For some perspective, the view from my front door, back to the kitchen, and, then, the view from my kitchen, toward the front door.

It's fun, like college again. Throw your microwave and coffeemaker and a few silverware and bowls on your table and call it good. Box up the rest of the dishes and put them in the basement, or under your bed. Whoo hoo!

Hah. Yeah. Challenge with that is that I have to clear out a portion of my basement (same footprint of first floor, but has plumbing, furnace, etc.) to allow access to the plumber and electrician. I suspect I'll have pots and pans under my bed, as you say. And table & fridge move into tiny living room...

My advice (if at all possible) is try and keep your bedroom as the "safe zone". I guess under the bed would be okay for storage. But just have one clean and normal room for you to escape the chaos. Mine was my bedroom. When the rest of the house was like a war zone, I would go in there, shut the door, and find my "happy place". Lol!

Pack up and put away everything you possibly can on every floor of your house. No matter what plastic sheets have been put up, no matter what seems incredibly out of the way, EVERYTHING will get coated in dust. Put everything you can in a closed container or box.

Arrange your schedule now to have as much time off as possible so as to be as present as possible throughout the remodel. You will catch more mistakes that way before they go too far past them and therefore have a more difficult time fixing them.

Rebunky - I really like the idea of keeping my bedroom as a safe place - not least because it's on the 3rd floor, after two flights of an ancient, narrow spiral staircase... I don't know if it will be possible, though. Basement's got to be emptied more than it is filled, second floor has bathroom, small dressing room/walk in closet, and the guest room, which will be the "cat room" during construction - two cats who don't particularly get along, litter box(es) food and water... & third floor is my bedroom & bathroom...

Jillius - you're back as the master of good advice for me. Thank you! I guess a whole bunch of those cheap plastic painting tarps could come in handy. My schedule will be fairly flexible. I was hoping it would happen a month or two sooner to maximize my flexible time, but this should work OK...

Set up your temp kitchen space as close to a functioning sink as possible. If that means your bathroom, go for it! It appears that your space is very limited, so have your bedroom=kitchen=bathroom space with several layers of plastic sheeting. The zip-wall gizmo is great!

Can you get a mini dorm-type fridge? That was a sanity saver for me.

As you are packing up your kitchen, realize that you will want to wash EVERY SINGLE THING after construction. I wrapped all my stuff very carefully, thinking it would be free from dust. Ha! I still needed, and wanted, to put away clean dishes in my new clean cabinets. It turned out to be a waste of time wrapping pots, pans, dishes, etc.

Disposables are a life saver. Food stuffs and bits will stop up a bathroom sink in a heartbeat.

Have a shop vac around or close to the door to your safety zone. The more you vacuum, the less that will get tracked into your sanity zone.

Good luck!!!

I haven't seen this mentioned, but when I do mine, I will not only box things up and label the boxes (with a number too), but then I will make a master list with box numbers and the correlating location of where said box got shoved, hid, etc./

Yes to what Jillius said about the dust. The fine stuff will get everywhere no matter what you do.

- Figure out how you will do the dishes in advance and buy supplies. Don't be like me and be running to target in a panic after you just tore the sink out. I washed them in the bathtub using 2 small dishpans like a 2 bowl sink so I didn't have to sanitize the tub each time and was able to use only 1 dishpan worth of water to rinse. I also used the same coffee mug for almost a week straight without rinsing it lol.

Stock up on stuff you can microwave and bagged salad.

If I recall correctly, you don't do much cooking right?

If so, that will make it a little easier since you are already accustomed to it.

Disposables. Plates, cups, bowls, silverware. I would probably keep one mug out for hot beverages and a microwave readily accessible.

Good luck and how exciting!!

I'd use as many paper plates, styrafoam bowls and cups as you can afford. No sense making any more work for yourself than you will already have. I'm going to! lol

ETA Great minds think alike! TG ^^

Yup, lots of paper, styrofoam, plastic utensils. It also helps to threaten the family with doing the dishes in the bathtub if they don't use the disposables.

^^ lol

We were just in your situation 1 of our 4 indoor cats needed to be separated from the others. That was a challenge as well as making sure the parade of workers didn't open the interior doors - but they did just that on a few occasions. I can't stress enough the importance of stopping in often to stay on top of details. I caught a few things but we still have a problem that can't be fixed now. A note about dust that I hadn't been warned about, our house is 180 years old though, when the subfloor was hammered an extraordinary amount of dust and debris fell into our basement on the food pantry we setup and band equipment. Even things in sealed boxes needed to be washed. Upstairs closets had construction dust - and our kitchen is not an open plan. No amount of taped plastic helps. I can't advise how to set up because we did a terrible job! Good luck.

Do you need new outlets and/or wall plates? Switches? Garbage disposal?

We used lots of nonstick foil with our grill and toaster oven. Use in place of most pans when cooking fish, steak, whole pieces of chicken, etc.. Make packet dinners or sides with it too! We had a lot of broiled meats and hobo dinners, but cheaper and healthier than take out every night.

Don't feel bad about buying pre-prepped convince foods like chopped garlic or cut up veggies if it will let you cook more (also cheaper and healthier than take out even accounting for the added cost of being pre-prepped).

