What do you love or hate about it? Is it 1940's or 2011 cutting edge design? What works well or not at all? Is it decorated to your taste or ready for a makeover? A pleasure to be in or an endurance test? The heart of the home or the closest exit out of it?
Well, our kitchen is a section of a great room, about 12' x 10' with an island in the middle. It's neither 1940's nor 2011. It's 1985 when it was built. There are no high-end things like granite counters or stainless steel appliances. We do have a ceramic-glass cooktop, and our dishwasher is up-to-date, but we've never had the fridge hooked up to the water so the ice-maker would work. We run back and forth with ice-cube trays instead. Our exhaust hood was a complete fraud and we've been threatening to get a better one for twenty years.
The cabinets are wood. There's nothing between the kitchen and the dining area, and there's a table-top kind of divider between the kitchen and the living room with storage space (potatoes, onions, etc.) underneath it part of the way. So anyone working in the kitchen can talk to anyone in the dining area or living area. Or guests or visitors can sit on the chairs we have drawn up under the table-top divider. So it's really neither one thing nor another. Not fancy, not cramped, not isolated, with space for an adequate number of kitchen tools and supplies if we don't go overboard.
Lighting is a problem since it's part of a great room and the ceilings are very high. We have a (I forget the name) kind of a strip of angled lights up there, but that could be better. During the day it's no problem, since we have skylights, but at night unless you turn everything on at the same time it's rather shadowy. There's a window over the sink that looks out onto the verandah. We use it as a pass-through for lemonade and iced tea in the summer. All the cats' feeding bowls are in the kitchen, so whenever we're there we usually have a crowd of admirers. That's it!
Last edited by Rozzer; 2011-07-28 at 01:54 PM.
Is it track lighting you're thinking of? I should be even that lucky, this place needs lights during the daytime! It's late 50's and very strangely designed--there are hanging shelves over the work space, so if I'm not banging my forehead against them I'm finding I can't empty one bowl of ingredients into another without moving both to a different area of the countertop. And then in an effort to save money flourescent lights were installed.....it's a trial!
Got ya beat. Galley kitchen (6 x 12)converted in a 1850's home. Last reno I believe was the early seventy's when they put in the lime green rug .... ( yes it's gone, give me credit! ) Original floor, no sub floor this is it. If you drop something, you go to the basement to clean it up since the light shines through it. The tongue and groove has dried out so much. The cupboards are pretend bead board and weigh a ton each, half shut and half hang open. All are warped to uneven floor that has about a 2.5" varience "wave" affect. Floor has plug marks in it where original pumping came through. New dishwasher but no trim around it to hide the fittings. Original sink area had a basement window above and slightly to the left. You needed to be 6.2 to see out of it. I'm 5.3... It's been replaced. Counter tops are 20 years old speckled blue except for one that is from original reno and painted with melamine. Door to basement is original. Two pieces of pine nailed together with square nails. Each about 15" wide. Latch entry.
Now don't you feel better about your kitchen? There ought to be a law.
PS forgot to mention shelves for storage in the stairwell and 4 sets of shelves in the basement to hold pots and pans etc.
OMG...KarenB wins it hands down!!! What an obstacle course to deal with every day.....
Anyone else got some stories to share?
Forgot to mention my grandmother's cupboard in the unheated summer kitchen (-20F in winter, had to proof for chipmunks and mice when we moved in) that contains dried soups and pasta all winter long. (Via the kitchen through the living room)
Doesn't anyone else here have a kitchen story? Come on folks, we can't possibly be the only ones!!
Yes, K. Slink, it's track lighting! And at least for kitchen purposes, it's awful. I'd be glad to trade it for your fluourescents!Originally Posted by K. Slink
Well, there WAS Grandma's big black cast iron stove that burned either coal or wood. Before my time but I sure heard a lot about it.
That is the best deal I've had in ages, you can't imagine what you'd be getting into...
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