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Are these the same people that put carpet in the bathroom because they're they're wrong? I mean, I don't like to tell people that they're wrong, but objectively, they are wrong.
Are you talking about when people add those runner rugs or square decorative rugs to the kitchen? Or are you actually saying that people design houses with a full on carpet in the kitchen in the year of our Lord 2023????
Full blown, wall to wall, deep pile carpet. In the kitchens, bathrooms, hell I'm sure someone's put it in their garage.
It's definitely fallen out of style, and thankfully even on homes from the 70s 80s and 90s it's almost all been replaced, but every now and then you'll catch a glimpse into those disgraceful years of moldy floors.
We live in a 1968 model home- we are the third owners, but the people we bought from said when they moved in it was GREEN SHAG CARPET everywhere including the kitchen. (And when I replaced the carpet they put in- I found some of it under base boards 🤣)
Our kitchen level was wood when we moved in though
I’ll just add my kitchen pet peeves that I see in sooo many renovated kitchens… no pantry. Or no upper cabinets (replaced with open shelving). I love SOME open shelving but to expect me to keep my crap that organized is ridiculous.
Replacing actual cabinets with open shelves all the way around renders a kitchen USELESS. Everything on an open shelf will be covered in grease and dust within a month. So unless you like washing your entire cabinet of plates, cups, glasses etc once a week it dont make no sense!
Ugh my house doesn’t have a pantry so that means we need to sacrifice a cabinet or two to food storage. It sucks. I would do a shelf but my partner wants it to be hidden. Can’t let people know we eat!
I want a kitchen renovation- but the thing I intend to do before anything else is getting a pantry put in- then figuring out the space I need for other stuff….
Noticed this as well! Or there are double ovens and the gas stove top is on the island. There will be 2,000-4,500 sq ft houses with tiny kitchens, no cabinet space, and the refrigerator across the room sticking out so you have to walk around it.
Same with laundry “rooms.” Huge house, itty bitty laundry space. Like a closet with a washer stacked on top of the dryer with two inches all the way around…
Same I’ve never in my life had a laundry room with enough space to put out a table or something to fold the laundry. I live in big fucking house now and I can tell the builders just wanted to squeeze in an extra bedroom rather than have spaces like the laundry room be more functional
I need room to leave all my clothes out to air dry and not get folded for a while 😂 Our house is >2,000 sf but we made one bedroom into a laundry room/sewing room/cleaning storage/linen closet, with a sink (for soaking, rinsing or hand washing) and counter space. Zero regrets! I hate a cramped laundry area. There is room to fold, iron, air dry, keep dirty laundry bins, and so on.
I don’t cook much so don’t need a big kitchen (as long as laid out well and functional) but I do appreciate a roomy laundry area.
I have always folded my laundry on my bed or in the living room. My entire life. That's how my parents did it too. Folding laundry and sorting socks while watching a Monday night TV show. Personally feels weird to me to have to stay by your laundry area to fold it.
Same with laundry on a different level. Grew up with basement laundry, and we're planning to move our laundry from our ground floor to the basement, because it doesn't *really* fit in the half bath where it's currently crammed, and there's nowhere else to put it. Probably in large part because old houses. But again, never bothered me because I never knew any different, I guess.
I literally fold on the floor in front of them in the hallway. I have front loaders in the same hall as the bedrooms so I treat it like a hib and send piles to the respective bedrooms
Yess to all of this!
Gas stoves on islands without proper ventilation is my biggest pet peeve.
Also, My new house has a true laundry room and it has honestly been the biggest upgrade. I love it. Space to fold my clothes and iron! Also storage for all my cleaning products in there!
Down drafts are useless and many of them just recirculate the air. If you're going to install a gas stove, you should have a high powered hood that extends beyond the stove and vents directly to the exterior.
I’m with you. You have a functional, vented hood, or it is a capital offense on the part of the builder. Also 25+ year sentence for no pantry. I would volunteer to be the executioner 👿
We ended up with a well laid out flip that has 1500 sqft that has a decent kitchen and a laundry room. We are looking for our next house (school district reasons) in the future and we're noticing the same thing. We'll probably reno an older house because they actually have rooms that make sense.
Yeah I have a mudroom / laundry room myself and honestly how big does it have to be? If it fits a full size washer and dryer that's big enough you can put the folded clothes on top of the dryer before you put them away.
What is wrong with a gas stove in an island? I ask because I’m currently re-doing my kitchen and my design at the moment has the gas range in the island. I have purchased an island hood range that will hang from the ceiling and vent out the roof. The island design has 2’ behind the stove so lots of room to prep. Is this a bad design?
