Life with no kitchen

[Flo]

Advice for being self sufficient on a building site would be welcome please.

It's the week or ten days when the kitchen is being totally replaced. All units are being demolished as I type (wreckers inc in business). There's the fuse box to move from one wall to another, a wall to be demolished, flooring, tiles, units to be replaced. Oh and the gas meter to move outside. Not to mention necessary plastering (there's a painted brick wall inside the passage out to the back door). And I think they may be doing the painting of plastering when it's dry. Of course the plastering can't be done till the wreckers and unwreckers have finished.

Sometimes there will be light, sometimes there will be power, sometimes there will be heating. Cooking will be intermittent. It's a long time since I've done camping. The advice is to keep easy to prepare food (sarnies) to hand. I fancy that the cooker and washing machine are decommissioned at present.

[Green Aura]

Up here we're prone to, fortunately occasional but, long duration power cuts. Funnily enough a lightening bolt took out the entire NW Highlands yesterday - we're currently being supplied by a generator. I dread to think what size that is, to supply an entire village!

Anyway, back to your topic, the most important thing for us is to be able to heat water - for drinks, washing up and having a quick wash. We have a couple of camping stoves and vacuum flasks, to keep any excess hot water. Will you still have a fridge? Otherwise using tinned condensed or evaporated milk keeps better (it might be a lot warmer where you are than up here ) and you can always try the plantpot/sand cooler if it's really warm.

Sandwiches are always an option, although fillings might be difficult without refrigeration. I forget, of course, that you're probably in easy reach of a shop, so could buy in daily if necessary. Soups are good, just some decent stock cubes and some veg will be good, with some bread, especially if the weather turns cooler. If you do have access a camping stove anything that can be cooked in one pan is good - when we had our week long power cut a few years back I even became quite adept at baking bread in an enamelled stewpot - but that might be a step too far.

One other thing that might be worth considering is joining up with your neighbours, if they're having similar works done. You could all do some sort of one pot dish and have a pot luck meal. Brings a bit of variety and camaraderie in what can be a real "pita" time.

[Flo]

Today has been a decent day. Power all day. No access to the kitchen up to mid afternoon but I can use the cooker for now even if it's parked in the middle of the kitchen. Sink very wobbly indeedy but washing up can be done. It's better than the minute hand basin in the bathroom which doesn't have the depth for a half decent mug.

Tomorrow morning electricians will descend upon the kitchen to move the fuse board and the gas man comes to call to move the gas meter. Then the remains of the wall will be moved. That will probably be it for the day. Thereafter I think the next crew will be the plasterers. When they have done there will be a hiatus while things dry. Probably there will be some ability to start putting in carcass for units or laying the floor if the screeding has been done in various corners. But it's rarely that there is going to be someone working all day. Except Saturday and Sunday.

The soups idea is good as there are plenty of vegetables about from the plot though where to chop is a good question. Guess who has no dining table So long as there are no problems with moving either the gas meter or the fuse board we should continue to have power as of lunch tomorrow. But who knows with these things. I shall do meter readings late tonight in case of disasters.

I've just been told the the fuse box is going in one of the soon to be installed new cupboard units. So the one that I gain from having the gas meter moved I shall lose to the fuse board. Not a gain.

Camping stove? Should have asked before the local family went off to work - one in Edinburgh and one on the road wherever the work takes him. Didn't think of that! Doh

[Flo]

Wonder how long the results of the lightening strike will take to mend?

[Green Aura]

According to the SSE website we're no longer on the "broken" list so maybe they already have! The candles etc are still out until I'm satisfied it's not going to happen again (this time round anyway).

If you've got a chopping board, you can use it on your knee. I don't spend much time in the kitchen when there's no heating or cooking to be done in there, so on the sofa it is.

