Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: that Kitchen topic again! Don't Panic!

[Rob Sandelin (Floriferous]

Some general things in kitchen design.

Make the kitchen open to the rest of the building, don't cut off the cooks 
from everybody. Noise from the kitchen is not a factor.

Put in as much counter space as you can get. You will always want more than 
you have. This is especially true around the dishwasher.

Make it easy to find things. Keep your tools visible, don't hide them in 
drawers or behind cupboards. Lots of people will use your kitchen and they 
won't know where things are.

Having lots of electrical outlets is useful for things like radios, toasters, 
quisenarts, blenders, waffle irons, etc. etc. etc. Having more then one 
circuit allows you to run a couple of things at once without blowing a fuse.

Think about 2-3 people working together and design your space so they can 
easily talk with each other and socialize. The biggest difference between a 
restraunt kitchen and a cohousing kitchen is that in cohousing, cooking is a 
social experience. Make it easy to be social.

And finally, there are more angles than just 90 degrees. An irregular polygon 
can make a much more usable kitchen island than a rectangle. 

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood