Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Kitchen Re-do?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Aug 5, 2015, at 1:51 PM, R Philip Dowds <rpdowds [at] comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> A question for established cohousing communities:  Have any of you discovered 
> your common house kitchen wasn’t as good as it needed to be?   


We are planning to redo in the next few years — planning takes a long time. The 
major complaints are the inability to work well with several people in the 
kitchen. We have a center island that is too large. And we have two people in 
wheelchairs. The kitchen is pretty difficult for them.

And needing a counter that is better arranged for buffet. If we have people use 
both sides, one side is walking through the kitchen which interferes with other 
activities. One kitchen I was in had a table across from the kitchen that 
people could circulate around to serve buffet style. 

We also have the refrigerator and the double ovens right next to each other 
which doesn’t make any sense to me, no matter how well insulated they are. And 
it creates a traffic jam.

AND we have this monster sanitizer instead of heavy duty residential 
dishwashers. When we replaced it a couple of years ago several people said they 
would take care of the dishes that pile up because no one wants to run it. We 
have lost a lot of dishes because people take them home to wash them. We could 
put three residential washers where the sanitizer is. We would probably put one 
next to the sink and two agains the wall where the sanitizer is. The other 
problem with the sanitizer is that we have a hard time getting service. We 
aren’t on the short list since we are so small. Big restaurants get the 
attention.

And cupboards/shelves are a problem. We took off the doors because no one could 
find anything so all the food stuff is viewable from the dining room.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org