Been there, done that.

I'd have a microwave there, too. If you don't have one, maybe a friend has an old one you could borrow.

Plus, lots and lots of disposable dishes and utensils. Lived like this for FIVE months when we were newly married and remodeling. Had lots and lots of bowls of cereal for breakfast (and often for dinner, too!!)

Good luck!

We just have a microwave and toaster. I planned on crockpot meals too, but found that cleaning it out was the problem. I hate washing things in the bathroom or outside. We have been doing a lot of grilled meats, and fresh veggies that steam in the bag.

I would not purchase a burner until you see how you're getting by after several days. It really isn't as bad as I thought.

Do you have a grill?

Get crockpot liners for easy clean up.

I bought an induction hotplate, but I knew my pots were compatible.

We made it a week at home with a fridge, microwave and take-out. Then we moved in with my mom. I work from home so that had a lot to do with it.

I am weak.

Mine wasn't a gut job, so my fridge remained in place. I had a MW in my office. It was so weird "preparing" meals in there. Cleanup was in my guest bath, with coffeemaker and toaster. I allowed myself one bowl, plate, coffee cup, silverware. I basically made do with microwavable meals when I was home. It only lasted about 6 weeks for me.

Set up temporary kitchen in basement. Microwave-convection oven, coffee maker, refrigerator from old kitchen Paper plates, plastic cups, plastic utensils. Lots of take-out dinners. Cleanup was in utility sink (in laundry room).

We converted our game/school room into what we called our "Bistro". We had a toaster oven, microwave, mini fridge, and panini grill. We set up a kitchen table and tried making it as functional as possible. Fortunately we had a lot of desk/counter space and cabinets for food prep and storage.
The cooking wasn't hard but the cleanup was. We used as much disposable items as possible. If I did it again I would buy a portable utility sink.

Fridge in the dining room.

We put the leafs in our dining table, half was prep space and the other half was where we ate. We also had a small table and a shelf unit. On the small table we had toaster oven, microwave, rice cooker and coffee pot.

On the shelf unit was our food, paper goods.

We used our gas grill a lot (but we lived in Hawaii so didn't have a weather issue). I also cooked spaghetti sauce and enchiladas in bulk and froze them in meal size portions, so we had four dinners of each saved up.

It really worked fine.

I had a pretty sweet setup because my laundry room is pretty large and has a sink. I had an electric skillet, crock pot, rice cooker, toaster oven and a microwave and cooked most nights. But having a sink is key or the cleanup would be miserable.

I searched several sites for crock pot recipes and used lots of those. I also did a lot of cooking beforehand and filled my freezer with meals that could be popped in the microwave. I think you'll get by just fine without purchasing a burner, but I think you need a microwave. There are several small units you get can in the $60 range. My MIL was in need of a new microwave so I purchased a nicer one and gave it to her when our remodel was complete.

Good luck on the 7th! How exciting! Be sure to take lots and lots of pictures! And take lots of before pictures. I wish I had taken more.

thank you all for your posts. i've got many ideas ... microwave is a must! crockpot liners a must! i'll post pictures when i'm done!

How exciting for you!! I hope it goes smoothly. Our reno did, but still I was sick of the no kitchen routine after 3 months. We moved the old refrige and freezer into one end of the play room and set up an induction burner and a toaster oven on an old table. We had a panini press nearby. The old sink with countertop went out on the porch railing. We ate out only 3 or 4 times, so I'd say it worked pretty well!

Good luck, and please post lots of pics!

I did not eat hot food unless I was in a restaurant for several years. Literally.

In the next renovation the old kitchen is being set up in it's entirety in the basement. Dishwasher included, I hope.

We had the fridge in the dining room, as well as the microwave. We used paper plates/plastic utensils as well as plastic cups. Our kitchen supplies were packed up in the living room in case we needed to access them. The kids ate school lunches every day for two months so we didn't have to worry about that at all. We went out to eat 3x a week so that we only had to worry about the other four nights. Breakfast consisted of cereal or pop tarts.

We used the microwave and our outdoor grill for everything that required cooking.

Fridge in the dining room.
One set of dishes for DH and myself which we washed after each meal plus some paper/plastic when we were lazy.
Delonghi convection oven and an induction burner were the key cooking items. We did have microwave access some of the time using our old OTC MW balanced on 2x4s. It was too big to live in the DR.
The delonghi is similar to the breville oven.

