Fourteen things, in the order they matter. This is the customer’s half of the job: our half is on the home page, in six records that say how many days each family went without a sink. This is what to do with those days. Almost all of it is set up in the week before demolition, and almost none of it can be set up afterwards. Print it and put it on the fridge, wherever the fridge has ended up.
Quick means ten minutes and a conversation. Afternoon means it is a real task and it needs a slot. Plan ahead means it has to be decided or bought before demolition week and cannot be retrofitted — those are the six to do first, and the temporary kitchen kit is the one to do today.
QuickTen minutes and a conversation.
An afternoonA real task that needs a slot in the diary.
Plan aheadCannot be retrofitted once demolition starts.
Set it up before demolition
Four things that have to exist before the sink is disconnected, not after. The whole difference between a manageable month and a miserable one is whether these were done the weekend before.
01
The temporary kitchen kit
Plan ahead
What to do
An induction plate, a microwave, an electric kettle, a toaster oven, one large dish tub, a drying rack, and paper plates you have decided in advance not to feel bad about. A slow cooker if you own one — it is the single most useful thing in a kitchenless month. Two extension cords rated for the load, not the thin ones from the junk drawer.
What everybody gets wrong
The extension cord will trip the breaker the microwave is already on. An induction plate and a microwave together are roughly 3,000 watts and a 15-amp household circuit gives you about 1,800. Put them on two different circuits, and find out which outlets are on which before demolition day, not during it.
When
Buy or borrow it two weeks out. Set it up and cook one real meal on it while you still have a kitchen.
02
Where the temporary kitchen goes
Quick
What to do
Dining room or basement, and it is a genuine trade-off rather than an obvious answer. The dining room is convenient, is on the same floor as everything else, and is directly on the other side of the containment. The basement is further from the dust and much further from you at 7am with a toddler.
What everybody gets wrong
Closer is more convenient and dustier — those are the same sentence. Most households pick the dining room and are right to; just do not pick it and then be surprised that the room next to the construction is the room that gets dusty.
When
Decide it on the first visit, with your builder, before the containment line is drawn.
03
The fridge — where it lands, and whether the door opens there
An afternoon
What to do
Pick the spot and then physically open the door in it. A hall, a back porch, the dining room. Check the circuit: a fridge wants its own, and sharing one with the microwave is how you find out the compressor kicks in at the wrong moment.
What everybody gets wrong
Two things nobody checks. First, whether the door still swings clear where you have put it — a fridge in a hallway with the door opening into a doorway is unusable. Second, whether it fits through the doorway at all on the way there, which is a different measurement from the one you took.
When
The day before demolition. Empty and defrost it first if it is moving far.
04
What to pack out, and the box that has to stay reachable
Plan ahead
What to do
Everything comes out of the kitchen — cabinets, drawers, the pantry, the tops of the cupboards. Box it, label the boxes by room not by cupboard, and put them somewhere that is not the route the crew walks.
What everybody gets wrong
This is the item everybody gets wrong. Pack one clearly labelled box of everyday things and keep it on top and open: a chopping board, one sharp knife, a wooden spoon, the tin opener, four of each plate and bowl and mug, the coffee thing, the kettle, the corkscrew, scissors, and the medication that lives in the kitchen. Everyone forgets the tin opener and the corkscrew, and everyone remembers at 8pm.
When
The weekend before demolition. It takes longer than you think — budget most of a day.
Living with it
Washing up, eating, and the fact that a Minneapolis kitchen remodel in January is a different proposition from the same kitchen in July.
05
Washing up without a sink
An afternoon
What to do
Three options and one is much better than the other two. Best: a basement laundry tub, with a drying rack beside it and a mat, because it is a sink at a sensible height with hot water. Next: the two-tub system — wash tub and rinse tub — on a table, emptied into the laundry tub or the toilet. Last: the bathtub, which is a sink you have to kneel at.
What everybody gets wrong
Do not pour anything with fat or food solids down a bathroom sink. It is a 1¼-inch trap on a line that has never seen grease and it will block, in the one room you still have. Scrape into the bin, pour water into the laundry tub or the toilet.
When
From the morning the sink is disconnected. Set it up the night before.
06
Meals, by week
Plan ahead
What to do
Week one you will be enthusiastic and cook properly on two burners. Weeks two and three, lean on the slow cooker, the toaster oven and one-pot food, and buy pre-chopped vegetables without guilt. Freeze four meals before demolition and forget you have them until you need them.
What everybody gets wrong
There is a week — usually the one where the countertop is at the fabricator and nothing visible is happening — when you should stop pretending and eat out or order in for five days straight. Budget for it in advance and it is a plan; do not, and it is a fortnight of resentment about a dining table covered in appliances.
When
Freeze the meals the week before. Book the giving-up week roughly at the countertop gap.
07
The seasonal question, which is not a small one here
Plan ahead
What to do
From roughly April to October the grill is a real second burner and a genuine part of the plan — it doubles your cooking capacity and gets the smell of dinner out of the house. From November to March it is not available, and neither is the porch, and the basement is cold enough that the washing-up gets a space heater.
What everybody gets wrong
A January start needs a different plan from a July start and most people do not think about it until week two. If you are booking a winter kitchen, plan for a slow cooker rather than a grill, a warm place for the dish tub, and one extra fortnight of patience, because the fabricator has weather in their delivery week too.
When
When you pick the start month, which is the point at which you can still change it.
The house, not just the kitchen
The parts of a kitchen remodel that happen everywhere except the kitchen — dust in the ducts, the front door standing open, the bathroom doing two jobs, and the shut-offs.
