Room Reno #81: Vintage Kitchen

Welcome back to Room Reno #81 here at The Sims Resource! Today we’re helping a Sim who wants her boring apartment kitchen to be a vintage-styled space for all of her cooking and baking needs. Let’s meet the Sim we’re helping!

Meet Alissa!

Alissa is a Sim who loves a vintage, country aesthetic. She used to live in Henford upon Bagley before she moved to the big city of San Myshuno, and she really enjoyed the slow going vibes of country life. But she wanted to try out living in a city when she got a new job, so she uprooted her whole life and moved. It’s been a pretty big adjustment, but most things have slowly been coming together – except for the apartment.

In all the excitement and hectic parts of her new job, Alissa has barely had time to get her apartment in order outside of the absolute essentials (a bed, table and chair, dishes, et cetera). That means that the design of the apartment…leaves a lot to be desired. It’s not a studio, which means the kitchen and living area are separated from the bedroom, but the kitchen and living area are what’s been giving her the most pause. It can be really hard to customize and decorate a kitchen when you rent, but luckily for Alissa, this is The Sims, and so swapping out cabinets is just as easy as getting a new wall hanging (gosh, I wish it were that easy in real life!). Because of this, I can totally transform Alissa’s kitchen and dining area into the vintage-y area of her dreams without having to break out any cheats. Let’s see what we’re working with!

The Before

Wow! This room sure is… orange. I don’t have a lot to say. It’s just so orange. Sometimes I wonder about the way that some of these starter apartments have the most insane wall colors, but then I remember that real life cities have real apartments like that–and they’re probably charging a hefty fee for rent, meaning the tenants can’t change the insane wall colors! Maybe the San Myshuno apartments really are realistic – but they’re still affordable, so maybe not that realistic. Anyway! This room being yellow and orange absolutely has to go, so that’s one of the first changes that has to be made. In real life, you can sometimes negotiate with your landlords to repaint a space yourself if you use approved colors (this usually means white or beige). Just a little hack for anyone who wants to change their apartment without losing a security deposit!

The L shaped layout of the kitchen also has to change. While I like an L shaped kitchen well enough, I think it doesn’t take advantage of the space well enough, and with a small kitchen you want to be able to use what you have effectively. By swapping layouts, it means that I can fit more decor and counters into the area without having to expand into the living area (which is already pretty small on its own!). Let’s get planning.

The Planning

Alright! This is my new and improved kitchen layout for the apartment. Instead of an L shaped kitchen, I’m going to swap to a U-shaped layout, which I find to be a better use of space in most rooms that I renovate. Kitchens seem pretty simple to plan, but this one actually took me a bit longer than usual to figure out because I had to fit in an island so that Alissa would have somewhere to sit and eat. I wasn’t sure if I could try fitting one in the center of the kitchen, but after considering it I went back on that idea because the island was taking up too much space in the smaller kitchen, and the only island that would fit was a tiny little 1 tile island, and I thought it looked a little silly. If there were complete looking 1 tile islands in this game (like a one tile round island) I would totally use it! One day, maybe…

I ended up putting the island against the left wall and including it as part of the kitchen counters. If you’re new to Sims building this may be a new lesson for you, but counters and islands blend together mostly seamlessly in the game, and if you put them next to each other and they’re from the same set it should still look pretty cohesive when you’re done. Let’s get building!

The After

I say this every time, but I absolutely adore how this kitchen ended up! First of all, the wall tile pattern is one of my all time favorites. I love when tiling ends about halfway up the wall, much like regular subway tile or backsplash in lots of modern kitchen renovations. I went with an older, more traditional set of cabinets and counters to match with the traditional tiling on the walls. This carried over to the appliances as well. I love the vintage inspired fridge and oven, and I wish it were easier to find modern appliances with modern amenities that still have that cool vintage look to them.

I like that the upper cabinets on this set, which is from the Cottage Living expansion pack, match the teal tones in the countertops instead of matching exactly. The fabric covering of some of the cabinets is a very vintage look, but I think it plays nicely off of the more modern touches that I added in the end. These touches include the Picasso print over the stove as well as the other paintings and the metal face stand in the corner of the counters. This kitchen can easily be further customized for multiple Sims–you can add a second kitchen island next to the first one and bam! You have a dining area for two.

Thanks for checking out Room Reno #81! If you liked this blog, check out Room Reno #80: Tiny Bedroom or our Gilmore Girls inspired lookbook. Looking for something else? Read about all the best Vanilla Girl CC or check out our Gossip Girl inspired lookbook! Have a great day 😎