The paragraph describing Matt Power’s bucolic vision of the kitchen and with your counterpoint describing the identical space as something completely different says it all. Kitchens can fit either description, both or one anywhere in between. The kitchen in my childhood home was a basic U-shape opening to a space occupied by a large dining table. It was small enough that one person could work it efficiently but large enough that you could have three or four people in there working together on a meal for a large gathering (an almost daily occurrence at our house where at the peak we were 9 sharing a 1500sqft bungalow with one bathroom and where one or more of us routinely dragged home a stray or two to join us for a meal). It, together with the attached dining space shared the role of gathering place with the living room. It served as the scene for so many of my most important memories of family and friends. We cooked and ate there. We played board and cars games on the table. We argued there, we celebrated, laughed, cried and mourned there. We watched the moon landing there on a miniature portable TV borrowed from a neighbour. It was never just Mom’s space. Certainly she did the bulk of the heavy lifting there early on but we all were pulled in to help as we grew up and became capable. Even when my Mom was the “chief cook and bottle washer”, because it had some space and was joined to the dining area, she was seldom alone there. I still view having that space to share with family and friends during my formative years as one of the great blessings of my life. On the contrary, the cramped galley kitchen of one of the early apartments I shared with my later to be wife was useless except for its very narrowly defined purpose and was only mediocre at serving that purpose. It isolated the cook (having multiple cooks was not an option in there). It was cramped and claustrophobic. Its unpleasantness bullied you into eating out or ordering food. It played no positive role in bringing the people sharing the apartment space together. There is no perfect kitchen but I would argue that one that serves its purpose as a food prep and storage space and is set up in a way to bring people together trumps one that is designed for narrow purpose almost always. If you can’t hear your TV show because of all the banging pots in the kitchen maybe turn off the “idiot box” for a bit and go join the person in the kitchen banging those pots and make a meal and memory together.
Our house is about 1650 square feet of conditioned space. It has an open kitchen/ dining/ living room of about 1000 square feet. We like the open space, but I guess not everyone does. On Christmas Eve, we'll have nine people for dinner. My wife will make most of the dinner, while everyone will crowd around the kitchen island, chatting with the cook and each other until we serve dinner at the dining table, which is in the center of the space. After dinner, we'll clear the table, piling the dishes on the kitchen counter while whoever wants coffee will make it. It's a bit messy, but after our guests leave, I'll clean up in just a few minutes. It's an efficient space.
We both cook, with each of us having certain dishes we like to make. Of the 21 meals in a week, we cook an average of at least 20.
From a use of resources point of view, our open plan has some advantages. We heat the entire space with a single mini split heat pump. Three separate rooms would require either separate heating appliances or ductwork. Three rooms would mean several partition walls requiring dozens of studs, a few hundred square feet of drywall, probably several doors. The living room end is on the south side of the house. It's nice to get sunlight in the entire space, especially this time of year when, because sun is low in the sky, we get sunlight penetrating all the way into the kitchen on the north wall. If we partitioned off the space, the kitchen would never get any sun.
Like a lot of people, I grew up in a house with a separate dining room. Like most dining rooms, it was almost never used.
An awful lot of people just don't cook. Having a separate kitchen isn't going to change that.
'It's nice to get sunlight in the entire space, especially this time of year when, because sun is low in the sky, we get sunlight penetrating all the way into the kitchen on the north wall'
We get that too, it's lovely but really shows the greasy marks on all the cupboard doors!
When we were remodeling the primary cook in our house requested an open kitchen to commune with dinner guests and grandchildren. If you eat you should not be offended by the dishes which inconveniently have gotten "dirty". Get a good exhaust hood connected to the outdoors and place it over your induction stove. Good nutrition is important for a healthy life. I can't imagine getting our food from a rat infested underground tunnel.
Well, I just wrote a great long comment full of lived experience and other reflections, took a phone call at the kitchen island, inadvertently posted it too soon then inadvertently cancelled and lost it. Proof that I am rubbish at multi-tasking, so sometimes I find the open kitchen where people can come and talk when one is trying to cook a mixed blessing. Generally it works for us but has its downsides.
But I wanted to say how much I enjoy these kitchen posts, with all the references and social history involved and the subsequent discussions and sharing of experience. Good stuff.
Are these opposing one size fits all solutions? We’”ll keep our open kitchen- family room, thank you, even for just the two of us. Whatever they build on this site afterwards they can do what they want.
I would posit then that if no one is building apartments anymore with a small, dedicated, separate kitchen, it’s because no one WANTS them.
