Advice? Make sure to book mark those margarita recipes that Breezy just posted. And make sure your corkscrew is not packed away.

Other than that...enjoy the whole process.

Oh, and take lots of pictures before the demo!!! And then all along the way!

Bee

Thanks, Bee, for the great advice.

The blender is somewhere in a box & I will be sure to get those margarita recipes. BUT the wine opener is very handy... :)

I took before pictures so I hope to post some after pictures soon.

corkscrews get lost; screw-top wine for the duration :)

how exciting for you! you know we need pics, soon and often!!

cheers

No water source or tools needed! Tastes just like a $9 Mai tai.

All I can say is that it is a good weight loss program. I was stressed out and couldn't get to the food easily. Lost 10 lbs! Hopefully you will have a nice group of honest workers in your house. I was lucky for that.

Non-alcoholic suggestions:

Go with the flow - think of this as your own private HGTV episode minus the mid-show OMG!!! that always comes up.

Go with the flow - it is perfectly fine to decide to have Cheerios for dinner. It's an adventure.

Go with the flow - if you're home during the day, retreat to the bedroom with a book (or TV if you prefer). Emerge every now and then to check on things and tell the workers how much you appreciate their work.

Go with the flow - if you can't find the corkscrew, buy another one vs losing it and driving your family over the edge.

Got kids at home? Feed them Cheerios for dinner. Take them to the movies. Let them make forts out of the cardboard boxes. Help them make a puppet theater from the cardboard. Give them hammers and nails and let them nail all the scrap wood together. Let them draw pictures on the subfloor the night before the new floor goes in. Let them graffiti behind where the lowers will be. Generally, kids think construction is the best thing ever.

Hang in there... there are a bunch of us going through this at the same time... we started demo today!

Our kitchen was demo-ed 10 days ago. I made (quite) careful preparations, cleared most cabinets 3 weeks in advance but the new stuff managed to sneak into those already empty cabinets. :-(

The demo-crew showed up earlier than expected and we had to move all the last minute stuff out in a great hurry with DD screaming for attention the whole time - you know how that goes... :-)

The first day, I couldn't find anything but it all got better eventually. MW is my friend right now as well as our electric tea-kettle and portable induction cooktop. My best friend, however, is a bottle of brandy, LOL.

Almost everything is getting delayed but we are surviving on take-outs and "go-outs" - with occasional home-cooked meals. We decided to view it as a long camping trip. Ever been on those?

I am going to try those margarita recipes everyone is recommending. I did not pack away my Vitamix!

GL, OP! Keep us posted on the progress.

That is all really great advice! Love the one about the kids drawing on the subfloor and walls before the cabinets go in!
Have been lurking here for months--my demo starts in 2 weeks. I am excited!!

Sorry, guys. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong to have the pics in my post. GW says the string has some words that are blocked which won't allow the images to appear. If someone can help me out that would be great.

Good thing about reno's are I found my diamond earrings last night. I've been in denial that I lost them or I vacuumed them one day. I was cleaning out a drawer last night & there they were!! WooHoo!

Here is a link that might be useful: Kara's before reno & start of reno pictures

This post was edited by kgolby on Thu, Mar 14, 13 at 10:32

How exciting!

What are you doing for a temporary kitchen? This was a lifesaver for us:

We had the fridge in the Dining Room, a DeLonghi countertop convection oven (never call it a toaster oven), and an induction burner - we survived and ate quite well!
A pair of perfect Zingerman's pot pies!

I moved the current refrigerator to the garage where it will stay. Thank goodness for having that appliance. They didn't demo the wet bar so I still have that counter space but not too much longer. Probably will be gone tomorrow. I do have a toaster oven which will be useful but like others have stated I think there will be a lot of take out dinners.

Get some sleep if you can! Trust me when I say that a 72-hour period of sleeplessness will not do anyone any favors. This is what happened to me - 24 hours prior to demo, 48 hours after. And that included sharing a whole bottle of prosecco with DH the day demo started, to the chant "de-mo de-mo de-MO! de-mo de-mo de-MO!" Alcohol can only get you so far.

Paper plates, bowls and cups and plastic cutlery-they kept our sanity for eating meals. We were lucky: our contractor let us keep our stove & fridge and set up a temporary sink and we had a portable island as a work surface (that was moved nearly every day). We had to come up with meals that didn't require alot of prep. And we ate alot of Subway and Wegmans $6 meals.

This was so good to read, since our demo is starting on Monday! Seems like I have been cleaning out cabinets for weeks. We are also taking out all the tile in the whole downstairs and replacing it with a different porcelain. We live in Florida, and that is what most people have. We will have no kitchen and a lot of dust....
Good luck, and please keep the ideas coming, I am already not sleeping.