08
Dust: what will get dusty anyway
Quick
What to do
Containment and negative air are very good. They are not perfect, and any builder who tells you otherwise is selling. Take soft furnishings out of the room on the other side of the wall, or cover them. Close doors that do not need to be open. Tape the kitchen registers, and change the furnace filter when the job is done.
What everybody gets wrong
The forced-air ducts are the route nobody thinks about: dust gets pulled into an unsealed return in the work area and comes out of a bedroom vent upstairs. Sealing the kitchen registers and returns is a ten-minute job on day one and it is the difference between a dusty room and a dusty house.
When
Day one, before demolition. Filter change at the end.
09
Kids, pets and the front door
Quick
What to do
Tell the crew on day one what lives here and how old it is. Agree which door is the work door and which hours it is genuinely standing open — usually the first hour of the day and any delivery. Put a sign on the inside of it.
What everybody gets wrong
The plan for a cat is the one that needs to be explicit, because a cat with opinions and an open door is a bad afternoon for everyone. A closed room with a note on the handle, checked before anyone opens the front door, is the whole plan and it works. Dogs are usually easier and louder.
When
Day one, with the crew, out loud.
10
Shut-offs, and how long each one lasts
Quick
What to do
Ask for all of them in writing at the start. Kitchen water: off for the duration, which is the number on your schedule. Whole-house water: hours, not days, and always scheduled. Gas: hours, and only if the range is gas. Kitchen power: off from the day the electrician starts. Whole-house power: two short outages at the panel, minutes each.
What everybody gets wrong
The one to negotiate is whole-house water, because it is the one that affects the bathroom you are now relying on. Ask for it in the morning rather than the afternoon and ask for a day’s notice. Fill a jug the night before and nobody has a bad time.
When
Get the list at contract. Confirm each one the day before it happens.
11
Do not take appliance delivery early
Quick
What to do
Schedule appliance delivery for the week the cabinets are set, not the week you buy them. Ask the retailer to hold, and get the hold in writing with a date on it.
What everybody gets wrong
Two clocks start on delivery day and both of them are yours. The warranty clock starts, so a range delivered six weeks early is six weeks of warranty spent in a hallway. And the damage risk starts, because a boxed refrigerator in a corridor on a construction job is a refrigerator that gets scraped, and once you have signed for it the dent is your dent. There is also nowhere to put it, which you will discover at the moment it arrives.
When
When you order. Retailers will hold; they just will not offer.
12
Bathroom and laundry pressure
Quick
What to do
Expect the bathroom to be doing two jobs. It is the washing-up room, or the route to it, and it is still the bathroom. Move the dish drying rack out of it if you can. Nominate which bathroom the crew uses and put a runner to it.
What everybody gets wrong
One more household using one fewer room is the arithmetic, and it lands hardest in the morning. If there are teenagers, have the conversation about the morning order in week one rather than week four, because by week four it will not be a conversation.
When
Week one.
The end of it
When to be away, and why the final two per cent of a remodel takes three weeks. Both are predictable and both are usually a surprise.
13
The week to be away, if you can take one
Plan ahead
What to do
If you can only be away once, take it during demolition week — it is the loudest, dustiest and most disruptive five days of the whole job, and nothing about it needs a decision from you. Second best is the sanding days, which is two days of the finest dust the job produces.
What everybody gets wrong
The week people instinctively choose to be away is the countertop gap, because nothing is happening. That is the wrong week: nothing is happening, so nothing is bothering you, and you may be needed for a decision. Be there for the quiet fortnight and away for the loud week.
When
Book it as soon as you have a schedule, which is at contract.
14
The punch list, and why the last two per cent takes longest
An afternoon
What to do
Walk the room with your builder, in daylight, with a notepad, and write the list together. A drawer that catches, a caulk line, a switch plate, a piece of trim ordered in the wrong profile. Put a date on the list. Ask for the close-out folder: warranty documents, paint colours and codes, and the photographs of the open walls.
What everybody gets wrong
The last two per cent is a dozen small items each waiting on a different person — a cabinet part on order, a plumber for twenty minutes, an electrician for ten. That is why it takes three weeks instead of three days, and it is the single most common complaint about the end of a remodel. A dated list, written together, prevents almost all of it.
When
The day the final inspection passes.
If you only do six of these
Do the six marked plan ahead, and do them in this order: buy or borrow the
temporary kitchen kit and cook one real meal on it; decide where the temporary kitchen
goes, with your builder, before the containment line is drawn; pack the box of everyday
things and keep it reachable; freeze four meals; hold the appliance delivery to the week
the cabinets are set; and book your week away for the demolition week rather than the
quiet one. Everything else can be sorted out in the first few days. Those six cannot.
The temporary kitchen has to be working the day before the sink comes off, not
the day after. That single sentence is the difference between a month that is
an inconvenience and a month that is a grievance, and it is the one thing nobody plans
for because the kitchen is still there while they are planning.
This plan works with any remodeler.
Take it to whoever you hire. Ask them for the shut-off dates in writing, ask them where the containment line goes before they build it, and ask them what today’s countertop template-to-install turnaround is. If a builder will not answer those three, you have learned something useful for the price of asking. We would rather you got through your remodel well with somebody else than badly with us.
Questions about your own kitchen? Call
(612) 555-0173
or email hello@longfellowkitchen.example.
Durations and seasonal advice here are typical for occupied-home kitchen remodels in South
Minneapolis and are not a quotation. Lead times, fabrication turnarounds and inspection
cadences change; where it matters, we confirm with the supplier or the building department
rather than assume.