Cohousing-L Mailing List: Unit design for efficiency/what do you store in YOUR oven??

[Elizabeth Stevenson (tamgoddess]

>> One thing I would add to Liz's excellent advice is doing away w/ the kitchen
>> oven -- altho' I would put in the hook up for resales.  As a single person,
>> just a range top would work fine for me.  The oven creates a lot of heat and
>> it's expensive to use. I bake in a toaster oven and use the microwave for
>> almost everything.  If I ever have to do some serious baking I can use the
>> CH kitchen. The space the oven occupies is wasted -- I store stuff in it.
> 
> I agree with this 100%. I also store stuff in the oven and I've never opened
> the broiler. I'm planning to redo my kitchen to:
> 
> 1. Put in a microwave above the countertop. I can use the commonhouse if I
> want to bake anything larger than a toaster oven.
> 2. TWO cooking units in the countertop -- I can't remember ever using 4
> burners.
> 3. Open shelves instead of cabinets above the counter,
> 4. And drawers below -- big ones for pots and small ones for "stuff."
> 5. A real sink, deep, so water doesn't splash everywhere and you can fill a
> pitcher or water a plant.

Some of you may or may not know that Sharon and I were separated at birth. I
have exactly the same designs on my kitchen, and I don't think it applies
only to single people. We are a family of four, and I never use the oven,
either, even though I make a lot of food from scratch, since my son is on a
gluten-free/casein-free diet. Bread making is done in a machine. The only
time I might is around the holidays, and I use the oven in the CH instead. I
store a giant bag of cat food in my oven! It's the only place my cat can't
get in that's low to the ground.

Lots of these ideas have been put in place in European cohousings, but never
translated to the US. What we are finding is that people's ideas about how
kitchens work are very different from reality. I think people are attached
to the old style kitchen because of deep-seated emotional reasons that are
unrealistic.

As for resales, I'll just reiterate that we are in the process of consensing
on beating off potential buyers with sticks - they would buy tin shacks if
they were in cohousing, and there would still be bidding wars.
> 
> People say, "What if you have to sell? This will reduce the value because
> the next person will have to redo it." NO, there will be a hundred gajillion
> single people out there just waiting to buy my unit because it has the
> kitchen most people really use.
> 
> Sharon

-- 
Liz Stevenson
Southside Park Cohousing
Sacramento California
tamgoddess [at] attbi.com

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