Lots of threads on temporary kitchen set-ups: GW discussions

And cooking during remodels: GW discussions

Good luck!

I just stopped in to see if there were any survivors... lol! guess I'll check back tomorrow.

My reno took 2 months. Communication was great and we stayed on budget. Cooking was a challenge. We put the fridge on a back porch and had the microwave and everything else stuffed into the living room. Lots of paper plates and washing dishes in the bathroom. Once your sink is in the end is in sight. I had a woman who is a project coordinator. Used her crew and she took care of all the ordering of materials after we went shopping! After it was all done I didn't want to see take out food or a restaurant for weeks after! Good luck!

Hey we just finished. Actually we are still waiting on some trim from Dura Supreme for a cabinet that came in scratched and they had to replace. It took 7 weeks with no kitchen and then we were cooking with little things still undone. We took down walls, moved plumbing and electrical, all new appliances etc., complete gut.

Our dining room became the kitchen which was a disaster but we didn't have another space because we also enlarged the laundry room and reworked our den. It was a 60K project and I guess we went over about $6 so 10%. I think most of that was plumbing issues. The refrigerator just moved to different spots as they worked on them so we always had refrig but no ice or water in the door. I never got a hot plate but did use a microwave and a toaster oven. We ate out a lot. Basically, it was horrible. Dusty, messy, chaotic and we lived through it.

The Contractor ordered all the flooring, tile and hw. I had most of it picked out prior to hiring him. We used a kitchen design center with a kitchen designer prior to hiring the contractor. She helped with our kitchen choices and plan and ordered our cabinets and counters. They did our cabinet and counter install but our contractor did everything else. Some things I ordered online and had them here for him i.e. lighting, faucets, etc. We bought all of our appliances and had them here in the garage and then his people installed them when they were ready.

My kitchen experience is all documented in this thread, as well as some other survivors. We are all almost done now! Also some pics. It is a long thread in real time. http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/4281156/lilysmom-and-cheryl-just-checking-in-how-is-your-kitchen-going#19179062

Good luck!

Living through it now. About a week or so left. I'm so over it.

Biggest regret: not having clear rules up front about cleaning up, respecting my property and better protection of furniture and other rooms from dust. A friend had a major reno and the GC used an air scrubber. Mine barely swept up once or twice.

We set up a temporary kitchen downstairs but otherwise lived and played upstairs (two young kids). It's hard when the weather is bad to be stuck indoors with young kids in a dusty noisy environment. Mostly cooked at home on the portable induction burner, toaster oven, MW, crock pot and outside grill. Used my 30" laundry room sink for dishes.

Im picking things as we go. I like seeing things in the space before making a final commitment but I created a moodboard of all my finishes. Have pretty much stuck to them except maybe for a few light fixtures.

Another tip: try to be gone during drywall phase. The dust is awful.

If I had to do it over again, would not waste time having "KD" attempt to design kitchen; all were more interested in selling cabinets than helping me design a kitchen The experts on GW are far better KD's.

Drawers, drawers, and more drawers.

Find & hire a good GC; but not sure how to find a good one.

Read as much as you can, from old posts on GW.

Stock up on bottles of wine, or get an Rx for Xanax so you can sleep at night, just kidding; actually not. :-)

I'm living through it right now. I'm homeless. For the last three weeks, I've been living at my neighbors, and this week, I'm living across town. I've given notice to my contractor that next week, I'm moving back after drywall is completed. Every surface in my house is filthy. There are holes where there should not be holes and my property was not respected. The contractor broke things, lost things and disregarded things. I've started keeping a list of things that must be made right before I'll make another payment. And, believe it or not, I like my GC and worked with him before. This is just "keepin' it real."

I have a spare kitchen in my basement with a sink, disposal, dishwasher, microwave, Traeger BBQ (backyard) and dishes. It still sucks.

Take lots of pictures. It's fun to watch the transformation. Every time there is a problem, either text or email your GC. Always memorialize. Things happen organically. Modernly, people converse in text and email. These texts and emails are valid writings forming a contract and making modifications to existing contracts. Save them.

Be able to source items quickly if you can. When your contractor says he can't get something, you are in a good position when you can get it. Do your homework.

Know that when demo is completed, you've turned a corner. Every day after that, your project will look better. Savor that.

