That's easy then.... My current kitchen - a temp kitchen about to start on its 7th month. Although the foil-and-painter's-tape backsplash I recently added behind my "stove" (hotplate) has made it much nicer.

2nd place... The one I ripped out in January - fridge in the middle of the room; nasty blue carpet on the floor; neon yellow laminate and matching metal blinds; cabinets with fixed shelves that wouldn't accept a bottle or jar over 9 inches tall; closet from adjacent room taking up a whole corner.

Zero electrical outlets, stove hooked up to an extension cord, lighting so bad I had to cook by a shop light, holes in the ceiling and walls, no ventilation. (Okay, so that second set is my own fault, but it was like that for so long I'm okay with complaining about it.)

We just demolished our summer cabin that had a kitchen that was 8' x 8' with a full size refrigerator, dishwasher, stove, sink and microwave jammed into that space. I could not open the upper cabinet doors more than 1/3 of the way before they hit the bulkhead running through the room. The ceiling height in that room was 6'4". Cramped doesn't begin to describe it! We are now rebuilding on the same site.

My brother had a NYC apartment where you couldn't open the oven door more than 3 inches because of the duct pipe in front of it.

Hands down, the kitchen we ripped out 11 months ago that we'd had for 15 years!

Thinking back to all the places DH and I have lived in our 30 years of marriage, all had decent kitchens. By far the smallest was in our mobile home, but it was functional.

The original kitchen in this house was not particularly functional for us. Oh, it had "the work triangle", but beyond that, it was not well planned. The peninsula made it non-functional - if you needed to walk into the work area and someone was unloading the dishwasher, you had to wait or close the DW. When we gutted, they had to tear out the peninsula first, because the appliances were pretty well held captive. Getting the new fridge in, 12 years before, meant the old one had to go up and over the peninsula and the new one went in the same way. Yeah, a PITA!

Our range was about the last one to go in the neighborhood. Two of the burners had stopped working, but I was fortunate that it was the elements themselves that burned out, so I could replace them. The light only came on when it felt like it, the clock and timer had long stopped working, and of the two ovens, the top one had caught fire. When it came to gut the kitchen, it also had to wait to leave until the peninsula was out.

The second worst kitchen I had was in a rental, the house before this one. Old cabinets that were falling apart, a stove that was horrendous looking (burn marks and scratches), and a big "mural" on the wall in the dining area, plus ugly counter tops. But at least it was servicable for the most part. We had to bring in our own refrigerator.

DonnaR/CA

Here is a link that might be useful: Donna's kitchen

My first kitchen had no appliances. We used the window sill for a refrigerator and cooked on a hot plate. My husband and I had married while we were still in college.

Well, I've only really known one kitchen, and that's in the house I'm in now. My parents bought this house in 1978, when I was 5, and at the time, it was considered quite large and it was many steps above the house we had when I was a baby...LOADS of counter space, my mom says...much bigger and better appliances as well.

Asides from the wallpaper and woeful amounts of counter space, the kitchen didn't really bother me much until I really started to cook a lot...my parents entertained a lot when I was younger and it never seemed like a problem, I even cooked for 30 for a surprise party and it was fine.

I'll let the pictures do the talking. And hey, check out that work triangle! :-)

(oh, and yeah, the new kitchen is pretty darn awesome in comparison, though the KA/Hobart DW was awesome in it's own right)

My old kitchen had:
-- every single appliance broken in some fashion: leaky DW, leaky faucet, garbage disposal just sheared off one day, cooktop that took 2 minutes to ignite with gas smell the whole time, only 2 burners working on cooktop, dead MW, zombie undead fridge
-- tiles falling off backsplash, burn marks and dents on linoleum
-- and a tarantula the size of a dinner plate living under the fridge. (Okay, it wasn't living there very long.)

I was doing some work in Hawaii and staying in some donated housing. It was a narrow galley with a gailvanized washtub for a sink with a cold only garden spickett for the faucet. The counters were covered in sheet metal. There was a two burner hotplate on the counter with a toasteroven. You could open the frig about 3/4 of the way, and the wood plank floor had a hole from someone stepping through it from the termites. It was an experiance.

Bluekit - you must tell us more about that tarantula.

Wow, it's actually possible that people have worse kitchens than me??? I'm *so* sorry to hear that!!

My current kitchen *is* really bad. Beyond being tiny (roughly 7x10), it's never been updated since its inception in 1948. (Uh, not quite true - I did get a new fridge at one point.)

Sink: Enormous cast iron double sink that I only use half of - I covered the other half to hold a dish drainer since I have no dishwasher. (The covered half is cavernously big - I think it was intended for laundry.)

Stove: 36" wide gas range where the burners are all shoved to one side as though it were a 24". Pilot light that goes out all the time. You light the oven by turning on the gas, and then waving a lighted match in the broiler drawer underneath - I'm always afraid I'm going to either asphixiate before the flame catches OR blow up the building. Maybe both.

