Before you have the chance to cook for yourself on a daily basis, it can be hard to understand what makes a kitchen functional purely by looking at it.
So when my roommate and I were apartment hunting for the first time about a year ago, we were dazzled by the huge kitchen with white cabinets and marble counter tops.
There was even a dishwasher, a full stove, and a microwave. It was a big factor in our decision to sign the lease.
It wasn't until I moved in that I realized there were a few quirks with our "dream" kitchen, and I only discovered them once I actually started cooking.
There is only one drawer. Growing up in the suburbs, I figured all kitchens had multiple drawers. While I was aware the kitchen in my new, 800-square-foot apartment was much smaller than the kitchen I grew up with, I never thought to actually count the number of drawers in the kitchen. Now we use our single drawer for knives, and the silverware is stuck in a cabinet. It's not a huge deal, but definitely not something I thought of before signing the lease.
There is no kitchen window. "Who needs sunlight while cooking? It's dark when I get home from work anyway," I thought. Well, the first time you burn something, you're going to want that window.
The cabinets are too shallow. Upon first look, the kitchen had cabinets galore. But once it was time to move in, I realized the cabinets weren't very deep. It was a huge puzzle trying to get my pasta pot, salad spinner, and cutting boards to fit.
There's an entire wall of dead space. One wall of my kitchen is filled with the fridge, stove, dishwasher, and all of the cabinets. The other wall is just dead, unused space. This makes it very hard to have more than one person in the kitchen at once. It also really traps the heat in there when the oven is on.
Call it a rookie mistake. But next time I go hunting for an apartment, these are definitely things I'll look for before signing on the dotted line.
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