Oh another tip: wherever you set up your temp kitchen prob won't have enough electric power to run multiple small appliances at once! So label your circuits and be prepared to run only 1 at a time. But I highly recommend a portable induction cooktop!

we also had the contractor pull and save one long cabinet which we used for storage and countertop.

Remodeled when the kids were three and two. We contracted to have the site cleaned daily for the kids safety. We had to cross through the area to get to the laundry room, which was the temporary kitchen. Ditto on labeling the circuits. Cooked with electric fry pan and microwave. Purchased an under counter fridge for the new space, but used it immediately in the laundry room.

Excellent, excellent resources here. Read as much as you can. Good luck!

Take photos of all walls and ceilings while they are open to the studs and joists. You will be able to refer to them later for info about where the electric and plumbing lines were run.

We have just started a major remodel with a 6 month time frame of our main floor (3000+sq ft) I needed to make this as normal as possible for my family as we have this temp setup for 5-7 months! We moved our kids into one room and took our other kids room as ours (2nd floor). We are cooking in the basement and yes, you will not have enough electric power to run a lot of small appliances at once! An induction cooktop has been a lifesaver, I found an Oyster countertop oven that fits a 9x13 pan at Target and I made a LOT of stuff in advance and froze before demo to cook (pasta sauce, cookie dough, shredded chicken, ground beef etc..)An instant pot is also very helpful. I have spent almost a year planning this remodel and even though we have recently started I hopefully can give a bit of helpful advice. Have everything picked out and done before demo, changes = more money! Demo is loud, dirty and fulfilling, haha. I love seeing the kitchen, master bath etc... gone. Your brain will hurt from little to big things that come up that you need to make a decision on. My husband wants absolutely nothing do with these decisions, which could be a good thing with us not disagreeing but then stressful as it all rides on my shoulders! Have really good communication with your family because you will get stressed, crazy and irritated. Set boundaries with your GC, as to where are off limits in the house. We are taking a little road trip for the drywall and floor finishing parts as theses get so bad its not worth staying in the house. Sell, donate anything you may not want for your new remodeled area. You will become VERY limited on space and the clutter will wear on you. Thats just whats coming in my head this morning! Just remember - its worth it!!! This is temporary and an adventure, and sometimes a nightmare :)

take lots of pictures! A friend of mine did this and then made a photo book and it is so cool to look at!

Check the work daily. Speak up when you see something that doesn't seem right to you. Be clear about your expectations of the size of the mess that they can leave at the end of the day before you let them start.

Backsplash and floor tiles have patterns as to how they are laid, make sure that you have specified the pattern (and size of the grout line if that is an issue to you) in your contract.

Have everything that has to be special ordered already ordered and available for installation, in your house if possible, so that it doesn't expand when it hits the heat of your house. In the case of flooring, some of the flooring manufacturers insist that it has to be inside for two or three weeks before it's laid.

Know that if you change your mind, it will cost money.

If you leave the workmen unattended in your house during the day (highly likely over a two month reno) they may "wander" and may go through your drawers. I have very little nice jewelry but I did remove it from the house. On two separate occasions I found my lingerie drawer "disturbed." My understanding is a lot of women keep their jewelry in their lingerie drawer.

If you don't want them using your bathroom you definitely need to have a porta potty on site.

The guys played music all the time, I was fine with it but I know it would drive some people absolutely crazy.

Make sure the area where the demolition is occurring is absolutely sealed off from the rest of the house. If you've never seen a demolition up close you have no idea how much dirt is going to come. If you have floors that are somehow in the path of the demolition to the nearest exit, get them covered with something like heavy cardboard first. Do not let them begin demolition until there is a dumpster for them to dump the material into.

I would know the work schedule and tie your payment schedule to completion of various items and the sign off on the various permits.

We're nearing the end of a full gut to the studs reno that included deleting walls and relocating our laundry. Our demolition started the weekend before Halloween and we are in the last dregs of remodeling now. It seems that now that we are nearly finished that unless we push and prod our GC that his workers aren't on-site.

We set up a temporary kitchen in our sunroom. We took two base cabinets with countertop from the old kitchen into the temp kitchen, brought in a plastic shelf unit to act as a pantry, put up two folding tables, and brought two wire drawer units into the space.

