This I know is true: As a writer I tend to lean on absurd hyperbole to make a point. So when I claim in a headline that I’d drag my 150-pound stainless-steel-and-bamboo kitchen island down from my three story walk-up were my apartment to be engulfed in flames, you could maybe call that a lie.
But beneath that untruth is a more earnest truth-truth, which is that I’ve developed a deep appreciation for the Rimforsa kitchen island I got from Ikea, and I think it might be the greatest piece of furniture I own.
The magic of the Rimforsa kitchen island (or “work bench” if you’re butch) is that, space permitting, it can transform a crappy kitchen. If you, like me, inhabit a mediocre rental unit with cooking aspirations that yearn for vast slabs of Verde Alpi serpentine and custom Plain English cabinetry, the addition of 47×26 inches of countertop and several tiers is liberating.
Its soft-close drawers serve as a home for my flatware and miscellaneous kitchen utensils—of which there are many, and the two tiers of shelving below increased the available storage space I have for baking dishes, pie pans, skillets, prep bowls, appliances et al. While open storage is not for everybody, I prefer it, because the alternative—clanking around with stacks of pans in the deep recesses of a cabinet—makes me want to run down the street and scream at strangers.
It also comes with a set of hooks for hanging various things off the sides of the island, which I use for my more showy copper pan and cast-iron skillet.
But all of these features play supporting roles to the vast bamboo countertop. I could list all the particular kitchen tasks for which I rely on it, but that would require me listing every single thing I’ve ever cooked in my home.
If you think about it, a kitchen is only as great as its available counter space. You could have an AGA range and five billion copper pots to piss in, but without a decent amount of work surface, what you can cook and how you can cook will be constrained. Clever people make do, but you can only improvise extra counter space by way of a dinner table, coffee table, or cutting board between your legs on the floor, before increasing self-awareness of your quirky lifestyle actually being a series of small indignities starts to set in.
