This Japanese House: The Kitchen

It's about damn time, yo. I'm closing in on two years here and I finally, FINALLY have the kitchen to a point that it doesn't make me break down into a sobbing wreck.

Okay, I'm exaggerating slightly. But it did give me all the sads for a long time. Then I thought get over your badself because fuck it, this is Japan. This is a rental house in Japan. This is a far cry from my white marble dream kitchen that, let's face it, isn't ever going to happen for most of us way down here in the 99%.

Time to give THIS kitchen some love! With all its imperfections. No more drippy in-depth complaining about how I don't have an oven, garbage disposal, or dishwasher, or about the ugly faucet, or the harsh overhead fluorescent light I never ever turn on, or about the redundant, awkward sliding door to the bathroom right next to the refrigerator, or that the 5'10" back door is sized for midgets Japanese people and we couldn't figure out how to open it for three months, or the confusing little fish broiler drawer beneath the stovetop in which I always burn toast, or the beige fake marble plastic wall panels, or the counters that are almost 4" shorter than standard western counter height, or the totally wack storage space ... in the floor.

Nope. Not talking about those things beyond listing them just now. Check. I also won't start in on the pathetic longing for my other kitchens, 1 & 2.

Instead I'll point out the very affordable cute little white perfectly-sized fridge from Muji.

And the über cool black hood ...

... over the adorable yet hardworking 3-burner gas stovetop.

And the amazingly low-maintenance stainless steel countertop that I LOVE.

Hey-o, check out my fancy Sori Yanagi kettle I picked up for half the price I'd pay outside of Japan.

Oh how I prefer kitchen drawers over cabinets. See how I covered those drawers with removable chalkboard wallpaper because they're pink.

Here are the shelves I built for about $40 and mounted on the sliding doorframe to the bathroom. (there's a normal door to the bathroom from the hallway, too)

Oh yeah, and not to mention just the whole charming wabi-sabi Japanness of it all. Gotta say I'm pret-ty stoked I'm not too mortified to post photos of this kitchen out on the scary Internets. Trying to keep it real by focusing on and appreciating what's good and accepting what I cannot change. Just like that dumb quote tells us – you know, the one hipsters tattoo on their midriffs.

So what do you think? Does my bizarro kitchen or house change any perceptions you may have had about living in Japan? (see more house here, here & here)

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My Denver Bungalow

Let me start by saying I ADORE THIS HOUSE.

Almost four years ago I determined it was time to sell our Denver square (only ten blocks down the road from this house) because it was too big and fussy not really our deal. We'd renovated as much of it as we could afford, and because the neighborhood is stupid-popular now, it sold in three days. Huzzah!

Enter the bungalow.

Hold up, rewind. I live in Japan now and I'm renting out this house for the duration. Ideally I will live in it again someday and pick up where I left off with renovations. The sooner the better.

Anyway. This little bungalow. It just felt right. From the minute I walked in. It's small, about 1200 square feet, and it has character. Nothing mind-blowing, just subtle and comfortable and happy and it didn't stretch the budget. Crazy, right?

Stuff I wanted and got with this house:

+ solid 1920s build
+ small, compact space
+ dated kitchen I could renovate
+ dirtscaped backyard I could landscape
+ two-car garage
+ great hilltop location (with no 24-hour hipster yoga studio in my alley!)
+ major remodel potential – plans below

Stuff I didn't even know I wanted but got with this house:

+ insane rental income
+ a garden shed!
+ new roof (replaced as part of the sale)
+ good neighbors who aren't all up in my face and don't have shouty children

Stuff I wanted but didn't get with this house:

+ an entry of some kind
+ normal sized bedrooms
+ established trees/shade

Still, I had work to do. My husband had taken a job in Beijing but I wasn't about to go live there – are you kidding? I can't even drink the water in China without developing intestinal mayhem. I visited him, that was all the China I could handle. I wanted to fixate on the house anyway and then on the Vail studio loft and it all worked out perfectly. I took a boatload of mostly low quality iPhone photos while I was doing the work and since I can't multitask for shit, I'm going to write about it now just for posterity, and very much after the fact. I hope there's no rule against that in the blogger bible I have no intention of ever reading.

ANYWAY. Off the bat I refinished the original floors from that standard golden oak to a dark grayish-brown. I painted all the interior things white, of course.

Next up we planned a low-maintenance, low-water back yard with a landscape architect friend. The house being so small, I wanted to add serious livable outdoor space back there. It went from all dirt to all this:

Not everything went so well. The house had pathetic water pressure, which turned out to be very costly to repair and required digging up the entire front yard. And half the street. THEN the kickass new water pressure made the old water heater explode and flood the basement.

But I don't want to talk about that.

Eventually I got back to the fun stuff, namely the kitchen overhaul. I overshared about that here.

Someday I'll decide on that backsplash. Maybe.

A note about the spartan state of the house in these photos: These are the shots I use to advertise it as a rental. They work.

