Here is a picture of the kitchen from when we first saw it; this is still the previous owners’ stuff.
And here is the current floorplan:
You can clearly see that it’s straight out of 1983, including all the appliances. There’s a short list of things we like about this kitchen:
- the floor (not visible here): 12″ square quarry tiles, set on a diagonal. Durable, well-installed, attractive.
- spaciousness: the physical room is large, accommodating a lot of people. That’s important because, of course, everybody always winds up in the kitchen at parties.
- room for a table: Lis and I eat in the kitchen most nights.
- pantry storage: the adjacent bump-out contains an extremely useful pantry cabinet
Just about everything else here could use improvement. I won’t even go into aesthetics, just functional issues:
- insufficient working space: given the amount of counter in the room, you would not think that’s a problem. But the primary working space is between the sink & the stove, and it’s tiny.
- insufficient cabinet space: this room is somewhat bigger than our old kitchen, but we had to struggle to find a home for everything. We also have more stuff in offline storage (basement) than we did.
- cabinets: they are 1983 builder-grade. One tried to fall off the wall.
- fridge & sink: 25 years old. We’ve replaced the rest of the appliances, which I’ll describe in another post.
Now about that decor. This house is 120 years old. You would think there would be some hint of that in the kitchen (besides the far-from-level floor, I mean). But no, it’s crappy 80’s builder-grade modern. I think we can do much better.