We are ready for the final part of our house renovation - the kitchen and utility. We were fortunate to be able to not live through our last project but this one has been a year of living on a building site so far and the novelty is wearing thin.
So, deep breath and here we go for the last bit....
We would like to understand how people who have been through this manage living without a kitchen for what looks like being about 6 weeks start to finish.
Any hints and tips, and in particular has anybody got experience of these temporary kitchens that arrive in a small trailer and set up on your drive? They look like a neat solution but as yet we haven't seen any prices. Looks like they are relatively rare, so I guess there are other ways to do it.
Any advice and experience gratefully received!
For a sink use the bathroom sink. Fridge in the hallway or other room. Plug in hob and a microwave in whichever room. Sorted.
Bit of a faff but for 6 weeks doable.
Oh and deliveroo as you'll be eating a lot of takeaway.
How many people do you need to cater for? When we had our kitchen done it was just Mrs & I.
We had a free- standing fridge freezer so moved that &
microwave to dining room. Lots of pre-made meals frozen & then nuked. Helped having both parents nearby for meals, friends & eating out.
Would be more hassle now with the kids, but got plenty of our own camping equipment now to cook on if needed.
Plus the obligatory pizza oven.
We had 1 guy doing ours- prob took close to 3-4 weeks start to finish but weren’t without services for much time. We we’re able to use the new cooker while other bits were in progress
Single ring induction hob was what we cooked on when our kitchen was being done.
Also had a microwave and the fridge freezer to use.
We kept the sink for as long as possible.
It did help that our kitchen was moving rooms so we were able to keep the sink in situ for longer as it wasn't in the way of the new kitchen going in.
Also buy a Ninja Foodi best chips ever according to my daughter!
Camping equipment, rig up temporary sink using old unit, not hard
We're just about to have our kitchen done. Luckily eta is 2-3 weeks but still not looking forward to it.
As per others, bathroom for sink. We have an Instant Pot, gas BBQ and will get a cheap microwave.
For everything else there's Just Eat. We have even built an account of money into our budget for eating out/ take aways
My parents had their kitchen ripped out the week before lockdown! Which left them until early June with just the old oven, which they fortunately had the foresight to quickly salvage (it was absolutely awful as it has been a rental) and a kitchen table, with a fridge plugged into a corner. Lockdown and their rural location meant no takeaway deliveries and they had no microwave. That and their BBQ, and they managed for 3+ months! Ok they have the kitchen space which is a hilariously large room when there is only an oven in the middle of it (never worked out why they left it literally in the middle!) - but you’ll manage even if it’s a camping stove and microwave in the sitting room, bucket for washing up. Sounds like a holiday in our camper van tbh (we are also doing our kitchen later this year - I plan to BBQ/pizza oven everything - yum!).
Those kitchens in a trailer are expensive as they are generally for insurance pay out jobs. Our friends neighbour had one and it was ££££ to the insurance firm.
When we did our kitchen there was a lot of microwaving going on!
It was worse when we re-did the bathroom and had to piss in a bucket for a few days and save shitting for work hours!
Lots of slow cooker single pot recipes. Chuck ingredients in in the morning done for dinner. Yes it'll be stews and Curries Etc but there's worse things betwixt heaven and earth.
It was worse when we re-did the bathroom and had to piss in a bucket for a few days and save shitting for work hours!
Our plumber was kind enough to re-plumb the toilet when needed and put it back at night. Although the boy was caught short for a no2 and being a 5yo at the time just went in the garden. The dog ate it...
For two of us back in the day, we had kitchen table, fridge and microwave in the spare bedroom. We learned many microwave recipes, had a few friends deliver or invite us for meals.
How separate are the kitchen and utility. We did one then the other. The utility makes a pretty good kitchen. We put the washing machine in a bedroom (that had a basin, so plumbing was easy). Oven, fridge, dishwasher, and sink in the utility. Built the kitchen, moved the white goods over, finished the utility. Pretty much fully functional the whole time
We were only down a kitchen for 2.5 weeks, we just did dishes in the bath and used a camping stove and microwave to cook. Throw a few takeaways into the mix and it was pretty painless.
Did 9months with a camping stove and a combi microwave.
Have to say ate a little more takeaway than we should
Our kitchen was done in 12 working days - old one ripped out, new boiler, new electrics, boarded over artex ceiling, completely replastered, painted (by me in a weekend before the new units went in, made it a lot easier!), new units, hob, cooker and appliances installed and then new flooring.
Done by a local firm who brought in their own subbies, but majority of the work done by Dave on his own.
And we worked from home throughout.
Freezer in the garage, fridge and microwave in the dining room, washed up in the bath, a load of washing done every other day by 4 friends on a rota (we'd done the same for one of them the month before). We only had 3 takeaways in those 3 weeks.
That's a sporty family of three, so plenty of school and sports kit to be worked through.
If you can manage to wait til summer, it will be a lot less painful. We did ours last summer - can't imagine doing it in the winter. Everything is just harder.
