My mother likes to watch house-selling shows, home improvement shows, things of that ilk.

[conuly]

And she makes fun of how exaggerated these people's demands are - "Oh, I can't live here, the bathroom is the wrong color" and "We have two people, and we NEED three bathrooms" and the like. (These people never consider painting or waiting, apparently.)

One thing that comes up all the time, that I myself simply do not understand, is "Oh, the kitchen is too small". Here they are, looking at a reasonably-sized kitchen, and complaining that it's not big enough.

Big enough for what, I ask! For three cooks, a baker, and a scullery maid? If you're cooking for yourself, why would you want a big kitchen? You want a small kitchen so you don't wear your feet out getting dinner on the table, and so you are less likely to spill your perfect meal all over the floor because you had to run it 20 feet from the fridge to the oven!

But no, they all think they want big kitchens, and I just don't understand it at all. Any insight would be much appreciated.

Edit: Okay, so it's all about the counters, got it. So, how big is your ideal kitchen, and how much counterspace is needed?

Comments

[firingneurons.livejournal.com]

I love counter space in a kitchen, it's so very useful! If I had a kitchen that was big enough with three walls of counter and an island, it'd be heavenly! But that's my definition of 'big kitchen'.

[darkpoole.livejournal.com]

When I get together with friends, the kitchen frequently turns into a social space -- two or three people in various stages of food preparation, several others standing around talking. If your life is such that the kitchen often doubles as a social area, then I can see why you'd want it both big and open.

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

As someone who currently has a tiny kitchen, it's frustrating because when you account for things like dishracks and toasters and coffee machines, there's no room to spread out more than one "station" at a time - and if you've got more than one person working in the kitchen, you've got to constantly move out of the way so someone else can access the drawers or cupboards.

That said, our kitchen really is short on counter space (three sink-sized squares, only one of which has room for prep) and we have four people living here all cooking different meals. If I were living here alone, I'd get rid of the table, replace it with one of those movable islands, and live happily ever after.

[shinga.livejournal.com]

It's pretty much an issue of counter space.

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

Like others said, it's an issue of counter space. I do a ton of baking, and while my kitchen is decent sized for regular, everyday cooking, if I'm doing any sort of baking, or any kind of large week-long batches of cooking, I just don't have the room for it. Fortunately, my parents live nearby, and have a much larger kitchen, so I invade it from time to time, but then there's the issue of transporting the food (cooked and not) back to my place.

[firingneurons.livejournal.com]

This too.

[marveen.livejournal.com]

If the kitchen is too small, you can't fit the kitchen table into it, much less seat people.

For example, my parents' kitchen is 12'4" by 13', and it gets crowded if more than four people are eating. It's in the sensible L-configuration, where the sink is between the stove and fridge with some nice spacious countertops alongside. The traffic runs between the prep area and the table, which is against the wall across from the sink.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

I agree with all that's been said about kitchens. On the subject of bathrooms, well, some of us are very territorial about our bathing/toileting space. For some of us, waiting isn't an option due to medical issues (me, for example). So this isn't always greed or unreasonableness; if you are spending the amount of money that buying a home takes, you want it to be a place that will be comfortable.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

We cook a lot, and we have storage problems, even though we don't have a lot of electric gadgets. Also, counter space is frequently at a premium. I'd love a kitchen island, and it's a damned shame I can't have a hanging pot rack.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

I guess I should add to say that, while the other things are nice, I'd rather have a big kitchen than a big living room, dining room, study, or bedroom.

[azurelunatic]

Yes. The microwave took out one chunk of counter space. I wanted to have the bread machine permanently set up, as well as the toaster oven and a cutting board. This left basically no room for anything else.

[feebeeglee.livejournal.com]

Our kitchen is very tiny. We have a coffee maker, a toaster, a dish rack, and a microwave which take up every inch of counter space. No dishwasher, so the dish rack is in constant use. We have a butcher block in the middle of the floor precisely positioned so neither the oven nor the fridge hits it. There's room for one person to use the kitchen.

Our kitchen is ridiculously small, really. I guess if we ditched the microwave it would be better. Actually, that makes me wonder if maybe I could move some things... hmmm...

[feebeeglee.livejournal.com]

Nope. Everything is where it has to be, or not at all.

Still beats getting raped while gathering firewood tho! Gotta keep some perspective, after all.

[azurelunatic]

My ideal kitchen has serious pantry space. I will happily buy a 50-pound bag of rice and use it, and equal amounts of sugar and flour. There's just nowhere to put that in a tiny kitchen.

Counter space-wise, I want enough room to leave a cutting board, a microwave, a toaster oven, a rice cooker, and a bread machine set up, and still have preparation space.

