Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Kitchen noise: A thanks to the list

[Bitner/Stevenson (lilbert]

How ironic. Two posts about the kitchen. It works great, but nobody is 
enjoying it!

Two points, then. Mandatory cooking isn't so bad, after all. Last night we
had a luau. Everybody dressed in Hawaiian clothes and we had mahi-mahi. You
guys don't know what you're missing!

And people should think very carefully about not building the common house
until after the rest has been built. It is a vital part of the process, and
the momentum has been lost later on, as evidenced here. All is not lost,
though. You could still make the CH a bigger part of the community, it will
just take some willpower, and, yes, a meals coordinator. It is a big job,
but keep it rotating and it doesn't burn people out. You really are missing
out without the meals.

It is very gratifying to hear follow-through about something we discussed
months ago! Sometimes I feel very repetitive talking about the same stuff
over and over, without ever seeming to get anywhere. Congrats on your new
comonhouse!
--
Liz Stevenson
Southside Park Cohousing
Sacramento, California

----------
>From: Pablo Halpern <phalpern [at] newview.org>

> A number of people on this list wrote convincingly about the need to make
> sure that the cooks and cleaning crew were not isolated in the kitchen.
> People described their experience that kitchen noise is not nearly as much
> of a problem as noise generated within the dining room itself. I withdrew
> my support of a closed-off kitchen and advocated for an open kitchen
> design, which eventually carried the day.
>
> Now that the common house is built, I see very clearly that we made the
> right decision. I don't even notice noise coming from the kitchen, even
> when I'm sitting at one of the closer tables. It is easy to see and talk
> with people in the kitchen. I think the kitchen is much more pleasant than
> it would have been if we had limited the connection with the dining room to
> a window-type opening. Thanks to everybody for helping us do the right thing!