Tastes change over time. Dedicated water closets, solely for the toilet, weren’t even a thing … until they were. Same goes for tub-free bathrooms that have only a shower stall. As family size and structure changes, so too do our homes. The market responds to demand, not vice versa.
Even when it’s been a buyer‘s market, buyers weren’t asking for those kinds of kitchens or features. Since developers have literally tens of thousands of different home styles in every size, shape, dimension, and amenity, they could respond quickly to changing market demand during those times. But they don’t, because the closed-off kitchen is a relic of the past—obsolete and unwanted, like dumb waiters and sunken living rooms covered in shag carpeting and a den.
Lloyd mentioned no one wanting to see a cluttered kitchen countertop full of dirty dishes, pots, and pans in an open kitchen design because presumably it “negatively affects one’s psychological function.” How much more adverse the hit to one’s psyche then if they have to recede into the equivalent of a small, artificially lit cavern of a kitchen with all those food encrusted dishes awaiting them—and which does NOT lend itself to welcoming additional helping hands to make quick work of the chore?
Which part of “Location, Location, Location” are you having trouble with?
Given limitations of Location, costs and time, studies have shown that most buyers rarely have more than a dozen properties to choose from.
Even with the new ones they will have no opportunity to affect the design so how many designs are available is irrelevant.
In the current housing market, it is builders/developers who choose the design of properties not the buyers. In the current market the buyers have no influence in the design of the properties beyond, they take and put up with whatever is available and are glad to have something.
“How much … small, artificially lit cavern of a kitchen with all those food encrusted dishes awaiting them—..chore?”
You have no idea what you are talking about, I suspect you have never seen one. As I mentioned above, I have lived for periods of years with properties with both styles of kitchens. The closed design was not small, had windows facing a view and was hence well lit and was far easier to use then the open design. At least 3 people could be easily in it at a time while having a far easier to use work area. Isolation of function was easier to achieve which made it again easier to use.
The paragraph describing Matt Power’s bucolic vision of the kitchen and with your counterpoint describing the identical space as something completely different says it all. Kitchens can fit either description, both or one anywhere in between. The kitchen in my childhood home was a basic U-shape opening to a space occupied by a large dining table. It was small enough that one person could work it efficiently but large enough that you could have three or four people in there working together on a meal for a large gathering (an almost daily occurrence at our house where at the peak we were 9 sharing a 1500sqft bungalow with one bathroom and where one or more of us routinely dragged home a stray or two to join us for a meal). It, together with the attached dining space shared the role of gathering place with the living room. It served as the scene for so many of my most important memories of family and friends. We cooked and ate there. We played board and cars games on the table. We argued there, we celebrated, laughed, cried and mourned there. We watched the moon landing there on a miniature portable TV borrowed from a neighbour. It was never just Mom’s space. Certainly she did the bulk of the heavy lifting there early on but we all were pulled in to help as we grew up and became capable. Even when my Mom was the “chief cook and bottle washer”, because it had some space and was joined to the dining area, she was seldom alone there. I still view having that space to share with family and friends during my formative years as one of the great blessings of my life. On the contrary, the cramped galley kitchen of one of the early apartments I shared with my later to be wife was useless except for its very narrowly defined purpose and was only mediocre at serving that purpose. It isolated the cook (having multiple cooks was not an option in there). It was cramped and claustrophobic. Its unpleasantness bullied you into eating out or ordering food. It played no positive role in bringing the people sharing the apartment space together. There is no perfect kitchen but I would argue that one that serves its purpose as a food prep and storage space and is set up in a way to bring people together trumps one that is designed for narrow purpose almost always. If you can’t hear your TV show because of all the banging pots in the kitchen maybe turn off the “idiot box” for a bit and go join the person in the kitchen banging those pots and make a meal and memory together.
Our house is about 1650 square feet of conditioned space. It has an open kitchen/ dining/ living room of about 1000 square feet. We like the open space, but I guess not everyone does. On Christmas Eve, we'll have nine people for dinner. My wife will make most of the dinner, while everyone will crowd around the kitchen island, chatting with the cook and each other until we serve dinner at the dining table, which is in the center of the space. After dinner, we'll clear the table, piling the dishes on the kitchen counter while whoever wants coffee will make it. It's a bit messy, but after our guests leave, I'll clean up in just a few minutes. It's an efficient space.
We both cook, with each of us having certain dishes we like to make. Of the 21 meals in a week, we cook an average of at least 20.
