Temporary kitchen help and ideas

[Bloomsburyreader]

We are buying a place that has rising damp and so before we move in that needs to be sorted. The kitchen needs to be done too and the mouldy cupboards will have to be removed to get at the walls. It's not worth hanging on to the old kitchen and putting it back in as it's in a state.

We hope to put in planning permission for an extension and then to extend the kitchen into the garage but planning permission and queueing for a builder etc will take us to next summer so we need to set something up as a temporary fix- does anyone have any ideas? I am scouring ebay for cheap second hand kitchens but should we just live with a sink unit and a few trestle tables and boxes? Any great ideas for temporary kitchen furniture solutions?

We got a single induction hob from IKEA and a mini oven from Argos. And our builders plumbed in the washing machine and a temporary skink. It was all fine.. like glorified camping. But a bit better, we managed to bake some cupcakes

Oooh good idea about washing machine plumbing. Maybe I can get them to do the dishwasher too and use them both as a kitchen sideboard!

Friends have knocked up some pieces of wood into a temporary kitchen, with oilcloth stapled over the wooden top as a wipe-clean temporary worktop.

The builders sealed off the kitchen from the rest of the house (the garden backed on to a street for access). They put a temporary sink in the hall where the itchen door was and we had a Baby Belling oven with two electric burners on top, a mini fridge and microwave in the dining room. Our laundry was on the first floor so unaffected (thank goodness as I had two under two at the time). Meals were kept simple plus we had a fair share of yakeaways! We were building a big extension and adding underfloor heating plus complete new kitchen so it was about three months.

I think that’s a good idea to get them to plumb in the washing machine and dishwasher, then some work top over and then a sink next to it propped up with those legs you can get for breakfast bar. Gumtree great for cheap work top.

Would also look at getting a large book case or wardrobe and put shelves in for storage and to house a microwave then another bit of worktop on trestles for a microwave, camping oven, plug in induction and Instant Pot and I think you will be fine. Definitely look at Gumtree, marketplace and local selling pages .

I will be living with one IKEA induction hob, a neff dishwasher off eBay for £44, fridge, Thermomix food processor and a sunnersta temporary kitchen unit from IKEA which I hope I can sell on once proper kitchen is installed. Good luck !

We are going through this at the moment!

We’ve got this hob/oven
www.robertdyas.co.uk/russell-hobbs-mini-kitchen?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9MuYg_6i8QIVlsx3Ch0j3w5SEAQYASABEgJbufD_BwE

Plus a toaster, kettle, microwave, washing machine and single sink
And a couple of floor unit cupboards with a worktop and it’s been fine

We can’t make a roast, but we can muddle through for the 5 months we are without a proper kitchen

We bought an ikea sink unit in metal very light - IKEA Sunnersta Mini-Cuisine 112x56x139 cm
and bought 4 lengths of the cheapest surface 15€ a piece and made them into a bar on some old unattached kitchen units.
Lidl are currently doing portable hobs at the moment

Plumbed in wet appliances, sink with worktop length and shelves as suggested above should put you on. Something like a Ninja Foodi 9 in 1 (air fryer, oven, pressure cooker, sauté pot, slow cooker, grill) type affair plus a microwave should put you on for most meals, if you can pick up a cheap single portable hob then you’ll be set with more kitchen than I’ve had in many flats over the years

Excuse the mess, this is our temp kitchen. That will probably end up staying for the medium term at this rate. 😂

This was £100 from eBay for all the units (plus another wall unit in utility) plus sink. It also had a dishwasher and oven but we didn't need them so family sold them on. We kept our dishwasher and fridge, and got range separately. Original range was free from Facebook but has since been replaced. Hood was £100 new, again from Facebook. Only new thing was the worktop. Dh fitted it.

I would say get the essentials in and in the right spot, so sink, range, dishwasher etc. With a family I wouldn't want to be camping for a year.

That looks better than my actual permanent kitchen!

Not from eBay, from Facebook. 🤦

Amazing- thanks so much for all the ideas!! I'm going to be working part time next year (couldn't find a full time job in my field in new area) so I will have plenty of time to DIY it, I just don't want to spend out on something that's only going to last a year max

We used a foldable kitchen unit (the ones you buy for going camping), a camp stove and an instant pot.

It did us 4 months!

Hi op our oven was condemned so I got a air fryer and a hob, we have micro wave between them and the bbq we should be covered.

Are you sure it is rising damp? I don't want to butt in, as you may have thought of all this, but some companies who do damp surveys when you're buying are not up to date with current thinking on this matter, and/or are just looking for work. I'd get a survey from someone like Heritage House if it's an older property, or some other specialist surveyor who doesn't run a company doing damp-proofing and tanking. We did, and found that we didn't have rising damp at all when brick drill samples were taken- the damp was due to other causes. The tanking and replastering that the damp-proofing company who did the survey when we bought the house advised would have been exactly the wrong things to do, would have made it worse, and would have been very damaging and intrusive structurally and very expensive. (The damp here was mostly due to condensation, we solved that with better ventilation and not using an old gas fire, and the house gradually dried out- now it is so dry I need moisturiser for my eyes, and the paper that you could peel off the walls when we moved in now needs the decorators' equivalent of dynamite to get off! ). In a lot of old houses it can just be cracked or broken drains. Can be leaking gutters, or bridged DPCs, or any combination of things (a bit of of ours was the drive being too high against a wall, another bit was BECAUSE of some tanking on a wall, when we chiselled the tanking off, the wall dried out)
Just be sure you have definitely identified the cause before embarking on major work. Some surveyors reckon genuine rising damp is so rare it almost never happens.