Kitchen Spotlight: Tara's Tiny Yet Powerful Rental

Tara's house tour made it look like she has tons of space. But her San Francisco apartment is a tiny rental that measures up at only 400 square feet. She has a classic rental kitchen, too: plywood cabinets, no natural light, and linoleum floors. And yet look at what she's been able to do in this rental...

• She took the doors off her cupboards, which is easy to do, and easy to undo later. Notice how she has white dishes in the cupboards and dishes that look like they match the cupboard paint on the shelves above.

• Simple, clean white dishware with complementary lines. This helps keep the open cupboard look clean and uncluttered.

• Julia, over the stove! And a good pot rack.

• We are proponents of an extra table or butcher block in the kitchen - they can help create so much more workspace. Tara has done that here, hiding appliances on the shelf below.

• Knives, books, fruit, and towels - all within easy reach.

Well done, Tara!

• See the whole house tour here: Tara's Tiny San Francisco Hodge-Podge at AT: San Francisco

Comments (7)

i think the open cupboards work SO well here, and the dishes make it happen. totally. i've seen this same kitchen get-up at any number of apartments, and you did a great job uniquifying it :)

posted by kdkaboom on March 19th 2008 at 7:45am
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I love the Amelie inspired paintings.

posted by bipolarbear on March 19th 2008 at 8:40am
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This is Tara! Thanks for the post/comments. Funny, but my kitchen looks different now--the doors have been covered in a wood grain paper (similar to bamboo) and the blue dishes and paper have been changed to white. I'll upload pics to flickr soon (it's my week 2 of the AT cure this year).
:)

posted by tara1979 on March 19th 2008 at 8:53am
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The painting of the dog wearing the Elizabethan collar is one of the awesomest pieces of art ever.

posted by TammyE on March 19th 2008 at 2:23pm
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Tara, I love those Amelie prints. Where did you get them?

posted by ipitythefoo on March 22nd 2008 at 5:31pm
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First off i want to say that most Apartment Therapy is making the leave a comment process so much more complicated by having this sign-up to comment crap.
i you want to create a better online community where people can easily leave comments you guys should allow anyone to comment without having an account. most ppl like myself surf the net at work and we look at many other sites and blogs i seriously feel agitated about loosing 10 minutes of my time to create, validate then have access to leave a comment. I'm guess thats why your website has very few comments and its not very interactive at all. you guys are basically having a one way communication with yourself!!!!

urrhhh...now that i got that off my chest :) I'm actually a really nice person. just wanted to say that i love reading you guys and i want to do a b4 and after of my closet kitchen here in paris - seriously i've never seen a tinnier kitchen.

so, yes love you guys - but talking to you and sharing with you could be so much more easy and community building oriented with the ease of leaving a comment.

xoxo

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