Earlier this week marked one month since we got the keys to our new house. It also marks one month since we started our DIY home improvement project. The first DIY home improvement project that we’re tackling is our kitchen/powder room/great room (basically one giant area at the entrance of our house).

I can’t wait to share all about this process with you, and I’m kicking it off today with how we’re surviving life without a kitchen. This isn’t the first time we’ve been without a kitchen, although during our unexpected remodel we still had the use of our oven.

When we moved into this house, we picked one of the rooms off the living room to be a makeshift kitchen/pantry. Brad set up some shelves and folding tables to help organize the area, and so far it is working out pretty well.

This makeshift kitchen isn’t Pinterest-pretty, but it is functional and (somewhat) organized.

One set of shelves, along with the built-in desk have become our pantry. The shelves are actually about the same size as our pantry in the old house. And yes, sometimes I eat like a 5 year old with my guilty pleasure of Lucky Charms and Fruit by the Foot.

Along two of the walls we have a couple folding tables. One of these holds all of my small appliances (some of which are vital to cooking with no kitchen).

The other table has my dishes, glasses, storage containers, and also becomes the prep and drying table.

Fortunately, we do have a microwave so we can heat up our leftovers throughout the week. There was quite a bit of cold pizza eaten the first week and a half before we got a microwave.

My slow cooker and air fryer have been essential in making meals that don’t require an oven. I’m excited as we head into the warmer months as Brad has been able to grill for dinner.

We probably have a couple more months of this project so we have a quite a few more meals to be created in our makeshift kitchen. What is your favorite oven-free meal?