Kitchen ripped out/ new kitchen support thread

[Elsanore]

Work here starts on Monday. We are trying to empty the kitchen today and set up make shift kitchen in living room for next few weeks.

Got to go away overnight tonight for a wedding do, with dc, and DH and I both have work to do for our jobs sometime this weekend.

DH grumpily moving stuff around and getting very frustrated already. He has been very effective though and he's the main cook in the house and very good at this kind of thing.

First thing that was supposed to happen.. skip was meant to be here today for noon but it didn't come. Give me strength.

A thread for anyone going through the same, anyone with advice or anyone who wants to hear about my chaos life for the next few weeks.

I’ll join in! We’re entering our 5th week without a kitchen (though we were away for the first). New kitchen is due to arrive in about ten days to two weeks’ time. Fitting to start in around two weeks depending on how work progresses. We have two DC, including a toddler, so it’s Very Fun Indeed 🙄.

Is yours a replacement kitchen or part of bigger work? Ours is part of an extension and I’m at the stage of being sick of it - we’re 9 weeks into what’s supposed to be a 10 week extension, probably going to be 12 by the time the kitchen is in. House is a pit. Dust everywhere.

Hi! You sound very calm considering 5 weeks already without a kitchen! Have you got any way to cook at home?

Ours is not an extension it's a 4x4m existing kitchen dining room.

Knocking chimney breast back to brick is happening tomorrow hopefully... hope the skip arrives.

I am really stupid and didn't cancel hello fresh this week. What a waste of money.

I’ll join you although my start date is 2 weeks away. No building works just ripping out the old and putting in a new one. They have given me a estimate of 2 weeks and I have only half packed up the kitchen. Doing the rest the weekend before.

This sounds nice and straightforward! And 2 weeks sounds very bearable. Hope it goes well

@Elsanore , how annoying re Hello Fresh!

We are….managing. I am only calm because there is literally nothing I can do at this stage! We have a microwave combi grill, kettle and toaster. That is it. So DC1 has school lunches, DC2 usually has hot lunch in childcare/I make him scrambled eggs and so on when it’s just me and him, and they have sandwiches for dinner. Then we usually manage a takeaway or something hot at the weekend - we all had fish and chips for lunch today.

DH and I are fine as we have a whole myriad of batch cooked food in the freezer and microwave rice pouches. But DC1 is incredibly fussy and won’t eat anything in a sauce. So I try to make sure they have hot food elsewhere.

The issue isn’t so much cooking a thing as cooking stuff to serve with it, eg pasta and sauce would probably require a bigger dish than we have and then you have to heat the sauce separately. Jacket potatoes for four took forever last weekend and then DC1 complained they weren’t as nice as usual.🙄 But I am loading up a basket full of appliances on AO.com as we speak 🤞🤞🤞

Oh hello!

Our builders start next week, we’re taking down 3 walls (all load bearing/original external obviously 🙄) relocating the kitchen, new kitchen and utility, 2 new stud walls, and replacing 2 bathrooms.

This week I’m mostly packing up as much as I can, fortunately we8re away while they do the demolition work.

I’ll be working with an air fryer and a microwave for as long as it takes!

Builder is saying 4-5 weeks for the whole job….

Not exactly the same, but bought a derelict property 18mths ago and been living in a tiny static van in the garden for 15mths. Pre-van, we'd stay weekends with no heating and no kitchen.

• Set up an area (or table) elsewhere to prep food
• Use microwave, air fryer, electric frypan, mini oven, or portable cook top and use a multi layer steamer to cook veg
• Use a BBQ. If you have one with a hood/lid, its the same as an oven. Just takes getting used to. I use re-usable aluminium trays to cook foods and line when the original metal tray gets burnt and black.

Builders first day.
He turns up at 12.25 lunchtime instead of 7.25am
Pokes a hole in the ceiling with our broom handle
Decides they need ceiling boards and drives off saying back tomorrow
All that's in the skip are his lunch wrappers from M&S!!
Hope things get cracking tomorrow.

I have been living with a makeshift kitchen since the start of august! And the back wall of my house has been down for five weeks now.

the makeshift kitchen is actually great - I have an oven, dishwasher, washing machine and fridge freezer - even have wall units the builder hung for me!

tonight is the first night I have felt the could though. I am hoping the house gets sealed back up soon - I have radiators now on external wills so there is no way the heating is going on😂😂

I’m packing up..😁

@Elsanore , how’s it going?

