I thought I hated galley kitchens, but Mark Ruffalo's innovative layout turns a narrow space into a work of art

The idea of a 'galley kitchen' has historically struck fear into my heart. Like the name suggests, I had always imagined this narrow layout as part of dark, dated spaces, like in the hull of a ship.

Mark Ruffalo's narrow kitchen idea is the complete opposite of these perceptions. It is elegant, modern, and full of natural light. After spotting his space in an Instagram post, two rows of cabinets facing one another suddenly do not sound so bad.

So, how does the actor make a galley kitchen layout work so well that it completely changed my mind? First, he has positioned the kitchen directly in the center of two windows. We can see the light from the closer one on Mark and his cat's faces, and the view from the other in the background. This positioning ensures that while the space is small, it does not look too dark.

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Second, and most importantly in my opinion, he has selected elevated natural materials for his small kitchen layout. Some of my hangups around galley kitchens probably come from the fact that I have often seen them as laminate nightmares in shared apartments, where nothing has been updated since the early 90s.

On the contrary, Mark's choice of wood and marble with gold accents feels distinctly current. The natural grain of the wood flooring and cabinets adds texture and depth to the room, and the light gray fridge grounds the space, making it the best layout for a galley kitchen. Perhaps, the problem was never the galley layout itself, but the way it was done.

Finally, the actor uses 'invisible kitchen' style cabinets, which help the small layout to feel infinitely more spacious. This style rejects formal cabinet pulls for a flat, press-in mechanism that keeps pesky hardware out of the way in a narrow space. In Mark's kitchen, this decision has the effect of creating cohesion and making it feel especially elevated.

If you also came to this article as a hater of galley kitchens, was Mark's space enough to change your mind? Whether or not it has the world-view shifting effect it had on me, seeing new variations on old styles can help expand your vision of what is possible in the home.