As others have mentioned, it's highly likely that the electrical in whatever room you set up as a temp kitchen won't be powered to run multiple small appliances at once. A friend loaned us an older portable dishwasher that we hooked up to our utility sink in the basement. We collected dishes in a tote (setting on a blue bin under the table in the picture above) and then schlepped them downstairs as needed. We bought an Instant Pot (electric pressure cooker) and prepared frozen meals ahead of demolition so we'd have easy meals during the reno. That being said, we mostly ate pot pies, hot pockets, chicken nuggets, and other ready-made meals, because having to clean up the mess from prepping meals was a PIA. We also used a lot of disposable plates, cups, and silverware.

GC: It's hard to say how much benefit we've gotten from hiring a GC. We've had to monitor every step and prompt him for many things as we've gone along. Because we stayed in the house during the reno we were able to talk to the workers each day and keep tabs on things. This was immensely beneficial. I think the biggest benefit to having a GC is that he has connections to the various trades. We did the leg work on all of the finishes, but that was our preference anyhow. Most of the items were already selected prior to work starting. I believe the GC's people calculated the flooring amount (pretty simple calc). I was left to my own on calculating backsplash tile. (Sigh.) He has been poor at communication.

We were lucky in that our crews were respectful and the mess was mostly contained and swept up daily. We have the ability to close off our kitchen from the rest of the house, so that made it easier, too. We hung a zipper door in one pocket doorway, and stapled plastic over the other pocket door.

Things will be done wrong or not up to your standards, that's a given. We decided to be patient, but steadfast in requiring them to redo things until they get it right. Yesterday our KD and cabinet carpenter were at the house because they did a standard install for our ovens when we requested a flush install. So annoying, but in the end they'll redo it, because we aren't budging. The spec sheets said flush. We talked about flush. The carpenter decided on his own to do standard, because it was easier for him. Um, no. They can redo things until they get it right. Period. Today our flooring installer is back at the house fixing his mistakes.

Budget: Our GC overcharged us and will be refunding $9K. We haven't gotten the final bill for the cabinets, but expect to be in budget there. I think in the end we'll be right on the dime.

Overall I expected the reno to be worse than it has been. It's been an adventure. I never knew how easy it was to NOT cook. LOL. Now I have all these fancy appliances and I have to return to the world where one eats healthy and puts in effort to do so.

Don't know how helpful it will be-"survived" a whole house gut remodel plus addition built..the kitchen had to be new too

a) two years(including stage of planning and permits). still waiting on that custom closet lol

b) ahaaaaaaaa(wiping tears). ok that meant "no". partially-things you have no idea about until the demo, like no insulation or old black paper or new HVAC tubes that got cut or..in short, behind-the walls-surprises. We were lucky to have decent framing and wiring though. we did re-piped..everything but one spot-decided to save on it. well we got a slab leak right there within our first week in the newly remodeled house, and since it wasn't the builder's fault-it was another 1500 to take care of. If we could predict the future..

partially-expensive(relatively) materials. Me and the house..lets say we both had special needs lol. Which translates to less readily available materials that are also more expensive

partially-creeping elegance(c) . you decide to save, not redo something, but it gets to be even more sore eye..so you understand it pulls everything down..you kinda have to do it if you want the result to be decent

c) we tried but we did not succeed. on the other hand it took longer with permits, demo, addition, foundation..we had more time to look. unfortunately we also had less choice and wanted a very nice look for a reasonable money..so we tried to splurge on something save on the rest. We picked everything as we went along. Some things just weren't in the stars-the only thing we were deadly sure about was wood flooring but it got discontinued. So spent time looking for similar one too.

The GC gave us absolute freedom in picking the materials, adjusting his quote accordingly. Exception was rough materials plus allowances on certain things or things that he included as the part of the quote

No, he was not happy he had to wait sometimes for materials

We also weren't happy since he didn't send people for weeks in a row..it's a construction boom, teams were busy, and we made a mistake of hiring a GC that lives too far. The boom wasn't that boom-y yet, both him and us didn't imagine what kind of a problem it will turn out to be. The traffic is awful here. In the end, some people plainly refuse to come.

He was good though at letting us hire locals for some parts of the project, if we liked their quotes more-easier for him and for us. Things like HVAC or insulation for example.

d) Our GC is very transparent. Very honest, explaining things, communication was great. Which didn't mean both him and us weren't ready to kill each other by the end..))) I guess it will get gradually better..))))