Throw out or donate as much as possible before packing.

I boxed everything and piled it under and over a folding table.

I had a slightly different perspective and really didn't want to use disposable plates etc - not just from an environmental standpoint but from a taste and stability standpoint.

I kept a plate, salad plate, bowl and silverware for each of us. I washed them right away. It was nice to eat off of real stuff! We did have some disposables when I didn't feel like cleaning up.

The GC arranged our fridge in the DR. I had my Delonghi oven and an induction cooktop set up to use. I broke into my boxes along the way to find my crock pot.

The end is worth the hassle!

A couple of weeks beforehand I made up some freezer bags of crockpot meals that could be dumped straight into the crockpot. I used crockpot liners to make clean up easier.

Allow more time than you think you will need to sort out and pack up the kitchen.

You might consider a small storage unit to help alleviate the overflow to the rest of the house.

Dust everywhere! I joked that I had a swiffer in one hand and the vacuum cleaner in another that needed to be surgically removed when we were done. It helps to seal off you air/heating vents as well.

I see a couple other people have already recommended my best idea: I love to make large batches of our favorite recipes ... and freeze them in individual meal-sized portions. I often freeze them in disposable aluminum pans, which I buy on ebay. Soups are great to freeze; lay them down flat so they'll not take up all that much space in the freezer.

A budget-saver might be your grocery store's deli. It's more expensive than cooking at home, but less expensive than eating out (especially when you consider that you're not paying $2.50 for a soda or leaving a tip).

Do you have a toaster oven? If not, maybe you could pick up a cheap one at Goodwill and consider it a temporary purchase. That'll allow you to bake a Stouffer's lasagna (or similar).

Haha - there were a couple of times I was dual wielding a shopvac hose and a handheld dyson for maximum dust fighting efficiency :D

They are all telling the truth about the dust!

I can't wait to see your pic's please post!

Oh yes, crockpot and rice cooker are also fantastic!

And frozen home made meals!

we also have a market near us that makes good pre-prepped dishes. We use quire a few of them as well.

Not sure what our GC did but dust wasn't as bad as I expected. Maybe I just expected worse so it didn't seem as bad.

Wow, thanks, everyone! I went out to dinner last night and when I got home was too tired to respond.

So helpful! The dust will be major, I suspect. I'm having external work done on the kitchen as well - a new window added, a door moved, etc. And the exterior is solid, 200 year old red brick. That will probably be the worst of the dust, but it will be bad, I think - and the couch is only some 12' or so from the kitchen.

What are the best purchase-able, (hopefully affordable) plastic coverings/containers (big bins from Target?) for: couch, linens, clothing...? Should I roll up every rug in the house? Sounds like I should.

I think that space to put stuff is going to be my biggest challenge. Such a small house, and so much of it will be consumed with remodel - the kitchen takes up almost half of my little first floor, basement will need access for new electricity control panel, plumbing, gas modifications, the guest room will have the two resident cats & their accoutrements...

One advantage to living in the city is that it's easy (and cheap, if careful) to get decent takeout - taco trucks sell good, big burritos for $5, etc. But, still, I want to be able to drink my morning coffee and have a bowl of cereal at home. There is no other water source on the first floor - so, that leaves the utility sink in the basement, and the little vanity sink on the second floor bathroom. I'll have to decide which makes the most sense for dishes - maybe the basement.

I'm going to try to stick it out living here while construction is happening, but if things get too bad, or the cats are too freaked out, I have a nearby friend who's said the cats and I can stay with her. The move might freak the cats out more than being locked in the guest room with noise & dust, and the friend & I might drive each other too nuts, but at least that's an option.

Maybe you could move some of the stuff to your friends for storage?

Thanks, beth09. That thought occurred to me, and I may ask her. She only bought the house this spring, and she's still trying to settle in, so will have to balance my crazy stuff with trying not to disrupt her life any more that it is still disrupted.

Ok, well yes, that's a consideration! Another thought, if nothing else, would it be beneficial to rent a small storage unit maybe?

Yes, a storage unit is a possibility. I'll look into it!

Moving the downstairs, and I mean everything, sofa, etc, to a storage unit might be best. It won't be in your way, and it will be clean when all is done! Can anything go in plastic bins in your garden?

Just wondering...will your workers be using the 2nd floor bathroom? (I don't think there's one on the main floor, is there?) If so, you might NOT want to use it for the kitchen sink. They'd be tracking dust etc up there. A good temporary kitchen is Panera lol!

So excited that it's getting started! I remember your thread on the planning, hope you will keep us posted on the progress :)

I wish we had rolled up the rugs and taken down all curtains - even upstairs. Also any decorative knicknacks picture frames,etc. I would recommend boxing. I cannot overestimate the dust, especially in an old house. Our cats got used to the noise pretty quickly and were only upset about the lockout from kitchen. Cats don't like closed doors!

Be ready for "remodeling fatigue" if things get delayed.

Oh, and have some back up drinking water, a filled pitcher in the refrigerator or water bottles or something. Because the water goes on and off some days without much warning. Also hand sanitizer and maybe even some baby wipes for the same reason.

Ditto on the wine!

Wine, yes! This also works well and can use a disposable cup: