Bad kitchen design

[spinbaby]

I've been looking at a lot of pictures of kitchens lately because I'd love to upgrade mine. I can't believe how many very decorative but totally impractical things I'm seeing. A chandelier? Really? How about that cute herb garden--did you really think you could grow mint on a windowsill? And just how long is that comfy upholstered chair going to stay clean? Why doesn't that island cooktop have a vent fan? Is it because you only use your stovetop to hold up decorative bowls of fruit?

I'm convinced that most people don't cook.

[kentauros]

1. They also think that a kitchen should look like it belongs

in Architectural Digest, or Dwell. They either have no idea what the phrase "function over form" means, or have dismissed it entirely, because aesthetics is simply more important.

[spinbaby]

3. Sometimes it gets preposterous

Some of the kitchens have enough columns and carvings that they begin to resemble Roman baths.

[Warpy]

15. The ones that amuse the hell out of me

are the ones that have the stove inside a deep arch with columns on either side. Anybody who tries to do bacon and eggs (at the very least) is going to find the flaw in that design the first time they try. Can you imagine the grease running down the interior of that arch? Nowhere to set hot pots and pans next to the stove? No prep area next to the stove?

What the hell are those people smoking?

[spinbaby]

17. I've seen those

People who have kitchens like that presumably have someone else steam clean the things. Or maybe they just never cook.

[cbayer]

2. Funny.

I once designed my own kitchen and it was the best kitchen I have ever worked in.

I now have a particularly tiny kitchen, but it provides everything I really need.

I agree with most of what you say except the herb garden. If I had a window in a kitchen that would accommodate an herb garden, I would definitely include it.

Just returned from Italy where they have a design feature in most every kitchen that is brilliant, imo.

[spinbaby]

4. You can grow some herbs on a windowsill

Chives, for instance. And I regularly overwinter rosemary indoors. What I'm taking about are the cutsie displays where you have teeny sprigs of herbs planted in a row of decorative containers labelled with quaint little labels. Usually these displays feature herbs that don't work indoors or that need much larger containers to work well.

Where does one get a dish rack like that? I'm thinking of a pot rack over the sink.

[cbayer]

5. I know what you mean about those decorative containers.

I have purchased them at several points, and they never work out.

I'm not sure where you might find the dish rack, but I highly recommend it. It is usually behind cabinet doors and it drains directly into the sink. It saves a lot of counter space and is really practical.

I like pot racks, too, and having one that would drain your pots into the sink would be good, but it would require putting them at a tricky angle, wouldn't it?

[spinbaby]

6. Hanging pot rack

The kind where you hang pot with "S" hooks. I saw one at Lowes that has a light.

[spinbaby]

7. Goodness

I meant "pots," not "pot."

[cbayer]

9. Well, you could probably hand pot there, too.

[cbayer]

8. You would still have to dry them before you put them up, right?

Otherwise they would have residual water that wouldn't drain.

I had my pot rack right over my cooktop in my wonderful kitchen. It was really convenient there.

[spinbaby]

10. I suppose so

It's more about being hand to use.

[cbayer]

11. Then I would consider having them over or near the stove top, because that is where you are likely

to use them, no?

I will be land based in a few years, I think, and when I design my kitchen I am going to find or have someone construct the over the sink drainer. It looks like the IKEA Italy site has them, so maybe they could be order through IKEA.

Anyway, would love to hear updates on your kitchen design. If you haven't looked at it, IKEA does have some fun ideas.

[spinbaby]

12. My sink is next to the stovetop

Also, it's the only place to fit a pot rack, so it works out. I've looked at IKEA, but my son has one of their kitchens and he's not happy with its quality.

[cbayer]

13. I agree about IKEA quality and would probably just use them for ideas.

[TygrBright]

18. Not only that, but if you cook with gas, and the windowsill is too close to the stove...

...a good many of the herbs will die from exposure to both the drying stove heat and the intermittent gas exposure.

amusedly,
Bright

[Liberal Jesus Freak]

16. Yes!!!

Had that cupboard when I lived in Italy. When my husband and I were first married some years later, he built one using my description (pre-internet days). Loved it and hope to have another someday. Brilliant concept. I've also grown herbs in my kitchen window when the light was right

[cbayer]

27. That is so cool that you actually had one.

When we moved into the house in Italy, I was flummoxed as to what to do with the dishes that I washed. Then I discovered the cabinet and was delighted.

It is indeed brilliant and I will definitely have one when I design my own little house one day.