But lets say I didn't leave him and my DH alone to talk..I was always present. As a balancing factor, you know. This house is everybody's fruit of labor..but I quietly know who was the gray cardinal..))

e) of course we lived in our previous place. This one was gut to the studs. It was a shell of the house. We were on the site as often as we could..yes, it's an awful lot of dust. And yes, port-a-potty. Not that it had anything else..

and a huge dumpster.

our poor neighbors took it all in great stride

mixed up my alphabet lol) it depends on your contract really. with us, we chose the materials but they were picking it up when it made sense..say, flooring. They definitely helped to measure everything. We still measured too. And still there were mistakes sometimes. There will be mistakes, some miscommunication, all that jazz. It will be many days of your life. It's like with any other chunk of days in your life..are they ideal? Well this will be even less so.

What we'd do differently. As much as I liked the GC, the project manager, and some other guys-I'd hire somebody local. The distance was what partially made this project crazy.

We had somebody in mind when getting the quotes, somebody we liked a lot too..we decided not to go with him just because he seemed a bit reluctant to take on such a big job.

The more your GC can be on your site, the less projects he manages at once-the better for your remodel. And your nervous cells. And his too.

I'm in the early stages of a full gut job, so I only have a few things to say. My GC is really good about telling me what he needs and when, but I did run into a little time crunch with the flooring because it needs to sit for at least a week to acclimate and I couldn't make up my mind. He is great about answering my questions and helping me decide things if I'm confused - like we just went over light switches and there was a discussion on whether the under cabinet lighting should be on one switch or two. I would say the GC should definitely help with how much floor to order. I didn't have a KD, so I'm doing that. For me that's the biggest stressor - making all the decisions and stressing about them. So from that perspective, I would say get your stuff picked out and/or ordered early so you don't add to your stress about choosing and getting it on time. Also, that way you won't find that a light you like takes 2 months to be delivered. It's funny because I read here about other people saying something similar and I thought - eh, I won't pick something that will take that long to deliver, I'm not that fussy, I don't have that big of a budget, etc. And then I found that there is no rhyme or reason to how long things take to get. I picked a $50 light that had a fairly common look, but it was a little cheaper than the others, and the delivery estimate was 2 months, so I had to get one of the $70 ones that looked similar. Not a huge deal, but just an example.

I don't know how much we are over budget right now. Originally I was hoping for a $30k remodel, but I had to expand that to $50k, and I think we may go over that by a little. Things like extra outlets and switches are going to add up. He did a great job putting up plastic to keep the dust out. Unfortunately it made it so we pretty much could only use half of our house - kitchen, dining room and downstairs bathroom is behind the plastic. The main problem we have there is that we have a dog and his dog door was in the kitchen, but we are dealing. We have baby gate up on the one side and we just have to walk him more.

Our dining room is the 'staging area' where we have our new fridge (which we are using), and all the other stuff that I have bought and they haven't put in yet - other appliances, sink, faucet, flooring, etc. We have a little temporary kitchen set up in the office. I have a pretty small house, so it is tight, and it wasn't possible to put the fridge in there with everything else. We are using a toaster oven, crock pot, microwave and sous vide. We are only finishing up week 2, but so far it hasn't been too bad. I make one big meal in the crock pot - stew, casserole type one pot meal - and eat that every day for lunch and two dinners. Then we make something else one night - last week it was london broil in the sous vide, this week it's meatloaf in the toaster oven. Then we go to family every Friday anyway. We go out once or twice and so far have gone to friends or family another day.

Ok I guess I had a lot to say after all..

Here are some pictures just for fun. because I'm dying to share with someone but didn't have a good reason to start a thread about it.

Before:

kitchen - yes it's horrible, just horrible. I see some of these before pictures and I think, man wait until you see mine! We painted the cabinets red when we moved in because they were a really dark stained wood and the stain wasn't even in the best condition. I thought the red would be fun and funky since we were planning to renovate anyway.... then it waited 10 years. I was going for a french bistro kinda look.

dining room looking into kitchen

now:

kitchen - they found that the electric was so bad they decided to take down all the plaster, then they found that there were no studs or insulation, so they are adding that. (one of the things that is going to push us over the revised budget) As of this afternoon or tomorrow there will be no back wall there because we are taking out that window and door and putting in french doors. - that's one of the things that made the original budget get revised.

in the dining room looking into the kitchen - taking that load bearing wall with all it's duct work and electric is another thing that made the original estimate go up. (the board in the middle hanging down there is literally just holding the light switch.)

