why 'minus a kitchen'?

Our house originally had two kitchens.

Once was downstairs:

I'm not really sure that you can even call it a kitchen. It was a carpeted room with a sink and a fridge.

The other kitchen was on the upstairs balacony off the master bedroom:

Pancakes in bed anyone?

Even more interestingly, aside from running water, neither kitchen worked. Broken stoves, broken ovens. It all had to go in the bin. We were minus a kitchen.

Maybe there were a few families or even a few generations of one family living in the house at some stage.

(I should add that we are now PLUS a kitchen, well, a temporary one cleverly constructed by Theo.)