A couple of days ago, I mentioned these points about this kitchen:
- Why does the microwave have to be so high? If this “custom” home was made for a family, Jr. better be a basketball player, that’s all I’m saying….at least he can lift mom up to the microwave and the hood fan controls while he's at it.
- Look again at the pantry in the corner: Open the left freezer door on the refrigerator very, very carefully….one wild swing will either crack the glass on the pantry door or the handle on the pantry door will leave a lovely mark on the refrigerator. Also, I hope that pantry door has a door stop because those ovens look terrified. No, they really do.
- Standard receptacle outlet colors are white, almond, ivory, black and BROWN. WHY IS THERE A WHITE RECEPTACLE ON A DARK BROWN CABINET?!?! *twitches helplessly*
I also asked if you could spot the 2 other things I might change in this kitchen. One is design, one is color. Let’s tackle the color first:
Color: Most of you guessed the very white pantry door in the middle of that very dark room. You’re right; it would have looked much better to be another color or matching or anything but that bright, bright white. The glass would have provided the lightness (also as reader Aimee pointed out, the backsplash is contemporary. As I point out, the pantry door…isn’t.) Consistency in design could have been stronger. Instead, the door could have been something to compliment the splash.
Design: There is roughly 12” of counter between the gas cook top and the tall microwave cabinet. If you’re a right-handed cook, there is not enough counter or landing space for you to off-load a pot or plate something on the right counter. A pot diameter is 12”. (Edited to add: 0ops.Wrote this late. It should read 10" without handles.)
The reason I’m bringing this up rather than other items is that this could have been avoided so easily.
Here’s the first: why is the tall microwave cabinet so large? I’ll bet I know why: in semi-custom cabinets, standard cabinet widths run 30”, 33”, and 36” wide. In stock cabinets, 33” is usually missing, leaving only 30” and 36”. Perhaps this microwave with the trim kit made it too tight to use a 30” wide cabinet, we’ll never know, but there was plenty of room to use a 33” wide cabinet and it wasn’t used.
So why didn’t they change out a $ 200.00 microwave and eliminated the trim kit? Again, we’ll never know, but if they had, they could have used the 30” wide tall cabinet. That would have given that kitchen a useful 18” base and wall cabinet between the cook top and the tall cabinet – useful enough for almost everything.
As another option, why wasn’t the tall microwave cabinet eliminated entirely in favor of counter and extra wall cabinets? Who knows?
Right now, the only way to off-load the hot casserole from the ovens is to walk across the path between the refrigerator and sink to the island…and the only way to get a drink of water from the refrigerator is to get the glass and…wait. Where do we get a glass?
For a single or a couple, not so much a problem – this might not come up. A family with teenagers? It all depends on a) how often the ovens are used. And if they’re used a lot, the teenager is simply going to have to wait to get the glass when the oven door is open…especially if someone decided that it’d be a great idea to store the glasses in the pantry.
See? Isn’t kitchen design fun? *grin*

