Cover your electronics when possible. That fine dust settled into my keyboard & now the keys stick, but I can't find the spray! I can't find anything! Good luck

I can't picture your area, but I know that there were a few times in our kitchen reno that we were not allowed to go through the kitchen area at ALL. Our family room was on one side of the kitchen, and that's where our temporary kitchen was set up. The living room, bathroom and bedrooms were on the other side of the kitchen. There were times when we had to walk around into the backyard, into the family room, because the floor in the kitchen was drying or there was just too much stuff to walk through.

I'd keep some flip-flops on each side of the kitchen, or plan to always have shoes on in the house. Nails, screws and bits of wood always seem to be on the floors.

Have you thought about how you're going to do dishes? Even if you use mostly paper products, there may be some dishes to do here and there, even if you're eating out a lot.

DonnaR/CA

Here is a link that might be useful: Donna's Kitchen Project

Our family room was on one side of the kitchen, and that's where our temporary kitchen was set up. The living room, bathroom and bedrooms were on the other side of the kitchen.

yup, that's pretty much identical to our setup. the family room is in the very back of the house (it's an addition) and to get from it to anywhere else, one must pass through the kitchen.

I'd already been anticipating having to go outside and around at times, like when the floors are getting done, but there is also some possibility that we'll just stay out of the family room entirely and hang out in the living room, which is in the front of the house.

good tip about keeping shoes/flip flops around.

and another good tip about covering everything. i need to go buy some plastic sheeting this weekend.

doing dishes will be a challenge. our powder room sink will be in operation throughout the whole process, but it's tiny. it's one of those little corner sinks.

Plan to eat out a lot!

I'm not exactly in the same boat. We're in temporary housing during remodel. Been doing much of my own Demo. I do have some suggestions:
1. Do not underestimate the amount of dust! I have swept the entire area clean at night, and in the morning everything is covered in dust all over again. Cover everything, remember to remove drapes, paintings, wall hangings... I forgot to remove drapes (DW not LOL). Keep any nearby doors closed, I let workers use nearest bathroom and they didn't keep door closed, got really nasty in there fast (just from the dust, workers were actually pretty tidy). I cleaned it once and then requested they have their cleaning service do it.
2. If getting dumpster in driveway, check that if you need to, you will still be able to get in and out of garage (I can't - was lucky car was out of garage when dumpster was delivered).
3. If you have wood floors that are being traversed, make sure protection like cardboard is put down right away. Make sure floors are swept before putting down protection or dirt and later, pieces of drywall can grind away at your floor. Make sure they completely cover up any carpeted areas too! They only covered the traffic area in one room w/carpet and it's not looking great. They say it will look great after they finish and cleaning service takes care of it, but I wish it had just been completely covered from the get go.
4. Remove any thing like picture hangers and hooks from walls and ceilings, If you forget, later on painter may just paint right over/around them. Luckily my GC double-checked this and caught several things I missed right as painting was going on and had painter go back over them.

HTH - Sorry I can't give additional survival advice

I'm in the midst of this, remodel has been going on almost 2 weeks. Setup pretty similar with family room on one side, bedrooms on the other although our sitting room is parallel to the kitchen, so we have had a (dusty) walkthrough.

We're using the spare bedroom as our kitchen. We got rid of the bed that was there, moved the dining room table up, and a low media table. Microwave is on the media table, single electric burner (Target) is on a dresser, and the kids (3 and 1) know what not to touch. I also have an electric kettle (because the electric burner is very useful but takes AGES to warm up) on a bedside table next to the dresser. The closet has the pans. The fridge is downstairs in the sitting room. We wash up in the bathroom sink.

It's actually not been that bad. The kids see it as an adventure. I find myself getting up 15 minutes earlier in the morning, and coming home from work 15 minutes earlier, because it takes a little longer to get their food together. Every couple of evenings, once they've gone to bed, I cook enough pasta or rice to last them a few days. Breakfast is pancakes or omelette or oatmeal. Dinner is usually something that goes in the microwave. My kids are picky eaters, depends what yours is like!

Demo day was extremely dusty. They put dust sheets up to bound the kitchen area but dust got all over the house that day apart from the rooms that have doors. Our GC swiffered the floors each day before he left during the first week.

Ask me in another 2 weeks how fed up with it all I am though! In the meantime, it's been better than I thought it would be.

Crock pot, grilling and going out were my keys. When I had to do dishes I found that the bath tub worked better than the sink. We also mooched off relatives a bit. Strong second on having footwear available.

thanks for the advice. mls, it sounds like you've really set up a little secondary kitchen there. not sure i'm going to go to such lengths.

we did time it so that grilling outside would be a viable option, and it does look like the weather is going to cooperate with us.

We're in the middle of this too and so I'm in agreement of the advice so far (in fact, I'm going to adopt some of it). The flip-flops idea, esp. for little kids, is a good one. Actually, the hardest thing for my 4yr old is keeping her out of the kitchen as she always wants to go and talk to the workers. Not a shy one, that girl!