I froze a lot of meals and did use the crock pot once - I think.

We have this fabulous little market about 1-2 miles from us that has pre made healthy meals at a reasonable price that we used also - and pizza when I had no energy to cook.

Went through 1 reno using the laundry room as kitchen. Hooked up stove in the dryer's spot and hung laundry to dry on clothing racks. Used utility sink for dishes. Top of washer and dryer were my counters. Worked well, for the most part.

When we refinished our kitchen floor in this house, we set up our kitchen in the living room. Cheap metal utility shelves became my pantry and dish storage. Our portable island was my countertop. Used plastic dish pans set on the table for washing. One with suds for cleaning, a second one with plain water for rinsing. A dish rack can go on an absorbent mat (I used a towel, b/c that was before those awesome absorbent mats.) Worked quite well, and I didn't have to bend over a tub and kill my back to do clean-up. A big pitcher or pot can be filled at the nearest bathroom and brought to the "kitchen" to fill the dishpans.
If you don't have counterspace in there, a folding table can be raised up on bed risers for ideal counter height. (I've mocked up many an island this way...) You also can ask your contractor to save a piece of your old countertop and set that up in your temp kitchen.

Have fun! : )

We set up our temporary kitchen in the living room. Moved most of our old base cabinets there along with some old countertops. Made due with a large toaster oven, microwave, griddle, gas grill and refrigerator. During the remodel I sold the old stove, OTR microwave, pantry door and shelving on Craigslist. We gave away the old cabinets as we finished with them.

This weekend would be a great time to make batches of chili to freeze for later.

We made our temp kitchen on the back patio under a tent, but it was Aug-Oct in S. CA which is so different than Jan. somewhere it gets below 40 degrees.

Do you camp? If so, you may want to get out your Coleman stove or purchase one if you don't own one. If you're not a camper, see if you can do without. An electric skillet is very handy for many stove top jobs.

We had the fridge, rice cooker, microwave, toaster oven and electric kettle in the living room. Plus my husband hooked up the Coleman stove to a propane tank in the backyard. We also used the gas grill in the backyard a lot.

The rice cooker was actually very nice to have because it had a steam setting and a steamer gadget you could put in side...we could steam fresh veggies. Didn't require any real cleaning...just a rinse. The steamer could also be used to steam tortillas for burritos.

We set up the dining room as a temp kitchen and bought a one hob induction cooker. That along with the microwave, a decent prep space, and phone numbers to all the local pizza places got us through. Dishes were done in the basement and on occasion dh would haul them to his office 2 min away and run loads thru their DW (very small company) when he was working on Saturdays.

Some pics:

We added a borrowed microwave cart in the corner and moved the salvaged kitchen cabinet and buffet down a bit. The black countertop was leftover from our last remodel.

The blue lidded bin held spices, the cooking tools were in the white organizer sitting on top.

In the end we turned the table 90* and put it,under the window to allow for more space at the prep/cooking area.

We bought a cheap pantry cabinet from Target for food storage, that will go to the basement and be repurposed in my sewing area. We also bought a cheap set of wood shelves at ikea (Gorm maybe?) for more storage and that will go to the basement laundry room once I've moved everything back into the kitchen.

I think clean up is the hardest thing to solve. I dread that period of time when I won't have a kitchen sink. That is the one thing I try to have missing for as short a time as possible.

We were kitchen-less for a few months during our remodel. We kept the fridge in the kitchen and just covered it with plastic when the cabinet guy or granite guys showed up. We bought paper plates, plastic cups and plastic silverware from Costco. Costco has really, really good prices on disposable eating/drinking/utensils. We have little family get togethers every so often, so we are able to use what's left, too. We also kept our microwave on the dining room table and bought an outdoor gas grill.

There's a store around us called Fresh and Easy and they have prepared meals and prepared side dishes that you buy and then heat up in the microwave. Some are relatively healthy, most taste ok and we would combine side dishes or main dishes with what we grilled, etc. We also ate out a lot.

Truthfully, it sucked, but it's doable and worth it when you reach the finish line. Good luck!!