Cabinets: White, painted over so many times the doors don't close. And so few of them! One cabinet over the fridge that I can't use because I have the microwave on top of the fridge. One over the sink. A metal sink base so warped, the doors won't open. A broom closet. And one set of 48" wide/17" deep upper/lower cabinets with a counter on top. That is my only counterspace, btw.

Counter: Old white speckled formica with chrome edge. Happily, not much of it. (See cabinets.)

Floor: Some old white-ish vinyl tile that you can't make look clean no matter what you do. Completely unlevel. My contractor cracked up when he saw my floor - said it's the worst he's ever seen.

Oh, and the doorway - there used to be a door there, but someone before me removed the door but left the doorframe and one hinge.

Man, I can't wait to rip this whole thing out!!!!

In college I shared a small studio with another person. Our "kitchen" was a little alcove with a small microwave, a bathroom-sized sink, a plug0in electric burner and a dorm-sized fridge.

Our current "temp" kitchen (we're past the six-month mark) has a microwave, toaster oven and a rice cooker. Our fridge is operational but only opens half-way. I've got just enough flat space for a cutting board. Sink is the laundry tub. When we're not being assaulted by gale-force winds (very common where I live) or inclement weather, I have a small table outside where I can do some prep. We also have a gas grill I use almost every day.

By far, my current kitchen. It's actually quite similar to Inersisian's pictures except my home office is in the area taken up by the table and I don't have the 2 little cabinets by the door. I have about 2 sq. ft of counterspace to work on. The rest is taken up by the microwave and dishrack. I can only use 2 burners on the stove because the other space is used to hold the electric teapot and coffee machine. The walls are covered in ugly wallpaper and the floor has brown tile. We're buying an apt with a similarly hideous kitchen as well and will be gut renovating it.

My worst kitchen was in our first home: 45 years old, 3 ft. of countertop, 1 electrical outlet (on the opposite wall), few cabinets, no dishwasher, sink too far from prep area, worn materials, failing appliances. Funny thing is, I didn't realize it was a bad kitchen! It was our first home, which we loved, and we were having babies at the time which brought us a lot of joy. The home was an Art Moderne fixer upper with an overgrown garden. We brought that home back to a high polish, though we didn't do anything to the kitchen. Now I can't believe the meals we cooked for crowds for all the entertaining we did. I guess not ever having a functional kitchen before, I didn't realize what I was missing.

DH got transferred suddenly, and we left that happy home for a new one that had a 35 year old kitchen -- a little worn, broken appliances, but the layout & storage was architect-designed. After some paint & new appliances, that kitchen was *amazing*.

Inersesion, your kitchen is looking very "groovy", not unlike the '70's kitchen I just renovated!

By far the worst kitchen I had was in an apartment I rented in the 80's - it was a square of about 5' x 7', just enough counterspace for a dishrack (necessary, b/c there was no d/w and no room to put one), small 20" wide stove, small fridge. Needless to say, I did not do much cooking there.

the kitchen i removed two years ago

it had metal cabinet base for the sink that was only storage, range was in it but no other working appliances, fridge was in the pantry as was all the rest of the limited storage for food, cookware and dishes, glasses, etc, 5 doors, 2 windows, had stick on tiles on luan subfloor which was nailed over original 1904 linoleum which was stuck to hard wood floors with something akin to tar, only counter space was provided by old non working General Motors hot water heater that was in a metal cabinet that looked sort of like a washer with door

If i think about it more i could add to it but it makes my hair hurt thinking we lived with this for 12 years before we renovated it

i'd post pics but think my wife burned them all

It's so much fun to read everyone's posts. The more I read, the more I remember about that first kitchen. No dishwasher, the fridge that wouldn't open all the way and was only sortof cold. A gallon of milk would only last 4 or 5 days before it was a block of cheese(we learned to just buy qts) Who knew that I'm living in a palace now? LOL. Can't let DH see that last bit or he'll wonder why we have a gazillion boxes of cabinets sitting in our great room.

Awm03, it's funny because I too don't remember hating it. I was 19 and it was my first place.

Thanks everyone for the trip down memory lane.

Easy- my first apartment was over a Chinese restaurant (rent 92.50 a month). The floor was linoleum not glued down and when I washed it the first time zillions of cockroaches came scrambling out. They fumigated and I decorated that apartment real cute but I could never actually sleep there after that. It was kind of a pied-a -terre I guess.

HA! That's easy. The first house I ever owned. When we moved in......
CARPET floors that had a "hardwood" pattern on them. They were FILTHY. Because we had zero money left after purchasing our first house, we had to live with it for awhile. After we had it cleaned, believe it or not, we actually liked having carpet on the floor! LOL. Talk about low maintenance. Vacuuming took all of about 3 minutes. BUT, it was still the worst.. cosmetically speaking.

It also had a portable dishwasher. Ever try moving a dishwasher to the sink over carpet? You get the picture.
Anyhoo... that was our worst kitchen.

LOL -- my 5'x7" kitchen in my old apartment sounds like the height of luxury compared to one with cockroaches and a live in tarantula!