Kitchen is gone, so???

I realize that I have been remiss talking about the one thing that made me search blogs for months before the renovation: How do we cook when the kitchen is gone! This was a MAJOR pre-reno angst for Dan, who loves to cook and dislikes change. Here’s how we have managed after I reviewed this post from Marty Walden’s advice on setting up a temprary kitchen. Unlike Marty, we didn’t have phased access, or even anything nearby the original kitchen. We started with coffee, moving our rigged station from the kitchen to the basement, where there is a grounded power outlet. I bought this cheapish thing with the reno in mind:

In anticipation of the reno and Dan’s (kill me) love of kitchen stuff, he bought an air fryer. It has the advantage of “baking things” to a certain extent. When he edits this post, he can laud it at will. (I note that he did not.)

For our main cooking area, we put up a long card table with cooking essentials, including an electric fry pan that is much more multifunctional than those when I knew when I grew up. We can’t bake scones, but we are eating well. Here’s the set-up:

To store stuff, we have the advantage of our former coal room. It had been cleaned and sealed (despite the gross looking chute, it is clean). We plan to use it as a ceramics studio, but had also used it to store tools. At least temporarily, it is a place to store kitchen stuff that isn’t hourly in use, including spices:

And, of course, we need to clean dishes. We are fortunate to have a utility sink so we do not have to use the bathroom. Dan installed a spray valve on the utility faucet to enhance rinsing and a dish drain over the other side:

Yes, it’s less than ideal, but by keeping on top of the messes, we can keep things clean as well as doing laundry.

The way I look at it? Muddle through while keeping clean and healthy until we have three bathrooms, a great kitchen, a pottery studio, and the habits to clean things religiously so that our new kitchen is gorgeous as long as possible.