Itty Bitty Kitchen Before and After

Remember how I showed you a quick tour of my itty bitty apartment kitchen when I had the counters replaced last month? While going through some old photos this week I came across the original pictures of the kitchen from when I looked at renting it back in Jaunary 2008.

 This is what it looked like when I arrived. There was a butchers block in front of the oven so that you could only use the stove top and the fridge took up 50% of the space. They had a little book shelf under the existing cupboard on the right, and you could see all their canned goods. He was a bachelor who confessed that he didn’t do much cooking, so this space was mostly for reheating food and serving up beers.

 This is what it looks like now. I moved the fridge over into the side that I use as a living room and I replaced it with a little stand for my toaster oven. Under the cupboards on the right, I added a rolling cart for extra counter space, as well as to conceal all my canned goods. The one thing that I will hand to tenants before me is the IKEA pot rack and hanging baskets behind the stove. These have been a lifesaver for storage. I liked them so much that I bought the matching spice rack and installed it on the cupboard (more on that coming soon!)

 Just to show you how much the fridge took up the kitchen, look at how it covered the only window in this room. This is already a fairly dark room, so I can imagine how much darker it was before.

Here is how it looks now days, with the fridge moved and a chair placed there for visitors to sit while I cook away. Just to the left of that radiator is my old kitchen table that now doubles as a work surface in my little home office.

I think that when you really look at it, the layout of the apartment really boils down to what your main uses are. I like to cook and entertain, so for me I needed as open of a kitchen as I could get, with a nice sitting area for visitors. If I wasn’t into cooking so much, maybe I would have preferred not having the fridge be party in the living room area and I would have closed up the kitchen more. One thing I’ve learned while living here is what my likes and dislikes are for a kitchen and I’m sure that when I eventually move to another place I’ll be taking that into consideration.