One of the BEST things we did was to replace one of the bathroom faucets, with a tall cheap faucet. Washing dishes became doable and much more comfortable than using the bathtub. Good luck!

oldbat2be -- that is a genius idea!! If the powder room can be made functional for doing dishes, suddenly everything seems more manageable. Thanks for the tip.

Thanks to everyone else too. I'm following this thread with interest, as I'm about 2 weeks behind persimmon3...

START COOKING NOW AND FREEZE YOUR FAVORITE MEALS! I made chili, chicken cutlets, lasagna. I too found cleaning up crock pot too hard and didn't want to rinse the canned goods out in my powder room.

No on the gas burner. Yes on the electric skillet - let's start a thread on recipes to cook when you're under reno with makeshift kitchen! Yes on the toaster oven - I used toaster oven MUCH more than microwave. Check your power. We could not run the coffee maker, microwave and skillet at the same time - total drag.

Hard boil eggs now while you can. Wash a couple heads of lettuce while you have a big sink.

Borrow neighbor's kitchen for: washing lettuce, prepping crock pot dish (then bring home to cook), boiling eggs.
Electric skillet is great for potatoes, omelets & eggs, fish (best fish I ever cooked was in the skillet, covered). Live on raw veggies. Frozen microwaveable rice and mashed potatoes are pretty decent if you have family members (like teenagers) who need their carbs.

Just develop a schedule for each day of the week:
*grilled meat and grilled veggies
*favorite take out
*pre-cooked frozen meals
*pick up rotisserie chicken, raw veggies or bagged lettuce, and microwave rice
*frozen pizza (whole foods has some nice ones)
*dinner at a friends
*restaurant
That's 7 days. When you look at it like that, it's not too bad.

I too found the cleaning up in the powder room the most difficult aspect. I started with a lot of plastic plates, then gave in and used paper and plastic utensils for the duration. Don't pack your tea towels! You'll use every one and then some for cleaning up dishes!

I was 6 months without a kitchen and 2 of my baths. We had a bath and a half from April to October. Just allow yourself to go out to dinner/order take out or buy prepared foods. It's overwhelming to try to cook for that long a period of time. Good luck!

My parents had a convection microwave. It came in very handy for actually making meals.

>Do you camp? If so, you may want to get out your Coleman stove or purchase one if you don't own one.

Isn't this a good way to kill yourself with carbon monoxide? I ask because we do have a Coleman, and it would be nice to use it, but I've always understood it to be a no-indoor-use piece of equipment.

persimmon3 - best of luck with your renovation. As mentioned, with some planning "camping in your own home" can be fun since it will be temporary.

We are in an apartment and during our renovation our new kitchen - and all of the appliances and cabinets - were stored in our main room so we had our make-shift reno-kitchen in our bedroom (yuck, I know, but welcome to apartment living) and did with a microwave, our trusted percolator, and tiny fridge which I brought home from my classroom. We brought my daughter's toddler table in and that is where we had our family dinners as we had to break down our dining room table. I did all prep on top of the microwave. The benches from our dining room table are what the make-shift kitchen is propped on.

After the first week, I broke down and bought all compostable plate/utensils from Whole Foods and used those as the washing trips to the bathtub just didn't sit right (I felt guilty for a while, then not so much). I also had a ton of disposable cleaning wipes handy since food in a bedroom also wasn't sitting right.

We shopped often and made a point to check out a new restaurant each week which we built in to our kitchen planning budget so it didn't blow the bank (highly recommended). We also scheduled lots of playdates during eating times for our daughter and happily re-payed the favors after our kitchen was done!

We have a full sized (old) fridge in the basement. Along with an old gas range, which will be donated and the newer gas range will move down to the basement where the old one was. We will move the old microwave down there and I have areas to plug in a crockpot. There's even the original cabinets that the original owner moved down there, so there's some storage. Even though the basement is unfinished, we have fairly close to a full kitchen setup. However, without a dishwasher, we will be eating off of paper plates and disposable cups...for the things I need to hand wash, we have the laundry basin.

Still, I imagine that we will head to restaurants and order take-out more than once during the renovation. Ours is pretty extensive - removing a wall, redoing floors, total gut of kitchen. So, yeah, I think that cooking in a makeshift area will probably start to get old regardless as to how equipped it might be.