Here's the rest of the house. Not much to it!

The small awkward bedroom off the living area with a door to the bathroom.

Tiny Ikea bathroom renovated not-so-well by the previous owner. But it's cute and it works for now. (You're welcome for not taking a photo of the bathroom with the toilet seat up. I hate that! But probably because I'm mental.)

Small bedroom/office off the kitchen at the back of the house, overlooking the back yard. Yes, that's a $40 tanker desk and my ONLY killer craigslist find. Sorry but I'm not one of those bloggers.

A small part of the basement was also refinished by the previous owner. Again, it works for now.

I GOT PLANS! Of course I have plans. Because I need to obsess over stuff constantly.

+ vault ceilings in the living area, add skylights
+ install small, stand-alone Scandinavian woodburning stove
+ partially enclose porch with nano windows to create quasi-entry
+ utilize the back half of the attic for a sleeping loft/bedroom
+ renovate the existing bathroom
+ excavate basement and create a real laundry room, full bathroom, TV area, and bedroom
+ replace fence, update garage, plant more trees

You know, nothing much. And by the time I get all of that done, it'll be time to renovate the kitchen again.

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I Have This Thing With Kitchens

When I stalk a house or apartment online or in print, I quickly flip through to get to the kitchen. It makes zero sense because I don't really cook. No, that's why I keep my spouse around, as my personal chef and manservant of course. Yeah, so I can't explain the kitchen obsession. I guess because I like food.

Anyway, I've completed several kitchen overhauls (like, say, this one) and today I present my 1920s bungalow kitchen renovation in Denver, the house I shortly thereafter rented out to someone else while I took off to live in Japan. Tragic, no? (Yes.)

Everyone loves a kitchen re-do. Here's how it looked when I bought the house – we all know the sweet-ass vintage '80s/'90s look.

That hurts my eyes. Could have been worse but you know I was dying to get my hands on it. After a lot of obsessing and a yearlong shitstorm of squirreling away every cool design I came across onto my kitchen board, I ended up with a very basic, affordable style with plenty of flexibility for personalization.

Here's how it all went down.

First, I emptied the old cabinets and made a temporary kitchen in the adjoining office complete with cereal, s+p, coffee press (in the bathroom sink for this picture), mini crock pot (unused), electric kettle, toaster, some other things I can't remember now, and microwave in the closet. This is all I need in a kitchen to survive anyway, so it wasn't a difficult adjustment. Luckily the refrigerator stayed in place and the renovation happened around it.

The crew removed the old cabinets in about 37 minutes. Amazing. If only the rest of the job had gone like that.

And off it went.

The new cabinets took weeks and weeks because the Ikea installation company assigned to my project had only one guy to spare. Fortunately he was a meticulous installer with an insane work ethic (14 hour days?) but I felt bad for him and helped out more than I ever thought possible. But hey, I learned a lot. Like, say, that I never want to install cabinets on my own.

Gradually the room started taking shape. I didn't change the layout much, which kept the project manageable and relatively short-lived.

And one day, the stove wasn't in the middle of the dining room anymore.

Then the counter went in ...

... and the sink.

Crazy amounts of stupid little decisions go into kitchen renovations, most of which I'm now suppressing. Fortunately.

At this point I started painting the walls and reluctantly began to contemplate backsplash ideas. Such a commitment! I've never been good at commitment.

Things were progressing quickly toward the end and I still hadn't decided.

The boxers weren't helping, they looked liked this through the entire ordeal.

Then one day it was done.

Just a simple, classic design with a little modernity thrown at it. Removing upper cabinets made the room feel bigger and open. I took the remaining upper cabinets way up to the ceiling so there's no shortage of space for all the cooking things. (We have a lot.) I keep the microwave in the un-pictured hall closet, microwaves are ugly and mess with my spartan vibe. This is why I built an under-counter microwave shelf in my studio kitchen.

Something missing? Ha-haa! No backsplash. But for once I was happy about my perpetual state of indecision because I started liking the minimal look I had going. I went back and forth ad nauseam on plain subway tile or marble slab or marble subway tile or hex marble tile but for now I really like the simple, clean, no-noise look. I used good paint so food splatter comes right off and I can touch it up if needed.

I considered painting that back plaster wall a dark color like (whaaat) black or streaky grey. Backsplash possibilities are endless, clearly a real problem for me. Suggestions welcome. But for now the best answer really was the simplest, and in this case the cheapest. I'm calling it Occam's Anna's razor.

Sorry about the shit photos, I mostly used my old iPhone due to laziness. The entire project took 8 weeks from start to finish, not including the faucet that was backordered for months.

And there you have it, my sweet little kitchen in Denver that I'm not even currently using.

The goods: Ikea cabinets and sink, Bosch appliances, quartz counters with matte finish (because concrete is significantly more expensive and curing would have taken too long and I have no patience), Vigo faucet, barn wood shelves on Ikea brackets, and the clamp light is from Amazon, also comes in white.

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