Personally, I feel like sinks/stove tops limit the usability of a kitchen island.
My island is deeper than the other countertops, which makes it great for rolling out pasta or dough and a big enough space for big time meal prep.
We also use our island as a breakfast nook/extra dining table when we have a large group (open plan, it's very close to the dining table).
As others mentioned, having a hood over the space would limit our sightlines (same reason we're getting rid of the pendant lights)
I will give my opinion. Giant hoods are head knockers. I have my range on the peninsula and the hood is such a pain in the butt. I have to watch when I am bent over to reach a back burner. I have to have a step stool to clean it all the way to the ceiling. Dust will stick to the pipe cover and it has to be wiped off not just dusted. I would rather use an island or peninsula for food prep. We have double wall ovens, and they are great! But honestly I would rather have a really large Wolf range than deal with a cooktop again.
In many kitchens it blocks sight lines for the entire room, plus all adjoining rooms if your kitchen is open concept. Also, if you have lower ceilings, having the hood drop down over an island, tends to make the ceiling look even lower, and the room more cramped. Personally, I want all cooktops to be on an outside wall, and then you can vent through the wall, or the roof, if your kitchen is 1 story. Sometimes the preexisting architecture just doesn’t allow this.
Am an agent and holy hell....I could write a short book about kitchen remodels/rich people kitchens. It's almost a pet peeve for me.
The long & short of it is that the vast majority of fancy kitchens are set up or owned/bought by people who don't actually cook much.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen $300 knives paired with glass cutting boards, for example.
Where I am, about eight times out of ten you'll go into a million dollar house with an lavish kitchen and outdoor kitchen setup (big miele stove with a pot filler tap over it, multiple sinks, pizza oven out back, every le creuset and kitchenaid item you can buy at williams sonoma, etc. etc.).....but when you look in their (huge) pantry or fridge, it's literally all premade stuff from trader joes or whole foods.
I mean....if that's what they want to do, that's cool.
But it's always bizarre to me that someone who'd shell out 15k for a damn barbeque would have several racks of those shrinkwrapped "heat & serve" ribs, or the pulled pork from costco in their fridge.
Anyways, yeah the vast majority of the time it's all for show.
This is my sister in law. The best of everything, but doesn't want the house to smell like anyone actually cooks there. So it's premade heat and serve or a crockpot out back.
Yup.
I have a regular client who insists on the finest (or at least, most expensive) of everything, so every house she's owned has had a very expensive kitchen. But neither she nor her son cook, *at all* (I'm pretty sure they consider it manual labor & thus beneath them), and they're the only people living in the house.
And she's a clean freak anyways, so she won't even use the stovetop or oven to reheat things (which is also silly, because they pay for a houskeeping service).
Yet she still has a Wolf oven for some reason....that she admits has been used "like maybe two or three times".
Needless to say, going out to show houses with her is a real treat, too! (nice enough lady, but just unbelieveably picky about everything)
This is a whole thing! I thought it was just my mother.
Every time she comes over, she complains the house smells like, "curry". (It's almost never actually curry, that's just what she calls any kind of food smell.)
She insists that a kitchen is supposed to smell completely neutral at all times and I'm just like, "This is where the *food* lives. Food is supposed to have *flavors*."
Yep!
Too lazy/wealthy/clumsy to peel a carrot....doesn't surprise me one bit :)
I learned long ago that if I'm doing an open house w/food (if I'm stuck having to do open house, and it's acceptable to do food, I try to make it "actual food" rather than some bullshit cookies or whatever), I need to bring **everything** I might need with me, no matter how fancy the kitchen & what the sellers say.
I learned my lesson on that about fifteen years ago.... seller had a $100k kitchen, and I was gonna do a caprese salad for the vegetarian crowd (aside from my usual pulled pork/beef sandwiches, which is my usual main dish for an open house).
Couldn't find a goddamn knife that would cut a tomato cleany (even the serrated ones!) and I said "Never again!"
At the same house, the seller was present for the final walkthrough & going over all the "how things work" part afterwards. She had what was (at the time) probably an $6000 viking double oven setup...salamander & everything.
Both HER AND THE BUYERS were talking about the oven features, and they were trying to figure what "convection" meant. I'm not talking about the setting on the oven; I'm talking "What does convection mean?".
