Make Shift Kitchen for a Month

We needed to consider a make shift kitchen that can last over a month. I brought boxes from work and started to empty out every article food or otherwise from the kitchen.

For cooking, I pulled out all available items: rice cooker, slow cooker, hot electric griddle & pan, pressure cooker, microwave, toaster and best of all an old fashion coal grill.

When we emptied out the cabinets, Tom engineered a wonderful box shelves for non perishables.

I love this spice shelf Tom created for me. I think I might like this better than what is to come in our new kitchen. Without opening anything, at one glance you can see anything and everything you can possibly need for cooking.

Goshen house

We moved to Goshen after living in Chicago for over 30 years. My history in Chicago goes longer than that. In 1983 we bought a beautiful house in Chicago that I wanted to stay into my old age. I saw the house turning even more elegant as we fixed one room at a time. This is where my 4 children grew up. This is where we had Thanksgiving feast for over twenty years that included Kim's side and Neill's side. This is where my grown nieces and nephews and my children remember the growing up years, running, playing, and having so much fun.

My oldest daughter Henna, when she was little asked us to never sell this Chicago house because she wanted it. We put that house on sale in 2006 just as housing market started to crash. We agonized over the housing market's cruel treatment for five years. Ultimately my daughter Henna and her husband Andrija bought our Chicago house in 2011.

In 2006 we moved to Goshen. We bought an old home that had a lot of "potential" but never captured my heart. After 5 years in Goshen, after finally selling our Chicago home,we are starting to renovate.

The house was built in 1860 (or around that time). The first time I walked into the house I thought, this house can be beautiful. Every room seemed to cry "fix me."






I knew the kitchen would be our first project. It had large space but seemed to be so ill designed that the large room was not very practical.

This space you see is where the refrigerator was. When I stood in front of the sink, my behind would be against the refrigerator. We never used the cabinets against the wall because we could not open the door and take things in and out.


This space had the washer and drier underneath the cabinets.









A closet on the second floor was turned into a cozy laundry room so the space above could be freed up for kitchen use.