Packing up and picnics

This is the week that the kitchen renovation will begin, so this is the week we are packing up the kitchen for a several weeks! This is exciting and a bit terrifying, and quite a lot of work. Dh and I have been packing boxes for days now.

On Thursday some burly guys will be here to dismantle the kitchen completely and make a new bigger window. Then the other things happen slowly...for weeks...until (hopefully, with the wind in the right quarter) we have a sparkly new all electric kitchen by the 18th December. Here are some graphic mock-ups of where we are heading.

You can see the new window on the left. A looong looong bench under it.

The stove will be in a new position. There will be a combi microwave under the bench as well as the oven on the other wall.

We want to be able to manage as best we can making simple breakfasts and lunches, at least, while the work goes on. Eating all our meals out would be costly, and we don't like going out to breakfast anyway! We know that there will be days when getting some home delivered food, or going out for a meal will be necessary for our sanity, and that will be fine, but it would be good to keep them to a minimum if we can: we are used to home cooked food, with minimal fats, sugars and refined additives.

I made a list of the equipment I thought we could stash in the rest of the house -things like the kettle, my rice cooker and slow cooker, and sandwich maker.  There is a microwave which fits in the laundry at present. A small box of spoons, sharp knives and can openers has been saved from the packing up. We should be able to make do with sandwiches and cereals and noodles and salad, so long as the teas and coffees are still available.

I have a small fridge in DH's study -which will house some milk and cheese, salads, boiled eggs and cooked meats. We will have a bowl for washing up on a picnic table on the patio -which will only be accessible when the workers go home, for at least the first few days.  As we are putting in a new window which looks out on to the patio area, the patio will be a work area at first.

Hopefully by the end of the first week, we will have the patio available to us once again, and that should see us through the rest of the work.

We will paint the ceiling and walls ourselves at the beginning of the third week.

Exciting times ahead.