Frequently Regretted Kitchen Decisions

You will use it twice. The first time, you will be a culinary god and post a photo. The second time, six months later, you will spend ninety minutes assembling the eleven washable parts and produce four servings of bucatini that tastes exactly like the box of bucatini that costs $1.79. The extruder will then live on the top shelf above the fridge for the rest of its natural life, slowly accruing a fine layer of vaporized bacon fat.

Yes, that is exactly where it goes now. You meant to move it. You did not move it. It is a piece of furniture. You will use it once a week and it will occupy 18% of your usable countertop forever. Future archaeologists will categorize your kitchen as Early Air Fryer Period.

It will break in year three. The repair technician within driving distance retired in 2024. The replacement part is manufactured in a single town in northern Italy and is currently on a slow boat. You will buy a $19 stovetop moka pot to bridge the gap and discover that the moka pot is, in fact, better. The hole in your wall is now a $4,800 ornamental rectangle.

The screen does three things: tell you what is in the fridge (you can also open the fridge), play music (your phone does this), and show you a calendar (your phone also does this). It will receive a security update every eleven days for the rest of its life. One of those updates will brick the ice maker. You will be on hold with support while a frozen lasagna defrosts on your counter.

You will use it three times in the first two weeks. Each meal will be 47 minutes of active work, 4 hours of waiting, and one perfectly cooked chicken breast that your family will describe as "kind of weird, in a wet way." The circulator will then migrate to the back of a cabinet, where it will be discovered in 2031 during a move.

Marble is a porous calcium carbonate rock that was originally used for statues of people who did not cook. The first lemon you cut on it will leave a permanent etched ring shaped exactly like a lemon. Red wine, balsamic vinegar, tomato paste, and turmeric will each contribute their own commemorative stain. By year two, your countertop will read like the contents of a cookbook you cannot remember buying.

Only if you are willing to dust ceramic mugs as a personality. Every surface in a kitchen, by law of thermodynamics, accumulates a fine grease film within six weeks. On open shelves, this film is visible. On closed cabinets, it is invisible, which is psychologically equivalent to not existing. Open shelving turns a chore you could ignore into a chore you must perform on a schedule.

A pot filler is a faucet that fills a pot in the one place where you do not need to fill a pot, because the sink is six feet away and pots have handles. You will use it seven times in the first month and zero times after that. It will, however, develop a slow drip directly onto your most expensive burner, where it will hiss menacingly every time you turn the stove on.

Yes. The threshold is roughly the point where you can no longer reach the middle of the island without climbing onto the island. You will discover this the first time you try to wipe up a spilled glass of orange juice and find yourself lying on your stomach across a 12-foot quartz expanse, mop in hand, as your dog watches from the floor below.

Sage green was the trending color of the year in 2022. In 2023 it was warm terracotta. In 2024 it was muted navy. In 2026 it is something called "mushroom whisper." You can repaint cabinets every two years to stay current, or you can pick a color you actually like and accept that strangers on the internet will judge you. The strangers were going to judge you anyway. They are judging you right now.

Yes, with one exception. The trash pull-out should NOT be soft-close. You will be holding a fistful of dripping shrimp shells, attempting to slam the drawer with your hip, and the drawer will calmly refuse to slam. It will glide. It will whisper. The shrimp shells will hit your foot. You will reconsider every choice you have made since the showroom visit.

If you own a single pot larger than a Frisbee, you will love it. If you also own a partner who likes to wash dishes while you are still cooking, you will hate it. There is no third option. The sink is a referendum on your relationship.

Glass-front cabinets are a contract. You agree, in perpetuity, to arrange the contents of those cabinets as if a magazine photographer is about to arrive. The first time you stuff a half-empty box of Cheerios in there in a rush, you will see your own reflection in the glass and feel real, profound shame.