Kitchen Design [Was Dishwasher] | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com) | |
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2002 08:39:00 -0600 (MDT) |
on 10/1/2002 9:25 AM, Laura Fitch, A.I.A. at lfitch [at] krausfitch.com wrote: > The comment below about walling off kitchens sounds like a universal > recommendation not to wall them off. I think the issue is very complex, > and very much dependent on the size of the community. I have never > heard anyone at Pioneer Valley complain about the walling off of our > kitchen. In fact, we often have Common House uses that would conflict > if we couldn't close the big openings into the kitchen. One of the usual reasons for not walling off the kitchen is that it isolates the cooks and cleaning uppers. I was an advocate of open kitchens before we moved in and am now convinced that we need a closed kitchen or partially closed kitchen. 1. We rarely have only one person cooking or cleaning in the kitchen. Usually there are three. Even if only one or two people are cooking or cleaning, others are walking through and stopping to talk. 2. The people in an open kitchen are more inhibited when the dining room is being used. Trying to cook when meetings or other gatherings are going on, means they can't talk to each other. They spend time in wild gesturing to communicate and this distracts listeners in the dining room. I've often looked up to wonder if we should call 911. 3. Many of our people work late and in order to cook a meal, have to prepare the night before. This means it is not impossible but constricting to use the dining room for a large meeting. No one wants to complain about people doing work while they are sitting around, but it is difficult for both parties. And it is difficult to see the cooks coming in at 9:30 when the meeting is over and start chopping veggies, knowing they will be chopping a few hours and getting up at dawn. I liked the kitchen at Blueberry Hill. It opens onto a smaller part of the large dining room -- like opening onto a breakfast nook to the side of a family room in a "normal" house. The rest of the kitchen is enclosed. I don¹t' know whether this helps with noise. Enclosing the kitchen also makes more room for shelves. Open shelves are so much more convenient in a kitchen used by many people. We have some open shelves but drawers and cabinets are labeled. Reading labels is not easy for those of us who are vision challenged and may not be wearing our glasses in order to set things out for a meal. And enclosed kitchen would mean more space for open shelves and less requirement that they be attractive. SERVING COUNTERS: I also wish we had a serving counter that could serve on both sides. We have all our plates and cups, etc., in rolling carts but a rolling counter would be much more useful. It could be rolled out at the beginning of a meal so people could file on both sides, and then rolled back for seconds and latecomers. It could also be used for other purposes in other rooms. Sharon -- Sharon Villines Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC http://www.takomavillage.org _______________________________________________ Cohousing-L mailing list Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org Unsubscribe and other info: http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l
- Re: Dishwasher, (continued)
- Re: Dishwasher Kay Argyle, September 30 2002
- Re: Dishwasher Martie Weatherly, September 30 2002
- Re: Dishwasher David Mandel, October 1 2002
- Re: Dishwasher Laura Fitch, A.I.A., October 1 2002
- Kitchen Design [Was Dishwasher] Sharon Villines, October 1 2002
- Re: common house dishwashers Kay Argyle, October 1 2002
- Re: common house dishwashers/open kitchens Elizabeth Stevenson, October 1 2002
- RE: Dishwasher Rob Sandelin, October 2 2002
- Re: Dishwasher Elizabeth Stevenson, September 30 2002
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