The kitchen renovation project you’ve been planning for months is finally ready to begin. Now comes the difficult part: surviving for the time without a fully functional kitchen. The inconvenience is unavoidable, but with enough forethought, it doesn’t have to wreak havoc on your household. Follow these guidelines for a building process that runs as smoothly as possible.
Appoint a Kitchen Stand-in as Your Backup
Consuming all of your meals out from home may get monotonous, and it can also place a burden on your finances. Yet regardless of how much takeout you order, you will still need a place to prepare lunches for school, pour bowls of cereal, and boil coffee. Establish a makeshift cooking area somewhere that is out of the way of the building work.
If you are fortunate enough to have a guesthouse, you may convert it into a central location for food preparation. Instead, you may furnish a section of the basement, the garage, or the workroom with a number of foldable seats and tables, storage crates, and freestanding shelves.
Reduce the Number of Items in Your Kitchen
No matter how much you like being in the kitchen, your normal cooking and eating routines will be disturbed while the space is being remodeled, making it difficult to prepare elaborate meals.
Keep things simple and limit yourself to the cooking utensils that are an absolute must for you. You need to be ruthless with this question: how often do you plan to use your food processor or waffle iron? Put the necessities in an easily accessible location, and put the rest away.
Make Your Menus Work With Your Tiny Appliances.
Workhorses that are portable and easy to transport, such as slow cookers, microwaves, toaster ovens, electric griddles and skillets, hot plates, and coffee makers, may help you get through the tough times during meal preparation.
If it is at all feasible, you should move your refrigerator to your temporary kitchen. If this is not possible, you should either purchase a mini-fridge and a chest freezer or ask a friend to lend you theirs.
Put some disposable items in the pantry.
You won’t be able to wash the dishes in the regular area, so you’ll have to be inventive (the bathtub, an outdoor hose, a cooler full of sudsy water).
Prepare for an easier life by storing up on plates, napkins, cups, and cutlery that are recyclable or biodegradable. You will reduce the tension caused by your temporary relocation and improve the efficiency of the cleaning.
If the weather permits it, fire up the grill and get to cooking.
A little known fact is that your grill can do practically all of the tasks that your oven can. Have you been tasked with roasting some meat or veggies, or baking a pizza? About the grill… You may also use it for meals that come in foil packets, pans of biscuits and rolls, skillet pies and cobblers, and of course, s’mores. This will bring you back to your Scouting days.
Maintain a Stockpile of Non-Perishable Snacks
Snacks may be a lifesaver for your stomach when you’re desperate for food but can’t bring yourself to prepare a full meal in your improvised accommodations.
Peanut butter, crackers, dried fruit or fruit leather, canned goods, trail mix, and a variety of other foods may be used to whip together fast meals when time is of the essence.
If at all possible, go out of town for a while.
If you want to take a vacation or need to organize a business trip, now could be a good time to do it, provided that you are okay with the construction work continuing while you are gone. You get extra credit if you’re going to see family, since there’s a good chance they’ll make you a meal or two at their house.
Keep in mind the Big Picture.
In the big scheme of things, this is a very brief moment of difficulty that will be followed by many years of happiness in the kitchen. Maintain your sense of perspective and approach the process as an exciting adventure. The moment you start putting in productive work in your gleaming new kitchen, you won’t even remember the short-term difficulties.
Tell us, have you ever been through the ordeal of redoing your kitchen? In the comments, please offer any tips you have for surviving.