[TygrBright]

19. Nice! But I would miss looking out the window while doing tasks at the sink. n/t

[Bibliovore]

21. Perhaps on the side of a cabinet next to a window over the sink?

I'm also not an IKEA fan, but they do have some short wall-mount racks. If your over-sink window is flanked by cabinets, you could hang one or more on the side of one cabinet, mostly preserving a view:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/kitchen/20676/
I'm told this one even folds up when not in use:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20213835/

[TygrBright]

25. That's actually a cool solution. Some of those Ikea racks are small enough to fit! n/t

[The empressof all]

43. I have an Ikea kitchen and use a lot of those rails

And I have plants growing in pots hanging from them under a recessed grow light bulb and so far they are doing quite well. I spend a great deal of time in the kitchen and enjoy that it is both efficient and pretty. I took out a few upper cabinets to give the small area with low ceilings a little more space. I found that using drawers for pots and having a large bakers rack for the "nice" platters and baking dishes works well for me. I decreased the amount of excess cups and drinking glasses and now just keep one upper cabinet for those. Everything else gets stored in drawers including plates and bowls. There are only two of us and its working well.

[spinbaby]

26. High ceiling

I think we could have the rack high enough not to obstruct the view.

[cbayer]

28. I read that that is one of the reasons that you don't see them in the US.

Most US kitchens have a window over the sink.

Honestly, I would much rather have a dish rack.

[Retrograde]

29. Same here: I like the window over the sink

so I can watch the scrub jays teach their young how to raid my garden

[Warpy]

14. There's a huge difference between a working kitchen

and a magazine kitchen, that's for sure!

I look at most of those gleaming monstrosities with great amusement: everything dark and gloomy, no place to work but plenty of area to serve drinks as long as nobody needs to use a blender, open plans that would have dinner guests staring at all the dirty pots and pans and mess while they try to eat steps away, poor task lighting ensuring the hostess has paper towels wrapped around her fingers to stanch the blood.

I just wonder what the next fad in counter tops will be after people move into houses with dulled and stained granite. Maybe they'll go back to linoleum because it's so cheap to replace when they're over the color.

(Yes, linoleum. Lots of funky apartments in bad areas in Boston had it up to about the 80s)

[kentauros]

20. I don't know about linoleum for countertops,

but it is now considered a good environmentally-conscious flooring to use. My brother and SIL put some down in their house, for their kitchen, and some other areas. It's modern in design, but pretty durable and easy to maintain.

This story on TreeHugger is about green materials in the kitchen. They're all links, so you'll have to go looking (except for the one on countertops, which is no longer active to the original site, so I linked another from TreeHugger.)

Here's a more recent story on greening a kitchen.

[Bibliovore]

22. I remember linoleum counters. Designers who think tiles are good counter surfaces confuse me, too.

I mean, really? Tile? With lots of little grouted grooves for crumbs and drips to fall into, and an uneven surface that bowls and cutting boards and small appliances can't sit flat on? Really?

[Warpy]

23. I never had to cope with tile counters, thank goodness

but if push came to shove in the stupid granite fad, I'd put in 12x2 black granite tiles with ultra thin black grout lines. You'd have to wipe the flour out of them with a damp rag but at least the coffee stains wouldn't show. Or the dye stains from dyeing fiber.

Linoleum wasn't bad when it was reasonably fresh, something that I never experienced. Even the old, grimy, mushy stuff wasn't that bad--at least it provided a smooth surface for writing the grocery list.

I still think the best of the lot has been Formica. The worst is polished concrete, something that has to be sealed with plastic, putting you back at Formica but heavier and a bear to uninstall.

[Freddie]

36. I hate my open kitchen!

Not enough to move, but still. I hate having an audience when I'm cooking for guests and because my kitchen is open to the family room it ends up being "kitchen theater"...ugh. Plus the dishes in the sink.

[Warpy]

37. Yeah, no shit! I'm glad I'm not the only one.

When I bought this house, that was the one thing I looked at, the fact that I could close the kitchen off. I ended up putting a folding door in place so I could close off the mess (and keep the cats out when I'd waxed the floor).

Open plans are meant to fool the eye, making a small and poky starter house feel palatial. They're great for people who don't really cook, providing a surface accessible to the whole living area where the supermarket cold cut platter can be parked and drinks mixed. I've lived in 2 places that were open plan and dinners involved cooking most of it before guests arrived and parking pans full of messy stuff in the bathroom, hidden behind the shower curtain.

Staring at a sink piled high was not an option.

[Freddie]

39. I do the same thing

Company or big holiday meals (which I love to do) I tend to get the messy stuff done & cleaned up before guests come as I don't want them watching, and they love to hang out at the kitchen table and do just that. My previous house had a small kitchen with a door, I miss it. The "open" thing was the rage when we bought this house as new construction in 1998. I don't like the cathedral ceiling in the family room either, feels like watching TV in an airplane hangar. Do houses built now have the same features?

