We haven’t gone out to eat since the pandemic started. That’s probably not on the table.
(we have once or twice, in very special circumstances. But I can’t see doing it just because the kitchen is unavailable. Not unless the sewage data says covid incidence drops a lot between now and then.)
We had no kitchen for about two years during the pandemic. We did what we could in our master bedroom. (toaster oven and microwave). We did take-out some. But we ate out a lot. in 2020-21. Now we have the kitchen of our dreams, and cook a bit more. But we still go to a lot of restaurants. At least three times per week.
Nah, I am not that crazy! It’s too cold to grill outside or cook with countertop appliances in the basement. And we are not doing indoor dining, though we will do some amount of takeout for sure.
We grill pretty much year round. And we are in the Colorado mountains. But admittedly it depends on your set up.
Our setup involves going down a flight of stairs and through 2 doors to the backyard patio, so it’s kind of a PITA.
In unrelated news, I posted the items that were still in good working order (ceiling fan with lights, sink, faucet, disposal, cabinet hardware) to our local Buy Nothing group, and within a few hours, all but the ceiling fan had been claimed - including the cabinets! The claimer for the cabinets says they are in better shape than some others she had been offered. I disclosed the drawer we repaired with metal brackets and the water damage under the sink, so we’ll see if she is still interested. It would be awesome not to have to landfill everything (especially the faucet, which is nice and the only item that we replaced when we moved in. The water damage under the sink was from a dead faucet. Discovered the morning after we moved in, which was totally awesome).
Our setup isn’t that difficult, but it can involve slogging through snow, and certainly invovles standing outside in the cold at this time of year.
Late to the party here, but I thought I’d chime in as I had my kitchen remodeled exactly 2 years ago.
But erm, I guess I don’t have much to add. My house is “only” 50 years old. I think current code requires a plug every 4 feet, so now I have a lot of plugs. I did have them make my one little window into a bigger window cuz light is good. I also went from 3 little dome lights in the whole space to 18 smaller but brighter LED lights. It’s a light fest in there!
As for doing kitchen stuff without a kitchen…my guys kept my fridge plugged in the whole time so that wasn’t an issue. My microwave went on a table in the living room. The key for me was that my mom was watching my dogs every day so I’d go to her house every night to pick them up and also have dinner. Otherwise I ate cereal and stuff every day which is normal anyway!
My biggest piece of advice, which has already been covered, is dust. Keep every door closed that you can close. Put towels under the doors. Cover your TV(s) with blankets or drop cloths if you plan to use them at night. Otherwise put them all in the farthest corners of your basement. Get some cans of air to help with cleanup later. If you have forced air HVAC, plan on having your ducts cleaned after and also your upholstery. If I hadn’t gotten new carpet, I would have had my carpet cleaned. Consider rolling up and storing your rugs.
Before they put all the appliances back, clean the fuck out of them, especially the backs. If you don’t have a Shop-Vac, get one. You don’t really want to clean up dust with your regular vacuum.
When you go to put all your stuff back into your kitchen, go slow. You don’t have to keep everything just because it fits! Or because it’s always been there! You can downsize and upgrade, it’s ok.
Also, deep storage drawers are indeed cool. All my sheet pans are in one, and all my ziploc bags & foil & wax paper in another. I still smile every time I open them.
ETA: Your backsplash is awesome! My mom and I watch a lot of HGTV and we’re always coveting beautiful backsplashes.
Yeah. That’s a pain. We have two doors to our deck where our grill is. You can use either. From sink to outside grill is maybe 20 steps. All on the same ‘floor’. No stairs involved.
Yeah, the snow complicates things. I just set a timer for when it’s time to check on it.
Dammit. Now I want to grill tonight.
My big kitchen and dining room remodel is scheduled to start on April 4th. I’ll be following this with interest. I’m using the same GC and design companies that did an excellent and timely job on my guest bathroom and laundry room last year. The kitchen except for the floor tile is original to 60 year old house.
