Tips to survive kitchen Reno?!

[DevilsKitchen]

Got a new kitchen starting in 3 weeks time. We had our bathroom last year; DH and I unironically refer to it as one of the worst weeks of our lives. The kitchen is probably going to be two weeks and we need it to be less awful this time for the sake of our marriage 🤣

Small kitchen is being totally replaced, rejigged and plastered and the whole downstairs apart from the living room is being tiled (finally getting rid of the disgusting Lino that was put down by the people who lived here before us!)

Hit me with your top tips for not having a mental breakdown please!

how many bathrooms do you have?

@circumventM just one bathroom unfortunately, and a downstairs loo

Get a portable hob so you can still cook normal meals and not have to live on takeaways.

Plaster dust gets EVERYWHERE so move anything valuable completely out of the house if you can. You’ll be finding it for weeks afterwards.

But honestly just accept it’s going to be annoying and disruptive and be grateful it’s only two weeks! For that short amount of time I’d consider and airbnb and just leave all together.

and you genuinely thought a bathroom was really tough?

a kitchen…. brace yourself!

we ended up checking in to an air bnb!

but it was a complete kitchen pull out and absolutely everything from ground up replaced

@circumventM i think part of the reason the bathroom was so awful is because it’s upstairs, like in your private space. And then we had to go to my ILs to shower every night which was kind of them but also a pain in the bum.

@sweetpickle2 how did you wash up properly though? I’m hoping because it’s summer we might not mind cold dinners!

My parents will have us round once or twice to eat, as will my in laws.

Washing up bowl in the garden, soapy water. Even if you don’t cook on a hob you will have things to wash up!

Move a microwave and kettle into your living room / some other unaffected space. Improvise a dining area.

Buy paper plates and cutlery.

Do a rough meal plan in advance. When we did this (with three kids under 5, no family near and no kitchen for four months) it was heavy on packet couscous, microwave rice, quiche, tinned fish, rotisserie chickens from the hot food counter at Sainsbury’s, and salad veg.

Create a temporary kitchen somewhere else. With a microwave, air fryer, toaster etc...... buy ready meals, takeaways etc..... and make it easy for other meals. We ended up buying paper plates and cups as my back was killing me from doing the washing up in the bath, so I wanted to limit the washing up as much as possible.

Just keep thinking of the end goal. The bathroom being done was worse for me, as you had nowhere to clean yourself at the end of the day. The kitchen disrupted every room in the house, but at least we could all be clean!

I had no kitchen for 6 weeks in our first renovation, this was before air fryers too!

Air fryer!
Paper plates/plastic cutlery
Meals at friends/family
Cheap meals out/takeaway

It's 14 days so it's really not that bad. Easy breakfast (toast, porridge pots), sandwiches for lunch, air fryer dinner.

As long as you have a toaster, kettle, ideally air fryer it'll be fine. We had a lot of nicer microwave meals/lunch at work

Did mine last year...

You need to set up a "kitchen" elsewhere, in our case the dining area, but previous kitchen renovation was also extension so it was in the hallway and spare room for the less essential stuff. Work out where to put your fridge etc.

Batch cook some freezer friendly microwaveable food, lasagna is good as is curry. Work out what you have to cook on other than microwave eg camp stove, pressure cooker, rice cooker, air fryer, set them up elsewhere in the house NOT under the mains smoke alarm .

Failing that I highly recommend Wetherspoons

I washed up in the downstairs loo

@mitogoshi crap I hadn’t thought about where the fridge would go! It might have to go in the garage tbh - we are tiling our hallway and I think getting it into the living room would be a monumental faff

Ignore the doom and gloomers. You need a slower cooker, microwave and portable hob. You'll be fine.

Obviously you can put your washing up bowl in the bath so can keep on top of that. Keep your microwave accessable (assuming you have one) and do lots of mini shops to keep things fresh - one good thing it's warmer now, so you can get away with salad and something warmed in microwave or have buy a readymade quiche, precooked chicken or salmon. If you've got enough money, the odd takeaway or meal out (the second would be great to give you a break - a different meal, no washing up etc.

Temp kitchen, disposable plates. Easy food. Also things like itsu noodles that come in a pot are handy

Make sure your supplies are in and deliveries are ahead of time
Ie tiles, flooring, the new washer cooker taps etc are in situ and the plumber can fit them.

Its summer so you'll get away with a lot more tbh.

Get a ninja multi cooker thing I've got the 9in1 and it saved my sanity when we had a kitchen Reno which ended up going over by weeks!

I put my microwave, toaster, kettle and fridge in the dining room and I put all the used crockery etc in a big washing up bowl and did the washing up in the downstairs loo. I made a lot of toast and sandwiches - I thought I'd have a lot of salads but the lack of counter space proved a barrier - I did buy some ready made ones though, and a couple of takeaways a week. I had no kitchen for a few weeks and no kitchen sink for 5 weeks. It was worth it though. I put a cutlery tray on top of the fridge with a few tea towels and cloths. I would have invited myself over to relatives, but they've either died or live miles away. Actually I didn't mind it, it was like camping but I had a proper bed. In fact I thought my bathroom was more of a pain because the water had to be turned off so often and I couldn't use the loo - had to go to Tesco twice to use the loos there (and buy something because I felt guilty). That didn't happen with the kitchen.

Can you do a big batch cooking now to have easy dinners (preferably microwaveable) for many of the nights? And plug the fridge/freezer into sitting room so it doesn't get turned off accidentally ( it know there will likely be days of no power at home while they do electrics).

Do you have a bbq in the garden (especially good is a gas one) so you can cook outdoors? You can grill lots in tin foil packets and also use the grill to put pots (with oven-safe handles) on to heat/cook.

Agree with paper plates if possible to reduce wash up. If not, put everything else away in boxes (upstairs if possible) and keep MINIMAL crockery and utensils downstairs. Dust does get everywhere as people say.
But do include plenty of mugs and teaspoons for the work team in that minimal kit! And some of your less favourite glasses for cold drinks.

Plan a few takeaway nights. Dinner put. Promise dinners in return in the new kitchen for friends/family hosting you a couple of nights for meals.

Think camping style meals - 1 pot wonders, jars of sauce are fine for a couple of weeks, etc.

Try and have a working sink if nothing else every night. But get a couple of 5l bottles of water, just in case.

And as weather is getting nice, easy dinners of salad and rotisseris chicken in the garden could be good a few nights, with leftovers as sandwiches the next night.

We had a gas bbq that got a lot of use…

Two weeks in the summer is honestly a breeze. People go camping for that long! Try five months over the winter! 😬
If you can move as much as possible into your garage it would be best, and try and find an area you can plug things into (safely!) and prep food next to it. Air fryer and plug in induction hobs were brilliant.

I’m definitely going to go for the paper plates!

We don’t have a microwave (used to have one but literally used it for heating up baked beans so got rid)

Could do packet cous cous and cooked chicken and salad that’s a good idea. I think I’m going to have to do a meal plan.

I have wanted an air fryer since they became popular in 2022 but DH insisted we wait to see if the hype died down. Well it hasn’t and this might be the chance to get one 😂

I bet you have friends that bought an air fryer and could lend it to you for a fortnight. It made many more options of what to eat.
I think the washing up is actually more annoying than cooking without a proper kitchen.