The problem with custom kitchens

During 2015 – 2016 I built and moved into my dream house. (You can read about this process here, here, and here.) My mother, my son and family, and I had been living in three different homes on the same property, which we sold and then moved out of town. Those houses would later be torn down to build two large apartment complexes. But as part of the sale agreement we were allowed to dismantle as much of the houses as we liked, so we took apart windows, doors, closets, cabinets, and more and repurposed them into my current home.

My house is truly a “patchwork” house. Seemingly mismatched windows and doors, and leftover cabinets from three different kitchens house all the goodies in my sewing studio/office. I will have to give you a tour of that space sometime. Today it’s about the current conundrum I had to deal with in my kitchen. You see, the architect who designed my kitchen measured all my appliances, and adapted the cabinets from what had been my mom’s kitchen to fit the new space. Here is her drawing and how the kitchen was set up: (note the brown narrow cabinet in the middle picture… a lovely pull-out spice cabinet that I absolutely love!)

As you can see, the appliances were meant to fit in exactly… and they did. What a pretty kitchen, right?

That is, until I started having trouble with the refrigerator. Time to replace it. And not so easily done. You see, the one I had was shorter than what is available now in the market. The only ones I could find were much too small. What to do? Well, one of the things about living in Ecuador is the talented artisans still willing and able to do skilled labor at an affordable price. So I called my carpenter and along with his young assistant they came to my assistance. I am always amazed at what they are able to do with only a handsaw, a hammer, and a screwdriver. After much hemming and hawing, we reached the conclusion that the only way to resolve the problem for my much taller refrigerator to fit in as to cut the top cabinet. They actually cut the cabinet while it still hung on the wall! 😂

And moved my lovely spice cabinet to the other side of my small pantry cabinet (turning it around to open up now in the opposite direction). The new refrigerator would certainly fit in now.

All that was left now was to touch up with paint and put everything away. My lovely granddaughter is visiting for a few days, and is a whiz at organizing, so went through all the contents of the spice cabinet, throwing out any old spices/condiments, leaving everything nice and neat.

Now isn’t this pretty?

The one and only refrigerator we found that could work in the space is now in place. However…. there are still issues that make this an eyesore for me. I guess at some point the white stove will also have to go (although I love it!) because the silver, white, silver of the appliances looks very odd to me. But an even bigger problem for me now is what to do with the space above the refrigerator. It looks so odd! Ideas anyone?