What a change! I can't believe how much you packed into that space- great planning- you did a great job hiding the utilities and using every inch. Congratulations! Did you custom build the shelf about the wine cubby/utility combo?

Small space, loaded with style! you did a great job. Everything looks so good.

Crisp and white like a perfectly ironed shirt. Love it.

What a great classic kitchen. Really nice job.

Love it! You made such good use of a small space. The laminate counter top was a great choice too - clean & not at all distracting. Hopefully the price of induction appliances will come down in the US - I would love to have that!

I love this kitchen!
Please share the different sizes of the handles.
In the Big Apple (NYC) trying to do Ikea cabinets.

Beautiful job! I love seeing European kitchens. Although it makes me feel we're so materialistic over here. I would have to throw away 3/4 of what I own to live there (and probably find out I didn't miss it!) :)

On another blog an American couple renovated a kitchen in Berlin open to the LR in a similar way, and their neighbors said they had "Americanized" it. Can I ask what your French neighbors think of your new kitchen?

Also, (I"m really nosy but we get so few Euro kitchens on here!) I tried to figure it out but I'm probably wrong...which door is the fridge???

Is this too weird or could you post a pic with the fridge door open? Even when I watch "Brit coms" on PBS I can't figure out how one copes with those dorm sized fridges.

Or if you don't want to that's okay. (I know I'm nuts.) :)

A little colloquial slang from Gatineau Quebec: C'est vraiment cute! Felicitation (don't type in French much at home so don't have the keyboard set up for the accents)!

What a fresh, functional, beautiful Ikea kitchen-- I love it! I love your floor tile, backsplash, shelf and cubbies, and how you placed the small cabinet by the door (great landing spot). The hood looks great. I too am curious about the fridge location and how you managed to panel it (if you did that). Enjoy!

Moi aussi je te dis félicitations! Un très bel espace.

Beautiful kitchen!! You did a lovely job of combining the best of "American" style with the best of "European" style. And you've proven that kitchens in French apartments don't have to be dinky little caves meant for no more than making tea. :)

C'est fantastique!

it is simply beautiful! I love it!

i 'spect the fridge is to the left of the oven?

i agree, as Americans we have way too much STUFF! i know i do. probably why i love seeing a simple,crisp looking kitchen!

Thanks for all the nice compliments!

Responses to questions follow:

scrappy25- Yes, the little shelf where the cereal, flour, rice and sugar canisters is was custom built. It had to be done like that because of the "fake cabinet" which hides the water heater behind those two doors. Our friend who installed the kitchen is amazing, he figured this all out and made that little ledge by the sink possible. Since the building is so old NOTHING is right angles, but I think he did a pretty good job concealing that fact.

gitananoel- The small handles are 24 cm (9.4 inches) , the bigger ones are 44cm (17.3 inches). The Lansa handles come in 5 sizes, we could have mixed them all up, but just chose the two most useful sizes for uniformity's sake. As you can see we use the dishwasher handle as a place to hang our dishtowels, so convenient. (I just looked online and I don't see these lengths available on the American website, there are still many different sizes, but not these, strange, unless I'm doing the conversion wrong or something.)

biochem101- When a kitchen is open to the living room it is literally called "une cuisine am�ricaine," and, since I'm American everyone thinks it is very appropriate for us to have a kitchen like this! Our friends and family seem to really like the fact that it's open, but, really, with our limited space and the way the room was already set up to be a kitchen/living room combo, we really had no choice, so, yes, therefore, I am a living stereotype!

We obviously don't have room for a real dining table, so we're going to get a table that serves as a coffee table and has a mechanism which allows us to unfold it to twice the coffee table size and to raise it so it can serve as a "real" table when we have guests.

Here is a picture with the fridge door open:

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It's really not that small! Everything fits: lots of bottles, leftovers, condiments. We live in town, so I can just get whatever I need on a daily or every-other-day basis.

morton5- As for paneling the fridge, I wasn't here when the guys did it, but you just buy the whole cabinet from Ikea, plop the fridge inside and the hardware that comes with the fridge and the Ikea cabinet means that it all lines up and is really like a built-in fridge. I asked my husband, he said it was really easy and can't remember if the special installation kit was sold with the cabinet or the fridge. The fridge is a special fridge made to be built into cabinets of this size, it was heinously ugly before getting paneled, and weirdly sits above ground inside the cabinet box. Here are a few pictures of the way the fridge is installed:

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I am very happy to answer any other questions regarding my kitchen or our "Ikea experience."

I love your kitchen. Clean and crisp describes it perfectly. Smart too. Are you posted over at IKEAFans?

onedogedie nailed it with "Crisp and white like a perfectly ironed shirt."

Very nicely done!

For those curious to know what 7000 Euros is in American dollars, it's about $9800 at present exchange rates. That's an incredible bargain for the kitchen you created, ponette.

Ponotte

Beau! Cuisine ! Magnifique! merveilleux !
If I remember correctly you and your DH were worried
about the Hospital look. You also had to search for Tile
in Europe as it is harder to find than in the US. I had
been so curious to know how you had been coming along.
I am thrilled to see it is amazing. You have a beautiful
french kitchen. I love the shelves beside the oven, the
elegant backsplash, the hood and especially how you
handled the window. Lovely sofit your DH must have built.
No pristine hospital. Instead you have a classy, fresh
crisp, functional kitchen in a wonderful French city.
Now a toast!
Félicitations.
~boxerpups
I love what you did with the backsplash.

Thanks for showing how that refrigerator is installed, Ponotte, very neat! It does look like it holds a lot, too. On my next trip to Europe I may have to slip into an appliance store just for fun, to check out the merchandise.

The fridge IS bigger than I thought. That's cool how it's constructed to go inside the cabinet right from the start. And I love the freezer drawers!

They could do that over here (as far as I'm concerned anyway) and 'skip' a finished outside. It SHOULD make a fridge less expensive. Then ALL cabinet makers could simply sell 'Fridge Cabinets' so everyone's was part of the woodwork. It's been mentioned countless times on here how ugly that appliance is, unless you get FD. AND the issue with black sides on SS doesn't make people happy. A Fridge Cabinet, and a fridge that sits up in it, is the perfect solution.

Thanks so much for sharing!

Bon Appetite! :)

I love how you packed so much into a small space. It's just brilliant! How nice to be able to shop in town everyday, if necessary. It's great how the outside is old and the inside is perfectly modern.

I lived in France a long time ago, majored in French literature and I'm still in love with Louis XIV chairs with escargot feet. I'll be doing a American version of "French country" that I call "California French."

It just goes to show you how small spaces can be an asset.

Felicitations!

Very nice - and I'm not just saying that because I have Adel White with Lansa pulls and a charcoal floor too, LOL!

In the living area, you could get an electrician to bring that cable cord inside the wall to the TV.

Gina W, Don't worry, that is just a temporary wire, once we get cable we won't have to have an antenna out the window! I should have unplugged it and made it all tidy for the picture! Anyway, I am finally posting the Ikea-generated plan for the kitchen, which I think looks pretty close to what we actually got. I'm no computer wiz, and I figured out how to do this, so it's pretty easy.

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Beautiful use of space. It looks so clean, crisp and functional. Congratulations on a job well done.

You have a nice expensive look done on a low budget! the floor and backsplash tiles, what brand are they?

What a great use of space.