Oh also, I think the work phase of ours is going to be about 6 weeks. I've been planning for 3 months. My GC is on site almost every day. I let the guys use our downstairs half bath. We have just pretty much not been using it. The floor is dirty, but other than that they seem to be being pretty good about respecting our stuff, but it's really only my GC and one other guy, and my GC is I would say pretty invested in making me happy. I swear he must get half of his business from my mother-in-law. He's always like, 'oh I saw your mother-in-law last week when I was working on so and so's house' and my husband's uncle called us to ask the GC to give his spare key back. So our relationship is different than just any GC. He also worked the rough supplies into the estimate. I was responsible for picking out appliances, counters, cabinets, tile, etc. In the end he got the cabinets for me because he got a better price wholesale, so he WOULD do that stuff, but I like to comparison shop.

How long did your reno take?

>>> This is on our last kitchen, not the current one. (Done three total guts in total.) 4 to 6 months in design/planning and cabinetry orders. Hard to judge the constructions phase, but about 6 to 8 weeks but more awaiting one final item (while the FR was being done). Wall removal, total gut, plumbing, venting, electrical moved and redone.

Did you stay in budget? if not, what caused you to go over budget?

>>> From the original, ff course not, but the total was within range and the contractor's portion was in line. I overspent on appliances and a custom hood (the thing we had to wait for).

Did you have everything on site...

>>> No. Appliances were held at the dealer and the hood decision came late. Tile, HW and counters were picked out but not delivered, but everything started with the cabinetry. Fixtures and lighting were available to start.

Did you live in your house, or move out temporarily?

>>>> Stayed in. Used our laundry room with a microwave, toaster oven, spare fridge/freezer and an induction portable burner (Max Burton). You could buy multiple burners for a family. Everything bought ended up in the main kitchen.

Was your contractor good and keep you "in the loop"? Or was communication poor?

>>> Excellent/fantastic. He caught issues and corrected/flagged them before we did, and communicated status daily. If the communication is poor to start, don't hire them.

Also, how much does a GC do?

>>> Some GCs will source all product and upcharge you accordingly. Some will mix and match, and let you order and select. This is the model I used.

If you could do it again, is there anything you would do different?

>>> Would have spent MORE on some items where I cut back. Don't regret spending less on items that are easy to swap out/update.

We did our kitchen gut and rebuild DIY, including taking out a wall. We kept the old fridge in the laundry room with the microwave and coffee maker, and washed dishes in the bathroom sink. While the whole process took 5 months, we had the new appliances installed as soon as the flooring was completed.

To contain the dust, we had to curtain off the whole kitchen when we took the wall out and that whole process including sanding the ceiling and walls, took us 2 days. That was the worst part because the access to the family room and master bedroom suite is through the kitchen so we worked long and hard.

The one mistake we made is in ordering the appliances well in advance of their installation, because if we had any warranty issues, the short-term warranty would have run out. Luckily, we had 10-year extended warranty on almost everything.

We did have a couple of issues. the fridge had a funky door and it had to be replaced. the Kohler sink became damaged (a pea-sized nick) when I pulled off the tape protecting it. This sink was immediately replaced by Kohler, with no questions asked.

We didn't have cabinet issues since we bought individual components ourselves and finished them ourselves.

The MOST important thing that we did was take the time to layout the kitchen based upon how we used it and how to make it most efficient. This was helped along by the valuable feedback we received from the forum members here. The process took many, many months and many renditions. And I worked it down to fractions of inches to get what I wanted.

I put in new kitchen cabinets 3 years ago, built by a local cabinet maker. I designed the layout, and acted as my own GC; the cabinet guy dealt with the quartz company, and recommended an electrician. Communication was excellent all around. The electrician was fantastic - and had the cabinet guy on speed dial, when he had a question. The cabinet guy kept telling me "I don't want either of us to have any surprises", and "I just want you to be happy", and he lived up to both.

Everyone who came into the house was on time, respectful, and cleaned up their own mess. I usually had cookies available on days when people were working.

We were without a kitchen for about 10 weeks; 4 weeks of that was lag time between templating and counter install. Much of the rest of the time was a function of me allowing plenty of time between each stage, to coordinate scheduling with the electrician, cabinet installer, and flooring guy (no plumbing changes required). DH and I took out the old cabinets (and repurposed them), and I painted the kitchen and dining room. Oh, and we were on vacation for a week in the middle.