We camped for 10 wks in our basement. The kiddoes washed the dishes every night in the tiny sink in our Fab 50s wet bar. At least we had a full-sized fridge on its own circuit. A microwave, kettle, toaster oven, and single burner induction hob shared the other plug (one at a time). We didn't use any disposable dishes, and seldom ate out, except for the evening after our pea-brained electrician knocked out 80% of our household power before toodling off to another jobsite (luckily, the fridge was in the 20% working part...).

Hi persimmon3,

We set up our temporary kitchen in the dining room (next to the kitchen.) Although the contractor was very meticulous with cleaning up (almost anal) there was a fine dust on just about everything.

I agree with the other posters - start cooking large batches of food now. We ran into "issues" and our kitchen took much longer than anticipated. Towards the end we ran out of ideas for eating. Over plan and you should be good.

Our coleman stove was set up in the backyard on a table. Mayo510 is right...it should not be used indoors.

We used our Coleman camp stove indoors, it's propane, not the liquid white gas type. Not sure how that would be any more dangerous than the propane stove at our vacation home, or the one in our RV? I'm not advocating it, but rather asking the question, as we will be re doing our kitchen soon.

I used the toaster oven and the microwave. I did make hard boiled eggs once in the crock pot. I had planned on cooking in the crockpot, but never got the liners for it. My bathroom sink was not good at washing out dishes.
I was without a kitchen from October, just got my stove hooked up Saturday (January).

I used my dining room as well. Also pulled the old fridge in. I used my dining room table as our kitchen countertop. I had the MW (on top of it is where I stored all the plates and cutlery -- sort of a two tier countertop). I also had the toaster oven here. Seperate little side table for the whole coffee pot set up. I kept a large plastic bin for dirty dishes and took them upstairs to the larger sink to wash when the bucket filled up.

I did not want to purchase anything for during the renovation... really wanted to make due with what we had so did not purchase a cooktop. I found that I could put my all clad pot filled with water on the gas grill and boil water for pasta, etc. I steamed veggies by taking a piece of parchment paper first and then enclosed in tin foil with veggies inside with a bit of water and put it on the grill at the same time as the chicken, steak, etc. This did a beautiful job with the veggies.

Our meals were not the most extravagant or creative but it was sort of like camping and kind of fun. I did make pizza on the pizza stone one night out on the grill and it tasted great. Wished I had thought of that earlier (I didn't make my own dough, bought the dough from the store).

I'd vote for microwave and oven roaster bags for the crockpot. Virtually no clean up!

if you want to bake you could always get a nuwave style oven.

Susan
Please vote for my family in the rolling stone magazine contest to win a 2013 Hyundai santa fe, a trip for 8 to the Grammy Awards (I want to take my 85 year old mother who owns a blues bar!) and a photo shoot with Rolling Stone.
you can vote once daily through 1/17/13. We are one of 12 finalists!

Here is a link that might be useful: Vote here! My family rocks contest

We are still in the temporary setup as our whole house remodel is running into the second year.

Max Burton Induction single burner from Amazon.. just awesome. I was a gas head before and after using this little baby changed my plans to induction for the main house.

Mini crockpot (Oval 1.5qt from proctor silex.) Really like this for soups and chilis

Sharp Micro convection. This is a workhorse. We can make pizza, lasagna, stuff for kids etc.

My small 3 cup Zojirushi rice cooker.

We did have a sink and after about 6 months into the remodel, we caved in and hooked it up to a portable dishwasher. These pop up on craigslist often. Frankly cooking turned out to be not such a big issue. Cleanup was more painful.

Some tips:

Restrict menu to fewer categories to minimize pantry needs.
Fruits and salads are great.
We have had home means with canned tomato soup+ herb loaf from the local bakery.
Regular plates and glasses, silverware and cups work better but restrict it to just one per family member.
Get one good pan, a small saucepan, and a good pizza pan.