From a use of resources point of view, our open plan has some advantages. We heat the entire space with a single mini split heat pump. Three separate rooms would require either separate heating appliances or ductwork. Three rooms would mean several partition walls requiring dozens of studs, a few hundred square feet of drywall, probably several doors. The living room end is on the south side of the house. It's nice to get sunlight in the entire space, especially this time of year when, because sun is low in the sky, we get sunlight penetrating all the way into the kitchen on the north wall. If we partitioned off the space, the kitchen would never get any sun.
Like a lot of people, I grew up in a house with a separate dining room. Like most dining rooms, it was almost never used.
An awful lot of people just don't cook. Having a separate kitchen isn't going to change that.
'It's nice to get sunlight in the entire space, especially this time of year when, because sun is low in the sky, we get sunlight penetrating all the way into the kitchen on the north wall'
We get that too, it's lovely but really shows the greasy marks on all the cupboard doors!
When we were remodeling the primary cook in our house requested an open kitchen to commune with dinner guests and grandchildren. If you eat you should not be offended by the dishes which inconveniently have gotten "dirty". Get a good exhaust hood connected to the outdoors and place it over your induction stove. Good nutrition is important for a healthy life. I can't imagine getting our food from a rat infested underground tunnel.
I have had a modern house with an open kitchen and a Victorian house with a closed kitchen.
The closed one was much better. And I spent more time in it than Cathy did.
This was a fascinating read, thank you. Posts such as this keep me subscribing to your substack.
Well, I just wrote a great long comment full of lived experience and other reflections, took a phone call at the kitchen island, inadvertently posted it too soon then inadvertently cancelled and lost it. Proof that I am rubbish at multi-tasking, so sometimes I find the open kitchen where people can come and talk when one is trying to cook a mixed blessing. Generally it works for us but has its downsides.
But I wanted to say how much I enjoy these kitchen posts, with all the references and social history involved and the subsequent discussions and sharing of experience. Good stuff.
Are these opposing one size fits all solutions? We’”ll keep our open kitchen- family room, thank you, even for just the two of us. Whatever they build on this site afterwards they can do what they want.
My complaint is that people don’t have a choice; it is all open now everywhere, especially in apartments.
True
I would posit then that if no one is building apartments anymore with a small, dedicated, separate kitchen, it’s because no one WANTS them.
Tastes change over time. Dedicated water closets, solely for the toilet, weren’t even a thing … until they were. Same goes for tub-free bathrooms that have only a shower stall. As family size and structure changes, so too do our homes. The market responds to demand, not vice versa.
Most people have no say in the design of their homes. Their Homes are designed by developers to maximise profits.
Any real estate person will tell you the old truth that the three main factors in the sale of a property are Location, Location and Location.
After that is cost, then bedrooms, etc a very very long way down the list is
what the kitchen is like.
People chose homes that they can survive and hopefuly prosper in, they dont select by what they want - the select by what they can manage with.
This is bacause for a long time now selling homes has been a sellers market not a buyers market.
Even when it’s been a buyer‘s market, buyers weren’t asking for those kinds of kitchens or features. Since developers have literally tens of thousands of different home styles in every size, shape, dimension, and amenity, they could respond quickly to changing market demand during those times. But they don’t, because the closed-off kitchen is a relic of the past—obsolete and unwanted, like dumb waiters and sunken living rooms covered in shag carpeting and a den.
Lloyd mentioned no one wanting to see a cluttered kitchen countertop full of dirty dishes, pots, and pans in an open kitchen design because presumably it “negatively affects one’s psychological function.” How much more adverse the hit to one’s psyche then if they have to recede into the equivalent of a small, artificially lit cavern of a kitchen with all those food encrusted dishes awaiting them—and which does NOT lend itself to welcoming additional helping hands to make quick work of the chore?
Which part of “Location, Location, Location” are you having trouble with?
Given limitations of Location, costs and time, studies have shown that most buyers rarely have more than a dozen properties to choose from.
Even with the new ones they will have no opportunity to affect the design so how many designs are available is irrelevant.
In the current housing market, it is builders/developers who choose the design of properties not the buyers. In the current market the buyers have no influence in the design of the properties beyond, they take and put up with whatever is available and are glad to have something.
“How much … small, artificially lit cavern of a kitchen with all those food encrusted dishes awaiting them—..chore?”
You have no idea what you are talking about, I suspect you have never seen one. As I mentioned above, I have lived for periods of years with properties with both styles of kitchens. The closed design was not small, had windows facing a view and was hence well lit and was far easier to use then the open design. At least 3 people could be easily in it at a time while having a far easier to use work area. Isolation of function was easier to achieve which made it again easier to use.