[ina]

I had a new kitchen in last year - oh the stress... And that was without walls being demolished! The worst was no washing machine for over two weeks. I haven't had a fridge for over a decade now, so that's nothing new. They offered me a Baby Belling for the duration - but where to put that? So I had a lot of sandwiches and a couple of meals out. I cooked soup in advance for a few days and kept it at work - at least I had a home cooked meal at lunchtime. And I have a Kelly kettle for emergencies.

[Flo]

Yesterday was the real crunch day when the gas board man came to move the meter to its new site on an outer wall - well dug the hole to find the gas mains and fitted the box, the next gas man came to fit the meter into the new site and the social housing gas fitter came to pipe it back into the in house pipes. That took all day without heating and hot water. The gas board still have to come and move the spoil from the hole they dug in the path and make good the path.

Then in the afternoon the electricians came in to move the fuse board. Now they were good news despite cutting off the power for a period. The house wiring is such that the fuse board won't go in one of the new cupboards as planned but is over the back door just around the corner from where it was. That means that the cupboard freed up by the moving of the gas meter is still free for me to use. The electricians were nice blokes and left the cooker connected so I ate hot food last night.

[Green Aura]

It sounds like it's all well planned and carried out - these days that sounds very unusual.

Great news about the extra cupboard - plenty of room for fermenting/storing your harvest.

Just make sure you've got steps tall enough to reach the fuse box in case something trips!

[Flo]

Ah yes the fuse box. Do you think that I should get something bigger than the 3 step model? Probably. Today I went out to see the new allotment gate started off. Left two big blokes working hard. I'll check with it tomorrow after Chat club (hot tea and biscuits there at least and just round the corner).

[Green Aura]

Whatever you get, just make sure they're sturdy - and preferably with something to hold on to. Or maybe that's just me - I never deel particualrly steady even on my one step! I'd pretend it's come on with age but in truth I was never great with them.

[Flo]

Nor me either. Steps ain't my thing cos I have little stumpy feet with very short toes. It's been a standing joke all my life about my little toes. Mother said they ran out of plasticine before they finished making me. Buying shoes that fit has been the bane of my life. Any old how, the plasterers have been working. The far end walls are boarded up prior to skimming. As I thought when leaving this morning, the guy doing the plastering where tiles came off wasn't the sharpest tool in the box. I have seen far better done by amateurs. The leaky water pipe under the sink has been tightened up - I pointed out that they didn't want to come in to board up the floor next week to find it sodden. No doubt it will have to be checked again. Later.

[Weedo]

Fire, billy, camp oven, BBQ plate - what more do you need?

[Flo]

Weedo this is a social housing (provision for the poor) bungalow for older people in a line in a street on the way to the cemetery in a polite English village with one street in a conservation area going through the middle. The back garden is small and backs on to other family houses.

You'd cause a riot, get the fire brigade called out, the police would have a word about spoiling the neighbourhood environment ...



You know if we weren't three days and on to day 4 of the chaos it might almost be worth it with only another 5 to go it might be worth it.

[Flo]

have just been taught something new. The new fuse box has two trip switches not one. So you can lose half the house power and not the other half. Now I know that, no problem. No need to call out the emergency electrician from social housing again. Well for that anyway.

Trouble is that the cupboards are all in different places and different sizes so even with stuff in them, can't find a thing. It's going to be some time before I know what's what!

There's going to discussions had about the line up of the sockets. I'm sorry but a line of crooked sockets here and there does not come as a suitable finish. A spirit level would get dizzy.

[Green Aura]

a line of crooked sockets here and there does not come as a suitable finish

Oh dear, that would drive me crazy.

A few years ago we did some work and a friend put in a new double light switch, upside down! It drove me mad for years. We recently had an electric shower fitted by an electrician and I mentioned this switch, in passing. No problem, he said, it'll just take a jiffy, he said, as he unscrewed the plate and turned it 180 degrees. So now the switches work the right way up but they're the wrong way round (left switch controls right light and vice versa).

I'm not sure if I'm mad or everyone else is.