Joys of remodeling a small kitchen while living in the house

14 years ago

My house is small...about 1300 sq ft. 3 bedrooms and bath upstairs, living, dining, kitchen and 1/2 bath main floor and partially finished basement with laundry.

My husband and I have been mostly DIY on our kitchen remodel. We started in early November. We haven't had a sink since Thanksgiving. The kitchen has looked like the inside of a garage for weeks.

But now, we are in the process of having hardwood flooring installed which I've decided needed to integrate with the dining room so it looks like it was all laid at the same time. It is 3/4" unifinished red oak (like the rest of the house) Flooring is installed but now everything needs to be refinished so it will be the same color.

We had to move the fridge to the 1 car detached garage and leave it unplugged because it is too cold to run a compressor. The only door the fridge will fit out is the one to my screen porch. It cannot be moved from the kitchen to any other room in the house because all the doorways off the kitchen are narrow. So, in the garage the empty fridge sits waiting for flooring to be finished.

Originally we had moved most of the kitchen stuff into the dining room. Well, now we had to move all the dining room (and kitchen stuff) into the living room so the dining room floor could be refinished.

So, now the living room is packed to the gills with living room, dining room and kitchen stuff. It looks like the inside of a moving truck.

We set up a temporary kitchen upstairs that has a mini fridge, crockpot, electric skillet, toaster oven and microwave. It's not great but I got a meal done last night...then it dawned on us...we have no place to sit down and eat. Our choices were either to sit on our beds (which isn't the best with kids) or find a spot of the floor. In desperation we decided to eat on the wood stairs...at least it seems like there is a table if you sit on one step and put your plate on the step above.

In order to watch TV or do laundry we have to get to the basement which involves going outside and around the house to a side door because the normal path would be through the kitchen. (We currently have 2 feet of snow so you have to REALLY want to watch TV to make the cold run around the house)

And today, the flooring guy (thank goodness this part is not DIY) says that the final poly coat which goes on AFTER the cabinets are in will take at least 10 days to cure before we can put our fridge back in and start using the kitchen. First & 2nd poly coats go on this week. Cabinets can go in after 10 days so probably first week of Feb....then poly coat 3.

So, it looks like we'll be eating on the stairs until at least Valentine's Day.

I just have to laugh at how creative and desperate we've become in just finding places to sit to have a meal.

The joys of remodeling kitchen in a small house. I'm sure some of you can relate.

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Comments (15)

malhgold
14 years ago
I would think you'd want the frig to be installed before the final coat. We had our final coat done after everything was installed in the kitchen. I wouldn't want to be moving a frig on newly finished floors. If you only get 2 finished coats under the frig I can't imagine that's a big deal. Good luck!
lwb9
14 years ago
We are DIY our kitchen! It has only been ripped out since the 22 of dec. but I feel your pain! Our kids have are getting to used to eating on TV trays @ couch or along the side of a bed. My floor goes in on the 21/22 so I hope we are nearing the finish line! Wishing you the best of luck!
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palimpsest
14 years ago
I did a project where a wall was being reframed and when they delivered the appliances they put them in one of the bedrooms. They rebuilt the wall and when it came time to move the refigerator it would not go out through the door. Luckily with the refrigerator doors off and some careful manipulation of the cord, they were able to get it out. And it was "counter depth"-- If it had been conventional depth the wall would have had to come down.
granite-girl
14 years ago
Boy- I don't envy you, I'd be making finger foods & put a big old blanket on the bed & have picnics.... my kids would love that.
madamg2u
14 years ago
Oh do I feel your pain! I am going thru the same thing. Besides the kitchen and diningroom in the livingroom add my bathroom. Everything has been gutted. I live in a two family home and my brother is my tenate so I can at least go upstairs to his kitchen. This has been going on since November. He is now getting tired of me. At least framing is almost done. So I see some improvement, but I've got al long way to go.
MadamG2U
piaa
14 years ago
Sit on your stairs and use your ironing board (probably with a plastic table cloth on it) for a table - it works great as the height is adjustable - but probably only good for 2 at a time so you may have to take turns eating(you said you had kids) - just ask me I know - when I was first married and we didn't have a table I used my ironing board for Thanksgiving complete with a candle - oh the joys of being young and broke (lol)

Piaa
squigs
14 years ago
that's a tough situation, especially with kids. It's really hard to be comfortable. I hope it all goes quickly and smoothly for you. :)

