Kitchen Cabinets Made By A Toddler

If you've ever looked at more than a couple rental apartments within a... particular... price range, you've learned to overlook certain cosmetic downsides. There's a fine line; crack in the shower tile? Fine. Exposed electrical? Less so. I have no shame admitting that when I first saw this apartment, the kitchen struck me as an absolute nightmare. It looked like someone had thrown a pizza pocket at the fridge, the stove was covered in grime, even the wall paint was such a putrid colour of beige that it looked like it had been cooked on itself. But the biggest horror was the kitchen cabinets.

I hadn't noticed it in the viewings; the only thing I saw was an ajar drawer. I never saw the scope of this: 

The ajar drawer turned out to be a drawer with the facing too big to fit under the counter. There were 3 collectively different handles, some of which weren't even positioned parallel to each other. Then there were the screws and nails in the boards under the sink; different sizes, random placing, painted over (and eventually turned out most of them weren't even nailed into anything). As someone who can't even assemble IKEA furniture on the first try, I still believe I could have done better. I would easily believe it if my landlord said he'd hired his 6-year-old nephew to make these.

Like I said, handy Dad, so he came in for a few days to help fix up some of the apartment. Removed many of the screws, made the doors able to stay closed, filled in the screws, and fixed the drawer; turns out the facing was put on upside-down, so they're not completely stupid, just very, very dim.

Removed the knobs (discarded the knobs) as well as that one rogue handle. I figured out that the reason some knobs were crooked was because the cabinets used to all have handles and when they took them out, obviously boy-genius forgot to put use all the same holes. So, dim.

New knobs (6 Satta knobs for $1.50 at IKEA!), a coat of paint (to cover the yellow chips showing through), and some latches on the doors and we're in business! (also a quick preview of the new kitchen colour).

This apartment seems to so far be a case of lots of small things that are easily fixed. You'll see.