.

@egdehsdrawkcab
2 weeks sounds ambitious for completion of all those trades.

Don’t be put off by my tale of woe. It’s self inflicted and we made a decision to self manage the project, demolish part of the house and rebuild using trades only contracted in for chunks of work (such as builders for ten weeks to get to roof height, joiner for roof works, roof tiler on price etc) with DH doing all the dirty/heavy works (digging, barrowing, grinding out bricks etc) inbetween to minimise the amount we paid in labour.

We have another property which is lovely and could have moved to but instead we have tenants in to cover the mortgage on both would have limited what we can do here.

Or we could have rebuild the old kitchen like for like size wise which would have cost significantly less so we’d be finished now.

We are in this state by (idiotic) choice

When my kitchen was done we lived off the M&s count on us meals and M&s micro veggies - was also a quick way to shed 10lbs so killed two birds! Don't think I would have stuck to it with proper cooking facilities!
Cereal / toast was also easy options and we washed up in the bath! It'll fly by!

Eeeeesh

Yes, tiles here, taps, sinks arriving tomorrow. Appliances all arriving on one date as requested by contractor, and yes all managed by him....

Fingers n toes crossed - and for you too @bawbles

@egdehsdrawkcab

My friend had a small galley kitchen (one wall and end of units) and one of the more expensive companies (maybe magnet) quoted her four days. This was inc plastering, electrics, new units flooring and appliances. The quote was hugely more than other companies but she wanted minimum disruption.

They smashed it. Workmen decended like flies and it was done by 5pm on the fourth day. I was so impressed!