Living through kitchen renovation...advice needed

[neeleymartin]

We are FINALLY going to renovate the kitchen, which will include knocking down walls, cathedral ceiling, and completely new EVERYTHING! YAY!

I remember a while back a post that had some great advice about living through a kitchen renovation of this magnitude...can't seem to find it...anyone remember the thread I am talking about? OR have any good advice? Fwiw, we have a 5 and 3 year old and LIve outside in the summer, which will help...also cook on the grill most of the time. Tia!!

[StantonHyde]

Good luck!! AFter we did ours 2 years ago, I finally understood why nobody updates kitchens--once you get it, you keep it!!!

I had the contractor put a sink in the basement for washing dishes. We mostly lived on plastic and paper though. I had 2 burners and could cook dinner fairly well on those. I moved my "pantry" and plates and the burners etc downstairs to the utility room and set up a kitchen there. We put our fridge in the garage.

May you have the patience of Job :) But I will say that now that it is done, it is soooooo worth it!:love5:

[crl]

I would check the kitchen forum at Gardenweb. There is usually a thread or two floating around about this there.

Catherine

[acmom]

No BTDT with a kitchen, but we are currently in the middle of an impromptu basement remodel bc of a flood.

My best advice would be to really communicate with your contractors about time frame and what you what/expect. We are currently weeks past our deadline and then end is not yet in sight. We kept giving them the benefit of the doubt, knowing they had several jobs going on, and saying if XXX does get done by next week, we will talk to them about it. We should have been more forward about timeframe (and our concerns about slow progress) from the beginning, as now we have lost so much time. I think some delays are to be expected with construction, but you want to minimize those as much as possible - especially with a kitchen I'm sure!

[twowhat?]

I would put away as much as you can all around the REST of your house. Because the dust gets EVERYWHERE even when they try to tape off the area with plastic sheets. Make it as easy to clean up afterwards as you can. That was the hardest part for us. We went through a major kitchen reno when I was 28 weeks preggo with twins (knocked out walls, countertops, floors, all new appliances except for dishwasher - the only thing we didn't replace was the cabinets though we did relocate a set of cabinets). And the dust was the hardest part - you have to wipe down ALL of your surfaces when they're done.

We lived off of take-out, so it's great that you can cook outside. One thing you will want to consider is setting up a microwave station:) We moved the microwave to the dining table, along with the toaster oven and coffee pot and that's where we went to warm up a plate, toast bread for sandwiches, and make coffee. We hand-washed dishes as needed in the wet bar sink (if you have a laundry room sink this would be great) and ate off disposable dinnerware as much as we could. If you have a garage refrigerator or second refrigerator, use only that one to avoid having to walk into the construction zone (and thus track more dust everywhere).

[acmom]

And the dust was the hardest part - you have to wipe down ALL of your surfaces when they're done.


:yeahthat:

That is a really good point. We have dust everywhere even though the work is in the basement in our house!

[Giantbear]

Moved into a house and started a full kitchen renovation that took 3 months, between demo and Cabinet installation, i had then put a temp sink in the kitchen so i had someplace to wash bottles and get some water.

[teo]

Yay--congrats! We did a gut remodel of ours last year and are loving the new space. +1 on checking Gardenweb for tips--I pretty much lived over there for the duration of our remodel (which dragged on for way too long since we were DIYing a lot of it!)

A few things that helped us:
- Make sure to have a decent fridge/freezer available (not dorm size!)
- If you don't already have one, get a good toaster oven, and also an electric kettle and a hot plate. These appliances make all things possible. :) (We didn't/don't even have a microwave!) We also used our rice cooker and waffle iron a lot. Make sure you have decent electrical connections for everything (ours were constantly shorting out, and in retrospect I would have paid the electrician to add another circuit to our dining room at the beginning--minimal expense to save a lot of headaches).
- Get a couple of dishpans and keep them in whatever bathroom you'll be using for dishes--one for dirty and one for clean, so they don't get mixed in with any bathroom items. We got a little stool to use for storing things like dish soap and sponges, too. Managed to get through the remodel with minimal paper plate/napkin usage once we got into the groove. We didn't have one since ours was a winter remodel, but if you have the option of a temporary outdoor sink, that's a great way to go. They make gardening sinks that connect to hoses.

We ate out more while remodeling (1-2 meals per week) and got takeout for another 1-2 meals, but otherwise cooked everything, so it's definitely possible. We lived on Trader Joe's frozen and canned food (both the full "meals" and the many starter components--e.g., black beans plus veggies and cheese in a tortilla on the hot plate = quesadillas). We also ate a lot of salads and sandwiches--easy dinners. Cereal and waffles for breakfast.

We didn't have huge dust issues except for during/immediately after the initial demo, but I think that's the exception rather than the norm. (We also have plaster walls that we left intact for the most part, so no drywall cutting or anything like that---I'm sure that made a big difference.)

Good luck, and (try to) have fun!!

[hillview]

we just finished our renovation. we had a table in the living room set up as a makeshift kitchen with toaster and coffee machine and convection oven thing. We ate out often, I wish I had taken everything out of the playroom (next to kitchen) as the dust was everywhere and they were neat folks who did the work. Have them put your fridge in a place you can access. It was tough but not that bad really. Paper plates and such helped a lot.

[neeleymartin]

Thanks everyone...glad to know that some have lived through it unscathed!! Lol! I am positive that we will live happily through the mess..may help that our house is cluttered to begin...maybe that makes it easier to bear with the mess, lol!

Any others care to chime in?