Odd German Way No. 2 - Pack Up Your Kitchen!

When we were looking for an apartment in Wiesbaden, we browsed the Immobilienscout web page. In the search criteria, one of the options is 'Einbauküche'. I had heard rumors about it, but now I really understood: Germans take the kitchens with them when they move house!

In most of the apartments, also those to be rented, there is nothing in the kitchen. Well, 'nothing' might be an overstatement, as there are electric wires and pipes coming out of the walls and floor and there might even be a row of tiles on the walls. But there are no cabinets, no sink and certainly no household appliances.

As we didn't have the time or the possibility to start building a kitchen, we had to check the 'Einbauküche' option in Immobilienscout. This really narrows down the possibilities of apartments, as only about 40% has the 'Einbauküche'. We were going to rent a place and fortunately found one, in which the previous tenant was willing to sell us her kitchen. So, we bought the Ikea kitchen cabinets and dishwasher from her with reasonable price and had to go shopping only for fridge and stove.

Just like the kitchen cabinets, the Germans take all other cabinets with them as well. So, in an empty apartment there are usually no cabinets in the hall or in the bedrooms either. Some even take the parquet from the floors with them...

I can see the point, that this way you can get exactly the type of kitchen and storage space you need. But I cannot understand, how this can work in practice. If you are moving, you most probably are changing to different kind of apartment. How can the old kitchen fit into the new one? I cannot believe, that the kitchens are so similar, than you can just easily fit the old cabinets with a bit of fine-tuning. And if your new kitchen is bigger than the old one, do you just go shopping for extra cabinets? Doesn't it look weird, if most of the cabinets are ten years old and on the corner there is one new and shiny?

The odd German ways...