We put the fridge in the living room, set up shelves in the dining room to serve as pantry and cupboard, and used a card table for small appliances. It was summer, so we usually ate on the deck, and used the grill a lot! I even learned how to cook pizza on the grill. We made good use of the crock pot, MW, and rice cooker. We used paper plates a lot, and washed dishes in the bathroom sink or tub.

It was a pain while it was going on, but not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. It helps that we only had one adult kid home at the time. I would do it again in a minute! It's been years, and I still love and appreciate my new kitchen more than I could have imagined.

PS you know what else I'd done differently? I'd find these forums before the remodel, and not almost after..:)

but you're already here:)

Our laundry/mud room became our kitchen and we did great.

We had our coffee maker, toaster oven, crock pot, electric burner, microwave and a deep sink.

If you have a freezer or aux fridge, make meals ahead and freeze.

Count on not having a kitchen fir 3-4 months. Templating for countertops cannot be done until cabinets are in and can take weeks, backsplash can't go in till countertops are in. You will quickly see the domino theory in action.

Have as many choices made and in hand as possible before they're needed. It can take 2 months to get some faucets. You can wait on backsplash- if you gave any doubts, DO wait. Have appliances purchased and held at dealer - you don't want dents.

Lock up any portable valuables- yes, workmen DO steal sometimes. Figure out how you will deal with pets - a sign on a door with cats enclosed may be ignored ("I didn't see it" and it was 12"high!).

If you decide to live elsewhere (it has pluses and minuses), still visit at least once daily - twice, early and late is best. Document everything and take pictures!

Yes, it will go over budget - there are always surprises inside walls. But avoid change orders like the plague- they will really cost you. If you stay in the house, talk to electrician about adding a circuit do you can run multiple shall appliances and your refrigerator all at once.

I did a fairly simple remodel - only moved refrigerator, kept all existing appliances and flooring, reused countertops and integrated sink (had to do a new 5ft counter run), already had pot lights and wiring in place for undercabinet lights (reused) except for one cabinet. But wiring ran way over budget due to a few surprises when soffits were removed and when I realized that a couple of outlets couldn't be moved dye to studs.

I was only without a kitchen for 4 days, due to my planning and KC being willing to let me do sofitt removal, new ceiling and painting using my own subs. But it still took 4 months, start to finish. Everything from cabinets was in my DR and basement for weeks - drive me mad as I hate disorder. Had DGS's do the move - control over where things were put so I could find them if needed. They did the put back, too.

Very glad I did it - love it and very happy with results. $3500 over budget but extra planned for in advance.

I'm a 73 yr old woman with 2 dogs.

We are one year into a mostly DIY and surviving. But,our experience has not been easy and is by no means typical.

After about a year of thinking about it, sketching, erasing, and more thinking, we started demo and ordered cabinets last February knowing exactly what we wanted and had a 2 year timetable. That all radically changed when the first cabinet order arrived damaged. Then, the replacements arrive damaged. At that point, we rethought everything.

We negotiated with the cabinet supplier to get a partial refund and a hood thrown in for the months and months of delays. We began to think about how we could use the extra cabinets we had received and came up with a new design. Between the negotiations, using the damaged cabinets, and changing up the design, the cabinet and hood cost went from around $40,000 to around $10,000-$11,000.

From the beginning I was buying discounted items, an ebay sink and light fixture, an outlet store range, scrimping to buy the faucet before a price hike, etc. Doing it this way added up to quite a bit in savings, but it is time consuming and meant storing things in the garage for a year.

We are finally beginning to see the fruits of our labor and I wouldn't change a thing (except maybe my sink base choice, lol). I love the new design so much more than the original. And, we saved a ton of money through happenstance, DIY, and shopping around.

We kept the fridge and range in the kitchen the entire time and installed a utility sink. Temporary shelving in the DA was our pantry. Just shifted things around when needed.

Used plastic as walls to keep dust away from the LR. The dust is the worst part of it, I think. That and clean-up.

Hope you or someone else will find this helpful.

So much wonderful advice, and fantastic stories and examples. Thank you all!

I never would have thought to label electrical circuits in a temporary kitchen, And I love the idea of saving some old cabinets and counter to use temporarily. Oh, and making freezer meals before hand! What a great idea. I'm definitely going to have to remember to take lots of photos, too, during the process, for the memories.

I have started a Reno Notebook to include all these wonderful suggestions, and things to ask the contractors.