I put together a temporary kitchen in our attached garage. Bought a self-contained sink unit off Facebook marketplace and plumbed it into the washing machine hot and cold feeds. Got a second camping stove. Threw up a bit of work surface and shelving. When I took the old kitchen out, I dragged a couple of the old bits, like the drawers with cutlery and bits and pieces, through to use temporarily. We even had a dishwasher - the new (to us) one I bought for the new kitchen.
I might have got carried away, but it was actually quite fun to begin with, though it started to get frustrating after a couple of months:
We did it for about three months (kitchen reno uncovered back of house had no footings, so no back of house for a large bit of it). Used a camping stove, microwave and gas barbie. Fridge freezer in living room. Lot of service washes at the launderette for clothes washing too.
It was crap and the novelty wore off very, very quickly especially the lack of space. Microwave meals are on the whole crapola, that’s why you buy them in petrol stations. I think it was far worse than not having a proper bathroom for six weeks - the kitchen and nice food is a release from a long day at work, this was just more crap when you got home. If I had to do it again I’d get a flat rental, life’s too short.
The bathroom in our house (well, bathroom now) started off as a bedroom when we first started renovating (until we finished the bedroom), then became a kitchen (until we had built the kitchen), then finally became the bathroom.
We found a small sink/drainer and made a stand for that with a bucket underneath for the outflow. The fridge was bought as a fitted and that sat on the other end of the stand. We did a lot of cooking on the BBQ outside, with a camping stove for boiling stuff. I think it was like that for three months until we were done.
How many people in the household? With kids it could get a bit old, but a decent gas BBQ is not a bad idea and a decent large camping stove is always good.
We ended up eating in the pub over the road. Cost me a fortune and was pretty sick of their menu by the end. Also made use of the microwave (which normally never gets a look in) plus if it’s in the summer, we’d be eating salads and the like, so just a prep surface required.
Like above, we set up in another room with a belling two ring+oven unit and a microwave. We already had a separate fridge/freezer which also went into the room. We had access to water and a sink downstairs and washed up in a plastic bowl. Just two of us though. We had got used to the cooking arrangements as the previous six months we had no proper cooker due to a problem with a hiatus in the build after the kitchen had been half dismantled.
Cooking isn't too hard.
As others have said, bathroom sink and/or bath for water and drain, or leave the sink lashed up in the kitchen if that is possible (you can remove cabinets, etc, and prop it up with a bit of timber as a short term thing, so long as it isn't getting in the way of your trades too much).
Just keep out the bare minimum of utensils, and get a big tuppperwear box for it to go in to avoid getting dusty.
Then big trestle table with toaster, plug-in electric single-ring hob, kettle, and microwave will do you for more than you might think. We've even cooked (dried) pasta in a microwave before 😂
Laundry is a lot harder IMO: you can handwash stuff in the sink or bath of course, but drying is a massive pain without access to a washing machine for spinning.
So I would work with the contractors to keep the washing machine plumbed in as much of the time as possible, even if that means rigging a temporary feed/drain for it while other stuff is happening.
May not help OP**, but when we did kitchen extension we had to demolish the old one, so we decamped the kitchen units into the garage, new temp' plumbing (but now have H&C water in garage:) we started in January and garage has separate outside door (i.e. not internal door to house), so we would open 'up & over' garage door and it's just like camping;) but it worked.
** need a garage or separate space to use, it's worth it in the end, just seal off the builders dust!
We planned ours for the summer, overall we were without it for 8 weeks.
Fridge, microwave and kettle were in the conservatory. Washing up bowl on the garden wall. Most of the cooking was done on the gas barbecue. Water from the outside tap Sunny most days so made the most of it and ate in the garden.
The girls thought it was great and once organised it was easy. Last night we had a blocked drain and on plunging out and cleaning all the dirt and silt from the bottom I found a tea spoon that we lost all those years ago.
We went for about six months with no hob or oven, as the old one got condemned and there was no point replacing it until we had the kitchen done (which was a proper building job of new external doors, removing internal walls etc).
We just used two of these kinda things for cooking on (we already had one, borrowed one from a mate) and bought a job lot of the canisters they run on:
As for washing up, use another sink or a bowl an a kettle-full of hot water.
It's amazing how quickly you'll get used to a more basic setup. Six weeks is nothing.
We used an IKEA stand alone induction hob, it was £35. And as good, if not better, than any built in hob. Proper value.
Plug in induction plate from IKEA. These are bloody good - boil water as quickly as a kettle. Pretty sure I saw someone with a double one recently. Also, Tefal do a mini oven (240V) with a couple of hot plates on top (the plates aren’t great as they’re just on/off, not controllable). As an oven, you won’t be doing a roast in it, but it’s fine for chips, roasting veg, spuds etc.
Make some re-heatable meals NOW and freeze portions. Chilli, lasagne, fish-pie. These will help ease you in for the first week.