I’m keeping my nice fridge, replacing my crappy cooktop and ancient oven with a fancy GE Cafe range and replacing my perfectly fine dishwasher with a Miele. I have a big dining room so they will be expanding the kitchen by a couple feet into it. The custom cabinets are the biggest expense and are the gating item. The appliances and flow hood are already in my garage. It’s going to be a more modern, open design. The designer did a great job making a functional and beautiful design for me.
The GC said that they will set up the fridge and countertop appliances in the living room somehow. I already use my outdoor grill a lot all year in Southern California so that will continue. I plan on paper plates and plastic cutlery.
Not looking forward to the noise and inconvenience but it will be great when it’s done. It will be my final house upgrade ever after 30 years of ownership.
Fortunately (?) I just got over COVID a month ago, so hopefully I will have some level of immunity for a while yet, particularly with outsiders working in our house. Tom_Scud, however, has not been infected AFAWK, and we would like to keep it that way.
We’re getting some money from the sale of my parents’ property, as well as a retroactive pay raise covering 3 years. There may be some remodeling in our future. I’d love to have the original (1944) windows replaced with nice easy cleaning windows, and Ms. P may want the kitchen worked on. She’d love to have it twice as big, but that would be a huge job, knocking down the wall between the kitchen and dining room. Realistically we’d probably be looking at just replacing the counter top and cabinets, as well as getting rid of the ghastly old wallpaper. Whether we sell the house and move after I retire in a few years or stay it would probably be money well spent.
Wow, this crew is fast. Less than a full workday and our kitchen isn’t even recognizable as a kitchen. The cabinets, countertop, sink, faucet, and disposal are all gone (stowed in the garage to be picked up by someone from my neighborhood Buy Nothing group); the stove and dishwasher are safely stowed in the basement; the DIY tile backsplash that was my early pandemic project is no more; and the plaster under the window over where the sink used to be has been hacked off in preparation for installing a new, much better insulated window. The cats are very confused. They will likely be even more confused tomorrow when the ceiling gets sliced open to add some lighting.
Dinner is Costco rotisserie chicken with pasta made in the Instant Pot, with parm and homemade garlic scape pesto from our freezer (from garlic that we grew), plus some mixed frozen veggies. Not too shabby! I think we’ll do OK.
Demo is always fast! The worst is when you can’t go forward without a particular item that’s slow in being shipped.
The worst is when the demo shows something nasty and unexpected.
and expensive.
The main thing I am worried about is the tile, which isn’t local (it’s being shipped from Turkey, hopefully as we speak). But tiling is going to be the last piece, and if worse came to worst, we could at least have a functional kitchen while waiting for the tile to show up.
It’s for the backsplash, right? Then I agree, you can just live with a drywall backsplash until the tile arrives (though perhaps paint the drywall).
So far the demo is done, and I haven’t heard any exclamations of distress, so I hope we are OK. We did, however, learn why the window behind the sink actually went about 1’ below the countertop; the sink didn’t used to be there, because they found a capped-off water pipe along another wall, where the sink used to be. Which makes sense, because it’s on the other side of the wall from the bathroom. But we are putting in a new, double-pane window at normal window height over where the sink is now.
Yep, although I hope we will be fine on timing. The tile maker ships via express courier, so it shouldn’t take more than a few days if all goes well. And the cabinets aren’t going to be here until next Thursday, and the countertop measuring can’t be done until the cabinets are all installed, so I don’t think we will be in a position to tile anything for probably 3 weeks. (But we have plaster, not drywall - though that doesn’t affect painting.)
Tile has shipped! Woohoo! I will have the tracking number on Monday and can obsessively follow its journey from Middle of Nowhere, Turkey to my house. Ah, Turkey, someday I want to go back there when things are more stable…the seller made me promise to send her photos when everything is done.
Today the contractor’s son is here to prime the walls, and the electrician will be here in the afternoon to install new outlets, boxes, and switches for lighting, etc.