I haven't really thought about it yet! My Kitchen guy says mid January for our remodel, so I have a week or two to figure it out! We'll be out of commission for 2 weeks according to him. Breakfast will be simple for the kids, cold cereal or waffles. Lunch at school/work, although I will have to figure out what I can bring as I don't like to buy lunch every day. My parents live 13 min away, so we can eat dinner over there some nights. I'ts on my way home so maybe I'll prepare there and take it home with me (or maybe my mom will have it ready when I stop by!!). Phylhl's list looks good, will copy! I guess I should make and freeze. I'm so not motivated for this part. We'll be living and eating in the living room while it's done. My DH is an outdoorsy guy so he likes these kind of challenges...lucky I have him :-)

Wow, there are some excellent ideas here =). I had never heard of a rice steamer & had to look it up...sheltered life...

Our kitchen still isn't finished since June 2012.

Appliances:
Keurig Brewer
Convection Oven
Microwave Oven
Electric Skillet w/ Lid
Electric Griddle
"Dorm-sized" Refrigerator
Hostess Trolly w/ two & half tiers

Utensils:
Nested Dutch Ovens (3 sizes) w/ Lids
Ladle, Spatula/Pancake Turner, Slotted Spoon
Chopping Board (2--meats & vegis/fruits)
Utility Knife & Paring Knife

Good China Dishes
Good Stemware & Tumblers
Good Silverware
Fancy Paper Dinner Napkins
"Breakfast in Bed" Trays

Set Up:
Appliances in LR on an old desk & 2 end tables
Prep at DR table (our LR/DR is one large open space)
Food served Buffet Style on coffee table & piano bench

Clean Up:
3 medium-sized Rubberised Bins
(Pots in one, dishes in one, utensils in one)
1 large-sized Rubberised Bin
Dish washing Liquid
Disposable Dish Cloths & Tefflon-safe Scrubbies
ADA Large Shower Bench in tub to set "Wash Bins" on
Small padded bench to sit self on while washing & drying dishes

I was able to fix Thanksgiving & Christmas dinners and New Years dinner & munchies with this set up. And, three meals daily most days. It just takes "getting into the groove" and being adaptable. Oh! Keeping a wicked sense of humour, too...finding hilarity in the most hair-raising of circumstances.

I was curious about using the coleman stove indoors so I googled it and found this ehow article...for anyone considering using one indoors.

Here is a link that might be useful: How to use a coleman stove indoors

Count me in the "temporary kitchen is so easy to live with, we're going on 18 months of the DIY reno" crowd. Make your temporary situation inconvenient enough to motivate finishing the actual kitchen. We bought our 1911 Craftsman in part because it had been divided into a duplex -- one of the four upstairs bedrooms was turned into a kitchenette in the 1970s. It has an OLD refrigerator (no freezer, just an icebox that ices up so is unusable), a 21-inch-wide sink, but no range. (There used to be an apartment-sized electric range, but we had to decommission that outlet to take our water bills down to single-family dwelling). Not much counter or storage space, so we built some and have a large Metro shelving unit for a pantry. We've now done two Thanksgivings and two Christmases with a two-burner electric hot plate (started out with induction, but it sucked) and the wonderful Breville Smartoven toaster oven, our favorite appliance ever. We use the crockpot weekly, if not more. Including not having enough outlets in the right places and inconvenient layout, this kitchen is pretty much like our first few young-and-poor apartments. The least convenient thing is having to hike downstairs and out back to take out the compost; I'm thinking we need some kind of compost catapult from the second floor kitchen to the chicken coop.

The old fridge in the upstairs kitchen is for everyday things like leftovers, condiments, juice, half-and-half, etc. We also have a full-sized new fridge/freezer in the first-floor diningroom (affectionately known as the "beer, cheese and veggies" fridge), and an upright freezer in the basement (mostly home-grown frozen veg, backup pizzas, frozen soups for work meals, etc.).

I highly recommend the Breville toaster oven. It fits a 13x9 casserole dish and bakes/roasts so evenly that we hardly miss the big oven. I wouldn't do a one-burner gas cooktop unless you have good ventilation and a very safe set-up. Using propane or other gas sources indoors is a big carbon monoxide risk, as Mayo notes. People die every year when the power goes out and they bring their camp stoves or bbq indoors. Good luck, and have fun!

Our last phase of reno starts on the 9th and we expect to be out of a kitchen for 2-3 weeks. With 2 toddlers, I'm kind of terrified but hopeful we can stay on schedule. I'm banking on microwave dinners, takeout and diner dinners. Good luck!!! I'm SO nervous...