[pinto]

24. I've always like the "triangle" idea.

Reefer/unrefrigerated veggies/canned goods/spices - prep space - stove. I have it set up here, of sorts. Geared to a right handed cook - supplies on the left, prep counter to the right, stove to the right again.

Doesn't always fit the bill of fare but it comes close.

[cbayer]

31. Me, too, but I never included a part for reefer.

[bif]

30. Growing up, we had a carpeted kitchen.

Bad idea. Almost as bad as a tiled floor. Pretty unforgiving.

[MrMickeysMom]

32. That made me laugh!

We needed a "new kitchen" with home renovation (4 months, long story, plumbing downstairs took a lot of the budget). However, I laughed my ass off when looking at similar pix. What I have at the end of this renovation is better use of a modest space. I don't exactly have huge counters, but they are placed strategically in that "triangle" they say you need between work. I also have proper lighting fixtures (probably too much for this space), and smaller dishwasher to make the space work.

Since beginning to use the new space (last week)… BOY… do I cook more enjoyably. I'm so convinced whoever loves cooking JUST needs the space to work. Leave the rest of that shit for Arch Digest!

[PADemD]

33. You might like this web site.

http://www.lonny.com/photos/Kitchen

There are many decorating ideas, not only for kitchens, but all areas of a home.

[dem in texas]

34. I have an one "butt" Kitchen

Previous owners messed it up in the 70's, I can't afford a re-do, so I cook alone in my long dark kitchen. Used to live in an old house with a big country kitchen with a big pine table at one end where everyone could sit down for a cup of coffee and many card games were played at that old table. Only other kitchen I had I liked, we lived in a split level with the kitchen at the top level with the window over the sink looking out on the street, I could always see who was coming to see me and what was going on in the neighborhood. I liked that!

[locks]

35. Everyone seems to really like

granite or tile counters and Italian tile or brick floors but I'm not what you could call agile and wonder if I wouldn't constantly be buying new wine glasses. I do love the Spanish (and Dutch) tiles around kitchen walls though.

[Warpy]

38. Not only that, but granite is more fragile than people realize

In the first place, it requires sealing since it's a porous stone. Set a hot enough pan on it, and you'll get an area of toasted sealing that will be obvious. Second, there are generally hidden flaws here and there such that if you drop a can of beans on it from an upper shelf, you can crack it all the way through. It took dropping a bowling ball from 30 feet to damage Formica. Unless the sealing is kept up and redone frequently, granite will absorb stains and odors. Finally, granite is well known to offgas Radon. If your house is super insulated, that's something to consider.

It's still not quite as silly as the poured concrete counter.

Given my druthers, I'd like a stainless steel counter. Formica comes in second, so that's what I stick with.

[SheilaT]

40. A rack for draining dishes directly above the sink?

I'm imagining the water that will flow down my arms as I lift those dishes up there. And then the fact that they will be shedding water directly on me as I continue to wash.

Much of what passes for housing design and layout is clearly done by people who do not live in houses. Can't figure out where they might actually live, but anyone who puts the washer and drier in the basement of a two story house clearly doesn't do the laundry. Coat closets maybe three feet wide in a home intended for a family with children. No broom closet. Where can you store the vacuum cleaner if you don't have a broom closet? Not everyone has their home cleaned by a service that totes all that stuff to the house to clean.

I love to visit model homes, and once, some years ago, I visited one with a laundry room that was the size of a typical suburban bedroom. Washer, drier, folding table, shelves and drawers and a built in desk! The women touring all stopped in that room and were ready to buy the home on the spot.

Oh, and I likewise prefer a kitchen closed off from the rest of the house. I don't get the fondness for an "open" floor plan. What that often means is that there is no privacy between rooms, especially no sound privacy. If the living room is open to the dining room which is open to the kitchen which is open to the family room, everyone can hear everything that is going on in every "room". If someone would like to watch a TV program in one room, and someone else wants to listen to music in another, too bad. I suppose everyone could always use earphones all the time, but I still don't get it.

[spinbaby]

41. I think the "open" plans are cheap to build

Fewer walls to build and it looks like you have more space when its not interrupted by walls. Personally, I prefer not to see dirty dishes from where I'm eating.

[SheilaT]

42. I hadn't thought of it that way.

The appearance of more space certainly is a factor. I like to cook, and I often make a big mess when I'm cooking, and I'd rather serve guests in a separate room altogether and worry about the cleanup later on.

Of course, I do live in a small (about 900 sq ft) place these days, and understandably the kitchen is open to the living/dining area, so I suppose it's an open plan. But in this case my home is small enough that it makes sense. If I ever live in a larger place -- probably not very likely -- I will look for a separate enclosed kitchen. Since I live alone, my considerations and space requirements are quite different from when I was married and had a couple of kids at home.