Hi 👋🏻

They pulled the ceiling down, insulated in between all the bits and have reboarded and plastered the ceiling. That's this weeks progress. The hundred odd year old dust from the ceiling stinks and gets in your mouth 😷 The ceiling wasn't meant to be part of the job and we just paid some extra for that.

DP lost the plot already (hates not being able to cook, the dust etc) I ended up booking a last min cheap Airbnb for the long weekend. We arrived a couple of hours ago it's lovely, was such a good idea.

Tomorrow the builder has a brickwork guy coming while we are away to unbrick the bricked up chimney breast and raise the lintel.

Im so glad we got away this weekend.

How's everyone else's?

Well, our space is now plastered! Actual kitchen arrives at the end of the week…..am just praying it all fits. I may attempt to measure one morning just to see…or maybe ignorance is bliss 😂

We also escaped this weekend to family (but who live at such a distance that we can’t escape there more regularly). It was very nice to have hot food that isn’t Batch Cooked Something and Microwave Rice.

our Builders started yesterday and we’ve left the country 😂. There are a few walls to come down before they can start with the kitchen, so we timed it to be away while the worst of the really messy stuff gets done! We’ve waited so long for this to start that I’m ridiculously excited by it all. I’ve been a complete saddo this morning and watched some of the progress via the ring doorbell😂. My sister has a key so will go in tonight once the builders are away and take some photos of how it’s looking.

I should add I’ve not been “checking up” on them via the doorbell, my nosiness is just killing me 😂

Just to say this was us back in June. It was hell for about 2/3 weeks but I'm now sitting in my gorgeous new kit hen and regret nothing! Stay strong it will all be worth it in the end!

@Blughbablugh and this is what’s going to keep me going when I’m eating dust/rubble for breakfast 😂

Yep soon you will be dust free! We have a crawling baby and so that was fun trying to keep him confined to one room whilst the work was going on!

@Blughbablugh fortunately we’re an all adult household these days…but I had a video today of what the guys have done the last couple of days and I’m ridiculously excited 😂

Sounds like some good progress going on for some of us!

Ours has now knocked back to brick on chimney breast, raised the massive stone lintel (cooker will go in there later). Plastered another wall. Pulled all old kitchen out. He discovered loads of lead pipes and replaced.

Need to choose floor and tiles for inside the chimney breast and order a range cooker.

Bloody units not coming til 10th Oct so will be a hiatus.

I dyed all DC's white school shirts pink in the wash, in other news 🙄

Can I join in? Old kitchen will be ripped out on 30 October. During the next week replastering will happen, plus electrics and new Amtico floor and the range cooker will be delivered. W/c 7 November the new kitchen will be delivered and fitted. Apparently it will all be over by 13 November. I’m not entirely sure I believe it …

Our extension began in March but they didn't rip the old kitchen out until the end of April.
We had a utility room at first but then that went too and lived on sandwiches and takeaway.
Now we have a new utility with a light and some sockets so are getting by with a microwave, toaster, air fryer , panini press.

We are getting creative with various cheats.
And I am going slowly insane.
Last week the quartz worktops couldn't be fitted as the units weren't level.
This week the fitter will come round to fix it if he can.... then I need to rebook the quartz, then the plumber for final fix then the decorator to fill in all the scrapes and chips again.
It is taking much longer than I had foreseen.

12 weeks no kitchen!! Ahhh it will be worth it!

Almost 5 months and counting. I'd cry but the interminable dust has blocked my tear ducts.
Ooo n the bright side: like
Most people I had some gadgets pushed to the back of a cupboard that I very rarely used; now we are using these gadgets much more and I think will continue to do so: for example I toasted some veg in the air fryer and then slow cooked it to make a really tasty ratatouille. On Monday we had slow cooker pulled pork done with sage and cider for a change. Last week I squeezed a whole chicken with stuffing balls into the air fryer. Last night I did freezer pizzas folded into 'calzonish' as we now call them, cooked on a panini press.
Cooking in weird and wonderful ways is at least entertaining!

Week 3.... Kitchen is just walls, no lights or water or anything useable. Plasterer was meant to plaster one of the walls again yesterday, because it's not straight enough for units yet. But he didn't turn up. Units etc not coming til 10th Oct.

Feel sorry for some of you all with months and months of this.