As for sink, I’d try disconnecting old one and maybe cutting out the worktop either side. Mount all this on an el cheapo double cupboard carcass and get a plumber to run a hot/cold feed in flexi from wherever’s handy in the house. The novelty of running upstairs every time you need to run a tap, and washing up in the bath wears thin very quickly. We had that for a couple of weeks and it drove us up the wall.
Check Facebook marketplace - there are always people moving these things on. A camping fold-up cupboard in a bag is useful for dry goods/non-perishables.
i think someones mentioned it above, a ninja foodi, one of those twin jobbies. we rarely use the oven now as this seems to do pretty much everything we need. we also use a slow cooker from time to time.
wouldnt take much room at all to rig up a bit of a surface with the foodi, slow cooker and mebbes a microwave too.
Buy / borrow a microwave and an air fryer - the combination of the two is low faff and enables good healthy meals to be prepared even when there's no "kitchen".
Plug in induction plate from IKEA. These are bloody good
Yeah, I actually tried to talk my other half into not bothering with a built in hob... we had two of those IKEA units and used them for months... good enough for full time long term use, in my opinion, and super cheap. I've given them to friends with Agas to use just for wok cooking etc. So good, so cheap.
We would like to understand how people who have been through this manage living without a kitchen for what looks like being about 6 weeks start to finish.
Ours was about 2 months - we set up a temporary kitchen in the spare bedroom. Combi microwave, 2 ring electric hob, fridge. That part was ok but washing up kneeling over the bath got old very quickly. If you're able to rig up a temporary sink I'd do that.
Ours was in the middle of winter - summer would've been much nicer as we could've had barbecues outside.
Ours was in the middle of winter – summer would’ve been much nicer as we could’ve had barbecues outside.
Ours started in winter, supposed to be done by summer. It finished in winter as well. 😂
When I hear “6 weeks”, I think, “consider it may well be twelve…”
Surely time to buy a campervan ...
Done it twice now. Most recent was for about 3 months and we used a combination of a double gas camping stove, microwave, gas BBQ and pizza oven.
No hassles and actually kinda fun - really makes you appreciate the kitchen when it's finished!
We did this recently, 6 weeks or so with a stupid plan to complete 2 days before xmas. Amazingly it was on time(ish). Temporary kitchen but there is just 2 of us in a 3 bed house so we had space in another room. Without that space it would have been difficult.
Some things that I did not expect from camping kitchen world:
Ready meals that you can microwave are actually all rather boring and similar and we got fed up with them quite quick. Same with takeaways. How people live on this stuff idk.
We should have prepared + frozen more home cooked stuff, even if it meant getting an ebay special freezer in the garage
Too much of both of the above and you crave fresh vegetables and salad
Lunches are really annoying if you work at home
If you like cooking then with some thought you can do quite a lot on a single ring gas stove, and BBQ is possible in December, but it is all a lot more effort. Some of the shortcuts you can get in the supermarket help, for example those curry kits or ready made ravioli. Normally I'm too much of a food snob for that stuff, but needs must.
Drop strong hints to get yourself invited around to friends and family for lunch / dinner on the weekend.
What are you doing about washing machine?
We are on day 4 of a 5 week new kitchen install. It looks like this currently:
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We have a fridge and two camping stoves set up in the conservatory and a microwave, kettle, and food prep area on the dining room table. Washing machine and dryer have moved down to the cellar as part of the job. Me my wife, plus eldest daughter and her boyfriend living here.
Tbh I was fed up after the first evening, but though it’ll be a long 5 weeks, when we look back in future (hopefully with an amazing kitchen) it will only be a small window in our lives, so trying to remain positive.
we took the existing old kitchen out during the extension build, put some of it in the hallway some in the garage and put a tarp up between the build and the house with some sheeting. Plumpbed up with some shonky plumbing and a bucket under the waste. Worked fine for about 4 weeks. The old kitchen was then put up properly in the utility room which was first to be finished, then new kitchen was installed.
Another vote for waiting for the summer here. When we had ours done the bottleneck was waiting for the plaster to dry, which took about 4-5 weeks.
Don't try to do this in winter in Fife...
What are you doing about washing machine?
We had ours moved into the hallway and plumbed into the downstairs loo. We brightened it up by putting a Christmas tree on top of it.
We've just come out of an extension/new kitchen project. We had a temporary kitchen set up in the hall with a couple of camping stoves, microwave and a halogen oven/air fryer. We managed to avoid too many ready meals, but really glad it's all over now.
plus 1 for the plug in induction hob. You’ll need compatible pans though.
You can use an air fryer for things like chips and fish fingers too and JPs as well if you like them with crispier skins than nuked ones.cheese on toast possible too but I seem to remember it needs big chunks of cheese to stop them being blown around!
We plumbed the dw and washing machine into another place. Then used a big plastic box to ferry a load of dirty crockery at the end of each day.
Worst bit was having to wash stuff in the downstairs toilet… sink. Luckily not much washing up needed though as still able to use dw.
Our kitchen ended up taking weeks!
Foreman grill.
Microwave.
Kettle.