[conuly]

Honestly, I don't consider the pantry part of the kitchen, anymore than I consider the closet part of the bedroom. It's an adjunct to the kitchen. (For that matter, in the sort of kitchens often seen on these shows, where there's a counter separating the cooking space from the dining/socializing space, I don't *really* consider that other space part of the kitchen either, though I know the people on the shows do and that's what they mean when they want more space, I guess.)

[conuly]

True, though I doubt every single person on these shows has medical bathroom issues.

Then again, they might. There sure are a lot of biracial and gay couples, maybe the people putting together these shows also pick a lot of couples with at least one not-visibly-disabled partner.

Edit: Not that, obviously, there's anything the matter with biracial and/or gay couples, indeed, it's better than everybody being the same that you so often see. It's just noticeable, and a little disproportionate. I'm not complaining, at any rate.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

Counter space is good, but for us, we love our big kitchen because of the CABINET space! We have a ton of appliances (most of which have been gifts over the years), like a vegetable steamer, rice maker, kitchen Aid mixer, blender, toaster, toaster oven, coffee maker, ice cream maker (2 of them even), etc, and we actually for once have a place to store all that shit without it going in a closet where it's so inaccessible you never even use it. I really love that.

I lived in an apartment where there were just enough cabinets for pots and pans, and dishes and glasses. Nothing else (and we use plastic stacking cups, so it's not like we had a ton of glasses either; 3-4 rows only) and we had to get a shelving unit to put in the dining area to hold our food and the appliances were in the hall closet. The only counter space was the top of the dryer, which was in the kitchen. I wouldn't pick THAT again.

Bathrooms. We have 2.5 bathrooms in our house and it's more than enough. We like the downstairs toilet, and the master bathroom/shower/toilet, but we rarely use the second upstairs bathroom except for brushing teeth or showering IF Daniel or I are sleeping in in the master bedroom (which is connected without a door to the master bath). When the girls are teenagers, I'm sure we'll be glad for the extra bathroom, but right now I'm just annoyed that it's that much more to clean all the time!

I would get rid of our front room (space for a "formal living room") in a heart beat. I'd trade that 12x20 room for bigger closets or a shed in the backyard. That room is a waste of space!

[griffen.livejournal.com]

And the point I was trying to make is, even if they're not having medical issues, they still might simply need their own bathrooms because of privacy issues. I can see "We need three bathrooms" for two people: one bathroom for each person and one for guests. That might simply be a psychological necessity for them.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

The pantry is part of every kitchen I've ever used or been in.

My ideal kitchen has enough counter space for at least four workstations, at least one place that has butcher-block counters, and at least one place that has marble counters (for pastry). It also has enough cabinet space that I can have three different kinds of glassware for different kinds of occasions. It has two ovens so that I can make a Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner, and it has at least six burners on the gas stove.

Flat-out, I LOVE big kitchens. You might want to see if you can find and watch the "This Old House" episode where they called in Julia Child as a consultant on what a good kitchen should have. There's an article about it here (http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/article/0,,212070,00.html). You can probably find more articles on it by searching "Julia Child" "This Old House" "Milton House" on Google, too.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

About what everyone else has said. Having lived in two places with errr kitchenettes, a large kitchen is very high on the list when considering a new place. There can never be too many cupboards or too much counterspace.

Our ideal kitchen would resemble our stepmother's old place; about 12x12, it had a little worktable you could move around instead of an island. There was a plain kitchen table at the far end next to a set of glass doors leading onto the back porch. In winter you could just sit there with your cocoa and watch the birds at the feeders.

ETA: It was more like 12x15. And we just saw Moonstruck again last night and there are those of us who watch it just to contemplate that beautiful kitchen.

[azurelunatic]

I have lived in too many apartments that had an in-kitchen very small closet/cabinet that was supposed to be considered the pantry to not consider the pantry part of the kitchen, or at least an accessory of the kitchen. But then, while the space inside the confines of a bedroom that is taken by a closet is not a usable sleeping-related part of a bedroom, I consider it part of the bedroom too, if it's only accessible from inside the bedroom.

[conuly]

Fair enough.

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

I moved into an apartment with a galley kitchen and I love it. It's small, but everything is within arm's reach.

I don't like big kitchens if you can't get around it quickly

Nineteen Feet

[siderea]

When I was an architecture student, we were told that studies showed that people were optimally happy with kitchens laid out so that the perimeter of the triangle described by the fridge, the sink, and the stove was about 19ft.

Doesn't matter how big, over all, your kitchen is, so long as your "kitchen triangle" is about 19ft. Googling "Kitchen Triangle" turns up tons of hits. http://www.merillat.com/space/work-smarter/index.aspx is nice.

I was really into laying out kitchens. :)

[leora.livejournal.com]

I want a big kitchen such that people can grab glasses, plates, etc. and then walk to the fridge and grab something from the fridge without getting overly in the way of whoever is cooking.