Ok, so you’ve decided to remodel your kitchen. You’ve finalized the perfect new layout + design, made all of your finish selections, and you’re ready to go! Now, what?
Make sure you have a “Temp Kitchen” set up to utilize while your main kitchen is out of commission!
What do you need?
Space
Designate your temp kitchen area. For some, this will be in your main living space, or a dining room. We happened to have a bar area in our basement with counter space, a mini fridge, and a small sink, so we set up downstairs.
Cooking Equipment
Make room in your set-up for some basic cooking equipment. Whatever you have room for and are comfortable utilizing the most! For us, We had plenty of space, so I set up our microwave, toaster, electric griddle, and purchased a hot plate for pan cooking. I also prepped a couple of freezer crockpot meals ahead of time, which worked so well! Don’t forget your coffee maker if you’re a coffee drinker like me!
Fridge/Freezer
If you are moving your temp kitchen into a living room or dining room, relocating your main fridge here is usually ideal. Our bar area already had a mini fridge, which was perfect for the essentials, and we utilized another full sized fridge in our storage area for overflow.
Sink Access
Think about where/how you will be doing any dishes. For some, this looks like using a sink nearby - laundry room or bathroom sinks, maybe even a bathtub! You could also fill a small basin with some warm soapy water and dump it in the tub or sink when finished. Our bar area already had a small sink that worked for washing small bowls and utensils.
Pantry
You’ll need a space, either in your temp kitchen or nearby, to store your pantry food items. We stocked the bar cabinets with our most-used items, and kept extra food and dinner ingredients in our adjacent storage area.
Dishes, Plates, Cutlery
Definitely essential! Everyone will choose to do this a little differently. I typically don’t like to use a lot of disposable dishware, but I decided to get paper plates, disposable cutlery and cups for our remodel. It saved my sanity versus doing a ton of dishes in a small sink every time we had a meal.
Pro-Tip: Meal Prep
One of my biggest tips is to prep some meals ahead of your remodel that you can pull out and serve or cook easily. I doubled some of our dinners leading up to the remodel, which we froze and then simply had to heat them up for an awesome dinner. I also prepped some freezer crockpot meals - I also used disposable crockpot liners during this time so I wasn’t trying to wash out a huge crockpot in our tiny sink. This was so wonderful to have ready! We enjoyed some really delicious meals out of our temp kitchen that didn’t require chopping, cooking with multiple pots + pans, or much for clean up!