A Glass of Water at Midnight
Your kitchen is coming out. You have already done the math on how many nights of takeout that is.
But where do you make coffee, and where does a kid get cereal before school?
In this post, you will learn what our Tempki temporary kitchen is and what comes in it, how we keep the rest of your Edmonds house livable while the work happens, and what gets settled before demolition day.
Where Will You Cook During a Kitchen Remodel?
You cook in a temporary kitchen set up elsewhere in your home.
Ours is called the Tempki: four stock cabinets on casters with a molded countertop, power strips, a toaster oven, an Insta-pot, a coffee maker, and a microwave, plus utensils, towels, and cutlery.
It is ready to use the day demolition finishes, so counter space and small appliances never disappear.
At Home Run Design + Remodel, we own it, we bring it, and we set it up before your kitchen comes apart.
What a Tempki Temporary Kitchen Is, and What Comes with It
The Tempki is a working kitchen we own and move into your house, part of a set of loaners we call our ShortStop Solution Service.
The idea is simple.
There is no reason counter space, cabinets, and small appliances have to be completely eliminated during a remodel, and yet in most kitchen projects they are, because they get boxed up and put into storage on day one.
What Is in the Tempki
Four stock cabinets, fitted with casters so they roll.
That matters more than it sounds, since a temporary kitchen has to move out of the way of a delivery.
Our carpenter added a molded countertop and enough power strips to actually run things.
Then the appliances: a toaster oven, an Instant Pot, a coffee maker, and a microwave.
Basic cooking utensils, towels, and cutlery go in as well, because your own are in a box.
Any combination of the four cabinets gets reconfigured for the next house, which is why we can keep offering it.
How We Customize It to Your Household
We ask what you actually cook, then fill it accordingly.
One family wanted a panini maker, so we made that happen.
Another was cooked on induction pans, so we sourced a dual-induction portable cooktop for them.
The kit is a starting point rather than a fixed package, and the appliances that matter to your household are the ones worth having on the counter while the real kitchen is being built.
How We Keep Your Home Livable and the Job Site Clean During Construction
Two things run in parallel: we protect the parts of your house we walk through, and we contain the parts we tear apart.
Both are written, and neither is a broom at the end of the day.
Site Protection and Dust Containment
Travel paths get protected before demolition starts, not after.
Carpet gets covered with CarpetShield, and hard surfaces with RamBoard, and those protections stay in place for the whole project and are replaced as they wear out.
We erect temporary dust- and debris-containment walls as needed, and they come down at the end of each day.
Drywall is the messy one.
Drywall dust travels, and if it is not contained, it coats the rooms next door, so we seal the work area off completely and do a top-down clean before we walk out.
You get a dust-containment and site-protection protocol tailored to your house, not a standard one.
Plans for pets and kids are part of that, and so is the staging of materials and tools.
Daily Cleanup and Crew Conduct
Our crews follow a written daily cleanup procedure, which is one of the twenty-five questions we tell prospects to ask every company they talk to.
There is also a written policy on how our people behave in your house.
Uniforms and appearance, no swearing, no loud or offensive music, no controversial talk radio, no tobacco on the job.
Every new employee goes through a pre-employment background check before they ever hold a key to your door.
We run zero tolerance on drugs and alcohol, and we’ve never had to enforce it.
What We Prepare You for Before Demo Day
A pre-job conference, scheduled before your start date, where we confirm the things that would otherwise become questions at 7am on demolition day.
We go through all material and color selections, the site protection and dust control measures that will be in place, where the plumbing shutoffs and the electrical panel are, where materials and tools get staged, and how we get in: parking, the daily schedule, the keybox or garage code, or alarm code.
Then we hand you the Prepping for Your Remodel packet with suggestions and resources for the weeks ahead.
When it comes to your job, empty the cabinets, move personal belongings and furniture out of the work area, and take things off the walls and shelves in the rooms next door, because demolition carries vibration through a house.
We also pass along our dust letters to your neighbors, since the noise and the extra trucks affect them as well.
And we sort out where the honey bucket goes, because some Bothell streets care about that more than others.
None of this is glamorous.
All of it is the difference between a remodel you can live through and one you cannot.
Why Planning the Disruption Is Part of Our Design-Build Process
Because the construction schedule comes from the design phase, the number of weeks you will spend without a kitchen is known before anyone starts.
Our Design and Development phase produces a succinct construction schedule built for minimal downtime, and you get access to it.
You can look at it and see what is happening in your kitchen in week three.
Plan your work travel around drywall week if you want to.
The Tempki comes out of the same thinking.
A temporary kitchen is only useful if somebody decided where it goes and what goes in it while the plan was still on paper, which makes it a design decision rather than a scramble on demo morning.
Internally, our team meets weekly for each active job to track how the schedule compares to where it should be.
When something moves, you hear about it.
How to Keep Daily Life Running Through a Kitchen Remodel
Whether you hire a company or us in Lynnwood, most of what makes a kitchen remodel livable gets decided before demolition.
Ask about all of it early, while it is still cheap to change.
- Ask what the contractor provides for a temporary kitchen, and whether they own it or expect you to arrange one.
- Get the construction schedule in writing so you know which weeks are loud, dusty, or waterless.
- Settle work hours, parking, and how the crew gets in before day one, not on day one.
- Find out what protects your floors and how dust gets contained between the work area and the rest of the house.
- Ask when the dumpster arrives and how long it stays.
- Decide where the contents of your kitchen will go, and whether onsite storage is available.
- Make a plan for pets and small kids, in writing.
- If you are leaving the house, ask whether the company has a discounted rate at a local hotel.
Demolition is typically one day.
The rest of it is weeks, and weeks are what you actually have to live through.
Every one of the questions above can be answered before you sign, and a company that cannot answer them has not thought about your Tuesday.
Keep Making Coffee. Start Your Kitchen With Home Run Design + Remodel
The short version is that you do not have to give up cooking to get the kitchen you want, and the part that makes that true gets decided before demolition rather than after.
Ask any company what they hand you and what they protect, and get the answer in writing. Fill out our contact form or give us a call today. We are happy to talk through what your week would look like.
