Zatera Ul

Here, finally, is Part II.

Some defects of the kitchen I’ve had to live with:

1. Refrigerator door opening the wrong way. I’ve had this problem in three different apartments. The worst was in a narrow “dead-end” style kitchen (blank wall at the end), with the refrigerator next to the wall, and opening toward the wall. I had to mash myself against the wall every time I opened the fridge, because there wasn’t enough room to get around the door when it was open. For the other two, it was just annoying to have to walk to the far side of the fridge every time.

Luckily, many refrigerators have reversible door hardware, so you can swap the handles and hinges and make it open the other way. I’ve done that twice now, and it was well worth it.

2. Virtually no counter or cupboard space. A very common problem, in houses as well as apartments. I’ve built a set of tall shelves, with a shelf at counter height projecting out for a work space. It’s worked pretty well for us. MFH likes the open shelves because he can see all our food at once; if things aren’t in plain sight, he forgets that they exist. I’ve reconfigured it a little for our current kitchen, by taking off one section of shelves and making it stand alone.

3. Inaccessible shelves. Here I am thinking of my first apartment, where the countertop ran along the end wall, and against one end of this counter was the stove. There were shelves under that end of the counter, a very deep space, but it was virtually impossible to get anything out of the back of it.

4. Poor sink placement. One apartment had the sink set too far back from the edge of the counter. That meant leaning forward more while I washed dishes; a little hard on the back. Also, the wide edge in front of the sink had a definite slope away from the sink, so any water that splashed there ran straight toward me. Very irksome.

5. Too many doors. Our current kitchen has four doors coming into it; it is a hallway as much as it is a kitchen. Luckily it is not too narrow. The oven door does open right into the line of traffic, though.

6. Gaps between the stove and counter. These spaces just accumulate all sorts of crud.

5. No windows; other poor lighting. This was the case in our last apartment; the kitchen always seemed dark. We have a clip-on light at our sink, so I can see what I’m washing.

6. Carpet. For me, this is bad, because I do too much dripping, dropping, and spilling in the kitchen. Also I didn’t have a vacuum at the time, only a carpet sweeper (which actually worked pretty well).