apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Why am I O.K. with the kitchen sink being used as a bathroom sink, but not the bathroom sink being used as a kitchen sink? {sigh} Great write-up, but alas, I must say No Way! Sink, next to toilet, involving food...no.

For some reason, in a place this small, I can't seem to endorse it if laundry seems to hang out on all surfaces...

oh this brings back memories

yikes

This is the most interesting little essay on inspiration across the whole contest, so far. I'm, sorta, feeling it and I'd sit down and have a meal at his surfboard turn dinner table - sure!

My goodness. I've stayed in hotel rooms with more space and a better kitchen setup than this. Sad thing is - in LA, he's probably spending as much in rent on this tiny place as I do on my entire mortgage on a 3,000 sq ft house.

dude -- pass the bong!

Where's the love for Everett?!?
Me, I love the narrative. It's about the cooking, not about the kitchen.
YEAH EVERETT! I want you to win some wine!

yes it's uber tiny...there's just so much STUFF in there. too much, too much. but this is about the kitchen...for what you've got, you sure sound like you're cookin' up a storm in there! good for you!!

Yeah! I'm a fan of the narrative too.

That and the molasses as bookmark.

Mid-C -- duh, pass the brownies!

(I'm giving the love - not being sassy, btw.)

I did the kitchenless apartment for a while, relying on a similar cooktop and a smaller toaster oven--though I had a steamer/rice cooker instead of a rotisserie--and using the bathroom sink (luckily for us, the toilet was behind a second door). If you find the space for it, I recommend the steamer, by the way: I got so much more use out of it than I would have thought.

It was by no means cool, and totally constructed from salvaged elements on no money at all, but for comparison's sake you can have a peek here: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7056/1828/1600/STD_0432.jpg

What concerns me about your setup, though, is that I can't see any place for doing any prep work at all, everything's covered in stuff, almost to the point . Or do you use the surfboard for that?

Also, I think that if you had picked up the clothes the apartment would look a lot less "yikes" in these photos. And people in the kitchen contest seem much more lax about the 3-photo rule than the in the apartment contest: those commenters probably would have burned you for the multi-photo pic.

everett cooks with the spice of life. my guess is his fusion dishes are complex bordering on baroque

Desk -- brownies are cool!

I'm not saying it doesn't make me want to kill myself, but some mean tarts have come out of that place.

This is not the generic, normal-for-an-apartment-sized, DWR/IKEAed-to-death, modryn-ass kitchen contest. This is a contest for the SMALLEST, COOLEST kitchen. And that kitchen is f*&%ing small. Cool? The guy MADE a kitchen where there was no kitchen before. And obviously he uses it, unlike some of the other museum pieces in the running. Stuff everywhere? That's love. This kitchen has SOUL. Give the man some props.

This kitchen made me smile. I mean, seriously, that's a man with a food mission. Food near the loo gives me the jeebies, too, but you do need to be near a sink to get any cooking done. Is that a DeLonghi toaster oven?
If I was in grad school, and this guy invited me over for dinner, and I saw the kitchen he managed to pull together, the first word out of my mouth would be, "cool!".

looking at those photos made me anxious. get some storage!!

would have been better to see only the kitchen - the rest is a mess. space is not the issue here, style is.

This guy needs a magazine rack for all his issues!

While I'm not inspired by the space, the narrative is great. Maybe the the kitchen contest could be distinguished a bit more from the smallest coolest apartment contest by requesting more cooking-related components of the submission - describe your favorite meal to cook in the kitchen, at least one photo of a dish in progress, etc. Somewhere in between the recipe contest and the purely aesthetic contests....

Oh so conflicted........this is one part warm fuzzy, one part nostalgia, one part innovation, and one part pure passion.....all dumped into a cocktail shaker labeled "MESS!"

It is small.....maybe the smallest.

It is cool, which I almost didn't think so until I read the narrative. It's oh-so-borderline cool and not cool.

This is a Smallest Coolest contest, ja?

But it is not a Most Ridiculous Improvisational Kitchen contest. If that existed he's win it fo sho.

I admire his MacGyver spirit and real foodie passion, but I can't get past the mess. Its your living quarters being exposed to a bazillion people on the Net! Surely you aren't so stoned off of toaster oven tarts that you can't pick up a little for that!

Soooo conflicted................honorable mention, at least.

is that a quiche in the oven? a tart?

I think some of the people here have been missing the point: it's "coolest *smallest* kitchen." Not coolest small kitchen. If one were to graph the cool factor in relation to its size, I don't see how anyone could criticize what you've done. You've created a kitchen where one previously did not exisit.

From the contest page: criteria - aesthetics - beautiful, stylish spaces that inspire great cooking and great eating... organized, beautiful, working with the rest of the décor, hiding the ugly stuff and showing off the nicely designed bits.

Which is not to say that the submission and the discussion aren't appreciated, but graphing cool in relation to size is exactly the opposite of what the contest is all about. Kitchens aren't cooler simply because they're larger AND they're not cooler simply because they're smaller.

someone please define "kitchen" because i'm confused. this is a snack station outside the bathroom door.