Setting Up a Makeshift Kitchen

Let's face it - remodeling a kitchen is never easy! One of the most challenging things about remodeling is figuring out how to have daily life continue through the process. When we were without a kitchen for 8 weeks, eating out was not an option. We did not have the budget for it financially or the time each evening to go out to a restaurant and still make it to all of the kids required activities and events. Setting up a makeshift kitchen and planning ahead for meal preparation was our only option.I took some pictures of our setup in case seeing them would be helpful to anyone else out there needing to do the same thing.

We took over half of the family room in the basement. We borrowed a folding table from my sister to be our counter. The dresser gave us space for little odds and ends that were essential. It also provided a spot for the microwave. Under the table became our cupboard space for lunch boxes, leftover containers, mixing bowls, waffle irons, etc.

We set up our own folding table to be our eating/homework/project space. I'm so glad we created space for this second table. It made life flow so much easier to not have to completely clear off my cooking space every time it was eating time. It also gave us the space to have family dinners like we were accustomed to. We could not get our regular kitchen table down the stairs or we could have just used it. The bend in our stairs required that we use folding tables.

The bathroom served as our water source. It was a bit inconvenient to be cooking around the corner in the family room, but the table gave me more space. We did end up plugging some items in on the bathroom counter though so we did not pop the family room circuit. It became a little comical as we learned that we could not run the microwave with the lights or TV on. We could not use the electric frying pan on the bathroom counter with the lights on either. It became a bit tricky. We also did many dishes in this little sink.

I cleared off the bathroom shelves to give us a little more storage space for important items.

We used two large plastic dish pans to help us transport dishes. We filled them up with dirty dishes after each meal and then carried them up to the laundry room where we had a larger sink for doing dishes. We then allowed the dishes to dry on top of the washing machine before using the black bins to cart the clean dishes back downstairs. We ate on paper plates, but used glass bowls and each had our own colored cup so we could have multiple drinks of water throughout the day without washing the cups every time.

Here is a close-up of some of what we had under the table. 

Inside the dresser drawers - 

I'm grateful we took the time to set up a well thought out space. It really did make the ordeal go by more smoothly. The other thing we did was get an old piece of carpet from a friend who lays carpet for a living. We stretched the piece of carpet over our own carpeting to save it from stains as we lived downstairs. I hope these thoughts help someone out there who is preparing for a similar experience.