Life "Without" a Kitchen

One of the unique things about our LEED renovation, is that we are living in the house while we renovate. So, I wanted to share just how we are managing.

As crazy as it sounds, we wanted to do most of the renovations ourselves. The reasons being cost and we wanted firsthand experience with a LEED renovation. But, between work and family time, we don't have a lot left over to devote to the renovation. We estimated it would take us 3.5 months to complete the first phase of the project... a long time to be without a kitchen! To add to the typical difficulties of living without a kitchen, we have multiple food allergies in our family... so eating out/ordering in is a limited option for us.

The solution? Convert the dining room into a make shift kitchen. We bought a temporary pantry to house food and dishes, moved the refrigerator and stove into the dining room, and made the dining room table into more of a work space/eating area. We also packed up any non essential kitchen appliances (the popcorn popper is the one that has been missed the most) and many of our dishes.

Not too shabby, right? But wait, there is something missing... the kitchen sink and dishwasher! Yikes!

Not to worry! Being avid campers, we pulled out our plastic camp sinks and presto, luxury camping for the whole summer :) Who could ask for more!?!

Even the kids are enjoying washing dishes by hand in the camp sinks! Let's see how long their/our enthusiasm lasts! 4 weeks down, hopefully no more that 10.5 to go!