Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: How are your great room and kitchen connected?

[David Heimann (heimann]

Hi Kristen,

	At Jamaica Plain Cohousing the kitchen is connected to the great room 
via a door and a pass-through counter.  Generally during meals the food is 
placed on the counter and people serve themselves from the great-room side (we 
have a table to the right of the counter on the great-room side where we have 
cutlery, glasses, and drinks).

	Generally we don't have a problem with noise during meetings or meals. 
During meetings the cooks and clean-up-folks themselves are involved in the 
meeting, and during meals there's enough noise from conversation so that 
kitchen noise doesn't affect things very much (of course, we're not running the 
dishwasher or vacuum cleaners then!).

	As far as a workshop room goes, we have plenty of space in the basement 
where woodworking and other shop work goes on.  Off of the basement is a small 
locked room, for which only a few people have keys, where we have large power 
tools such as a bench saw.

	In any event, since we're just a few blocks from you, come by and take 
a look!

Regards,
David Heimann
JP Cohousing



Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:01:56 -0400
From: "Kristen Simmons" <simmonskristen [at] gmail.com>
Subject: [C-L]_ How are your great room and kitchen connected?
To: cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org
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        <ae8bfc1f0803111101n19e0fe01p6f9075f14f01346a [at] mail.gmail.com>
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Hi all,
Stony Brook Cohousing, forming in Boston, is having it's Common House
programming this weekend. I'm seeking information from experienced folks
living in cohousing about your kitchen set up (and workshop too).

Does your kitchen completely open to the great room/dining room? What works
or doesn't work about this?

Are you able to completely close off the kitchen from the great room/dining
room? What works and doesn't work about this?

I'll admit that I have a preference for an open relationship (it feels more
homely to me), but I am sure that there are drawbacks. Any feed back from
the crowd would be useful. This seems like a pretty important decision!

Also, does your group have a workshop? Do you wish that you had one? I want
one badly, because where else will we put the table saw and drill press? But
maybe communities that have them don't use them? How do you deal with
insurance issues? (By the way, I'm not a serious wood worker; I make things
as needed for repairs and home improvements.)

Thanks,
Kristen