Good thing you still have access to your computer because GW is a good place to escape to!
bmorepanic
14 years ago
laughs ruefully Switch on your hood yet?
donka
14 years ago
Hahahaha!! Oh man. That brought back some memories. We have a small house too (same rooms on each floor as you), and had to install new hardwood on the whole first floor of the house. We have a side door that leads directly to the basement so we had to live down there for the 3 days they were putting the coats on. We couldn't access the rest of the house at all. I have no bathroom in my basement. Want to talk about having to get creative? It's probably TMI :) Lol :)

Have fun! I promise you *will* look back on this and laugh, A LOT!
annie.zz
14 years ago
oh yes! Another 1300 sq ft house here. It's definitely a challenge! LOL. My bedroom has been the family room/ kitchen/ bedroom. It's now just a humongous mess!

You'll get through this part and have some great stories to help you appreciate your wonderful new space!
eks6426
Original Author
14 years ago
Yeah, we talked to one of our neighbors last night who refinished all their first floor hardwood at the same time. They actually used an extension ladder to get upstairs each night. THey carried their toddlers up the ladder....I didn't live in the neighborhood at the time. I definitely don't think I would have been that brave.

I am having problems with the floor staining/finishing so this is going to take longer than expected. Ironing board is a cute idea. I might try that one tonight.

And yes, I can only laugh about it even now or else I might start to go a little bit nuts.
macybaby
14 years ago
I've been there too - in fact I'm still there LOL!!

Our worst was when we got to the 2 story section of the house. We had some structural issues so the only way to deal with it was to cut the entire 22*16 foot two level structure at one time.

We had our bed set up in the dining room that was open to the kitchen for the winter. The only good part is the bed was about 10' from the wood stove so it made it real easy to get up in the night to keep the fire going.

We are finally to finishing the kitchen and like you, decided to run the kitchen floor into the dining area. Our kitchen was set up temporary all along (we moved the rooms) so it was real easy to move cabinets around. At one point I had two base cabinets in the entry way. One upper out on the deck, the small cabinet island in the hallway. The phone center cabinet was also in the hallway, the tall hutch is apart and in the library crammed next to the dining room table along with my tredel sewing machine. The chairs for the dinign room are upstairs in the family room - they have to be shifted around if we want to watch TV, but we rarely do that.

The big hutch is in between the two desks in the den. The two tall pantry cabinets ended up in the other hallway to the dressing room.

We have a small folding table and two chairs - that has worked out great to have some place to sit other than eating at our computer desks.

I'm seriously wondering how it will be like to have regular rooms again.

Cathy
jakabedy
14 years ago
We're there, too! All I can say is keep up the good humor and hope for the best. We didn't change out the flooring, so haven't had that hassle. We've got a galley kitchen and started demo Thanksgiving weekend on the range/fridge side. Range got stored in the living room, fridge plugged in in the dining room. We got that side back in place Christmas weekend and ripped out the other side the next week -- to include losing the kitchen sink. Countertop should arrive within 5 days, then plumber after that, so we're looking at February 1 for completion.

One benefit of having a house built in 1978: the ubiquitous wet bar -- that tiny bar sink has served us well over the last month.
portland_renovation
14 years ago
We demo'ed our kitchen over Thanksgiving, and then our contractor moved to Texas!! We are living with bare studs, no sink, mini fridge, and microwave. We are converting the kitchen from electric to gas, and haven't bought a new gas range yet, so all we have is a camp stove! Last week our electrician came and ripped out all the old knob and tube wiring and was supposed to come and put the new wiring in this week, but then hurt his leg and can't work! Unfortunately he also took down the overhead lighting so now the kitchen is like a dark scary cave.

At least the cabinet quote came in a thousand dollars under budget, so something is going my way. Luckily there are tons of great restaurants in Portland, but eating out every meal is starting to strain our budget, especially since it's already been a couple months, and no end in sight.

Whoever said renovating was fun?!?!
bmorepanic
14 years ago
It's strange, after so much work and worry, to see framing being made solid with blue board. I'm at the point of wondering "what have I done?". I know it's going to be fine in a week or so when my internal vision has adjusted, but right now its just freakin' weird.

I sometimes look at the ocean of stuff in the living room behind the imaginary wall that divides stuff I'm trying to keep clean and "storage", and watch it gently being subsumed in dust. It's been so long, I can't even remember what's in there.

Joys of remodeling a small kitchen while living in the house

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Joys of remodeling a small kitchen while living in the house

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