As for eating, I feel like it's been pretty ok so far thanks to an electric skillet, crock pot, waffle maker, rice cooker and micro. I just set out what I need to cook on a buffet table we moved in the LR when it's dinner time. Sometimes we have super simple stuff like scrambled eggs with toast, but it's not been hard to do stuff like a stir fry in the skillet and then some rice in the rice cooker. Or a simple vegetable/tomato sauce that you can serve over couscous (that you can make by boiling just a small amount of water in the microwave and then "cooking" by pouring it over the couscous grains and sealing it all in a tupperware container for 10mins). One day I went to a friends house to "borrow" her kitchen and made a huge pot of a hearty soup that we ate with bread for 2 days just reheating in the microwave. Super simple meals, but I'm glad that we're not eating out every day. It's been usually just once a week so far, and so then it's a real treat.

The thing I'm most sick of, however, is the washing up...even though it's minimal since we're paper/plastic most things. It's pretty much just the cooking stuff. For washing up I scrape off everything really well and then I wash it all in a small plastic wash tubs. You could fill it in your tub and then set it on a bathroom counter, etc (then dump out the dirty water down the toilet). Then I set the clean but soapy dishes on a towel until everything is clean and then I do a rinsing cycle.

Overall it's not been as bad as I thought. I hope it can go smoothly for you too!

luckyj reminded me of something - you CAN cook pasta without a stove. I was jonesing for some pasta so did an internet search and found a method that works. In fact, I think I like it better than stove top pasta.

Here's how I do it:
Take a large microwave-safe lidded dish and put in some water (maybe about 1/3 full) and salt and / or spices if you want. Place in microwave and cook until hot (about 5 minutes for the size I cook). Take out of microwave and add pasta until the water just covers it. DO NOT overfill your container. Leave room for the bubbling/boiling action. Cook for about 18 minutes. The water should become completely absorbed by the pasta. If it's not quite cooked enough, you can add a little more water and cook for about 4-5 minutes more.

Do not pack the wine glasses or wine bottle opener! You will definitely need these! Trust me!

Edlakin...My demo starts on Monday also. GC told me framers will be there at 7:00 a.m. to start the tear down of the garage. But I am doing my garage, adding 400 feet and redoing the kitchen. The project is suppose to take four months.

Karin

We're in Week 9 of no Kitchen and have only had a Temporary Sink in our Powder Room for one week now (last week Friday it was installed)--until then we had to use an upstairs bathroom for doing dishes. For the first 8 weeks we had no water at all on the first floor (PR is part of the remodel).

Our layout, like others has the kitchen in the middle of the back of the house w/the FR & Garage on one side, DR on the other side, and the LR/Den/Upstairs in the front. To get to the FR from any part of the house, you MUST go through the kitchen (ditto for getting to the basement).

Our Temporary Kitchen is located in the FR. We put up a set of metal shelves and stored the most commonly used items on those shelves (bread on top so the dogs couldn't get to it!)

Our refrigerator & MW were moved into the FR and I purchased a one-burner hot plate and Toaster Oven (convection) that was big enough to bake a 12" square pizza.

Our kitchen table was also moved into the FR and we put our measuring cups, spoons, etc. as well as some prep tools and glass casserole dishes on the back of the table, stored our smaller pots & pans in a box under the table, and in another box the rest of our prep tools....also under the table. I also used 2 of our TV tables b/w the wall & refrigerator to store paper plates, bowls, napkins and plastic cups & flatware. [BTW...if you have those rattan paper plate holders, get them out...they make eating off paper plates much easier!]

We use mostly paper, plastic, and foil items (paper plates/bowls/napkins, plastic cups/flatware, and foil pans). While we use paper/plastic/foil for most things, cooking and serving are often done w/glass or metal pans/bowls.

We purchased 2 inexpensive dishpans and use one to collect dirty dishes to take upstairs and later be washed in, and one to rinse out & bring back down the clean dishes. [We still use the dishpans, but now we can use them in the PR downstairs...it may not have a toilet, but at least it has a sink!]

FR Access:

We had a tile floor put down in the Foyer, PR, & Kitchen. To accommodate us, the "tile guy" put the floor down in phases so that we always had a path from the FR to the Foyer, at least. He was very understanding of the situation and it worked out very well (of course, it helped that he had plenty of time to do the floor since nothing else was going on at that time!)

Now that work has restarted, the contractor moves the plastic out of the way in the Kitchen/Foyer/FR doorway so we can access the FR w/o going outside. We do, however, use the outside route while they're working now that the weather has gotten better.

And yes, shoes/flip flops are required at all times...as I constantly have to remind our children!!!

I cannot wait for our kitchen to be done!!!!

We are in demo (week 2) right now and it actually has not been as bad as expected. Worst was dust thrown up when they jackhammered the old granite floor. We covered everything and sealed doors with plastic - don't forget the air returns. Basement below kitchen was almost as bad - so remember to cover everything there also. Our contractor has swept and vacumed every night before leaving the job. We changed furnace filters after the plaster / granite floor removal was complete and will do it again after the new floor (Hardwood) and drywall goes up.

We will leave town for a couple of days while the Hardwoods are being stained / finished - Oil based poly really stinks.

thanks for all the advice. unfortunately, after talking to our cabinet guy and finding out that the cabinets are still a ways out, we've now had to push back our start date until 4/9.

the remodeling company wanted to go ahead and start anyway, but we told them no, since we don't want to have days of dead time waiting for the cabinets to come in.

sorry for the false alarm! i'll keep all you guys posted when we do finally get started.