Reasons why we hate our kitchen #9497392874

Before we decided to completely gut the kitchen and start over we decided to chronologue why the kitchen didn’t work for us (and most likely anyone). Here are the before pictures of the kitchen area and adjoining walls when we purchased the home:

Besides the dark hole in the center of the house, the first thing we noticed was that there was all of this light coming from the kitchen that was being blocked by that wall.

Here are the pictures of the kitchen as we lived for the last year and a half…sprinkled with our laundry list of complaints:

1. We NEVER USED the items on the top shelf.
2. Un-functional Storage – No accessible storage for towels, oven mitts, and napkins.. (hence junk piled onto open shelves next to sink)
3. Under Cabinet Radio – Cool idea, however this beauty and its plug took up the entire outlet rendering any capability of having a plug in there useless.
4. Double Sink – Each basin was too small for trying to clean pot, pans or cutting boards. We realized we prefer a single basin, and while we’re at it we’ll add a garbage disposal.
5. No Microwave – While Greg is anti-microwave to begin with, this wasn’t as issue, however we then rely heavily always used electric water kettle, so while we’re at it we’ll add a mini hot water tap.
6. Nonfunctional Storage – the stove blocked access to a full bottom cabinet, including upper cabinet, counter top, bottom cabinet and pull out drawer on the right hand side.
7. Cabinets – Being original the shelves are discintigrating daily leaving a nice layer of dust and particles over my clean pots & pans. {BOO}
8. Lack of Counter top – Once we stored all of the items that were unable to be stored elsewhere, we were left with little to no usable counter space.

1. AGAIN the nonfunctional cabinets – here is where you can actually see the <12 inches of space between the stove, cabinet upper, lower and counter top.. talk about crashes in the kitchen..
2. No hood for stove {not cool for a gas stove} Even a charcoal filter is better than nothing.
3. Poor  to non existent ceiling lighting.
4. No light switch accessible at the doorway near the dining room for when you’re leaving the kitchen.. (think walking to bed in the dark..)
5. Pantry has lots of wasted space. There is nonfunctional space between the shelves and the door, and the sqft of space the is unused between pantry opening and shelves.
6. More Wasted Space – We turned this into Guinness little area, however the heating vent was here, and is just  more waste of space usually.

1. Lighting
2. Clausterphobic doorway opening
3. The Fridge- huge barrier sticking out when walking into the kitchen from the side door. {BAM Hello fridge..}

While I could probably go on.. and on.. and on to end on a good note here are some examples of kitchen styling and function we love (or that I dream about)