Planning and worrying as we say goodbye to the “crap kitchen”

As demolition of the kitchen and first-floor bathroom gets closer, Dan and I are demonstrating two ways to deal with the reality of living for at least six months with one bathroom and essentially no kitchen. One of us is a planner and is busy researching how to build a temporary kitchen space and renovate an old bathroom in the basement. The other focused on the worries. Fortunately, we’re not in the same mental space! The worrier will make sure we don’t make big mistakes and the planner will keep things going. I did wonder what the original kitchen might have looked like particularly because the 1930s were a time of big change in kitchens, based on this article from the Journal of The American Institutes of Architects. However, as I researched ads in the South Bend Tribune from the time, chances are good that the Welch’s original kitchen was likely not on the leading edge of architecture. Here are a few ads from the early to mid 1930s:

Following is more or less what it looks like now:

We have a similar movable island, which will move to our basement for the temporary “kitchen”. We do not have a microwave, (this photo is from the previous owners) but we are going to get an electric skillet to do much of our cooking. We also already have a refrigerator in the basement. I hope we can replace that one with the one currently in the kitchen, but it might not get through a narrow door into a location that has appropriate power.

We have a small pantry between the living room and the kitchen in the dead-space hallway. That is going away and packing up all the stuff that’s in there and the rest ofthe cabinets will be a nightmare on the way to a dream of having a kitchen with storage where we can actually find stuff!

Given where this kitchen likely started in 1936, I think we can survive something not terribly far behind it for six months. We won’t have an oven or a sink aside from the utility sink, but I think we can manage!