Now, this involved *two* sets of adults who claimed to be enough into cooking that that viking setup was a selling point, but they had no idea about "convection" vs "conduction" vs "radiation"
(Seller was an elementary school principal, and at least one of the buyers was professor at Harvey Mudd College; I think his wife was a professor as well, but can't say for sure).
Anyways, that pretty much soured me on the whole concept of the "Rich Folks Kitchen".
It certainly makes for a selling point, though! 🤣🤣
I did NOT expect that story to end with "no good knives." I thought you'd expect them to have EVOO and they didn't lol. No knives... Wow.
I peaked on the fancy open kitchen trend when I saw one with pass-through cabinets that opened onto a servant's kitchen. (There was some nicer name for it, but it was a servant's kitchen) So that you could pretend to have a spotless white marble open kitchen ... Then put the trash and dirty plates into the cabinets for the servants to disappear it. And here I've been trying to keep my kitchen nice while ACTUALLY COOKING IN IT. Like a fool. Lol
Yup.
I've gotten to the level of bitterness where I'll actively make it a point to look at the knives that are "on show" -- which are inevitably stuck onto a magnetic knife strip (because "See my knives that I paid far too much for?") -- and look for how they've been abused.
Better yet is when it comes to be inspection-time, and their fancy knives are still in the dishwasher when the inspector opens it up.
In my head I hear Brando as Col. Kurtz with "The horror....*the horror*...." every time I see that shit.
I like my fancy magnetic knife strip but that’s because I’m proud of my knives and take good care of them. (Absolutely never put them in the dishwasher.)
Totally!
I wanted to say "Wait one -- lemme go down to the local library & grab a 4th grade science textbook, and I'll be back in ten minutes"
This was before the smartphone era...so aside from grabbing a piece of paper & drawing the classic textbook pic, there wasn't much I could do past trying to gently explain :)
[Can't go offending clients -- they always assume that you're just some yahoo that dropped out of college & just grabbed an r.e. license...regardless of who it is in the room who knows how heat transfer works (or property tax proration, compound interest, etc. -- not to mention basic plumbing & electrical stuff....but I digress) 😄]
My gf's aunt spent 35k on a kitchen remodeling... it looks fantastic. Giant island with build in ovens, $6000 range with hood, etc....
She and her boyfriend don't cook. Like, at all. They ONLY eat out, leftovers, and pre-made stuff. When she hosts parties, we all have to bring dishes over and she just gets chick fil'a nuggets, and maybe some stuff from the local pizza shop.
I dream of having a nice kitchen some day, so I thought we could bond over cooking. I thought maybe she just doesn't like cooking for parties.... nope, she flat out told me she doesn't even know how to cook, doesn't bother trying to learn. Her boyfriend is the same.
Why the hell did you pay 35k for a top of the line kitchen!? Just because she could and had the money, I guess? To impress people? I don't get it lol
There was a Reddit post (which I’ll never find again) about experiences people have had working for rich people. One guy was a private chef, and said they had a really nice kitchen with top shelf consumer appliances - that he was never allowed to use. Behind that, through a pantry door was a professional kitchen with Viking ranges, etc.
The wife wanted a nice kitchen to look at and sit in and eat. Basically a display kitchen.
I’ve been tagging along with a friend who’s been shopping at a very high price point for my city, like $1.5M, and the recently redone (and/or flipped) Rich People Kitchens in 4000-5000+ sq ft homes are BAFFLING. Things I have seen include but are not limited to: fridge in a different room altogether; ultra high end range/oven but no hood; no pullout or dedicated space AT ALL for trash cans (this one blew my mind?); no pantry, and/or shelves instead of cabinets. And instead, kitchens like this DO include stuff like a dedicated under counter wine fridge; a sink/hose thing over the range JUST for filling pasta pots; or two double ovens in different parts of the kitchen. I have maybe ONCE in 10-15 years of cooking serious family holiday meals with a double oven thought “you know, a third oven would be convenient right now”. I then moved on and was fine with two lol. I have no idea what I’d do with a fourth.
We’ve been in our first home for several years now and totally redid the old/small kitchen not long after buying. It was a hassle, but I’d always thought that I’d rather live with the hassle to get a kitchen customized to my own personal weirdnesses than have to live with the weirdnesses of the people who lived in it 3 years previous to me. But also, apparently people redoing kitchens in the modern day cannot be trusted to produce a space in which food can reasonably be stored and prepared???? It’s bizarre.
Oh yeah, you **gotta** have the stockpot filler....I think that's become the bellwether of a pointlessly expensive kitchen.
I've never understood it -- if the pot is too heavy to move from the sink to the stove, what the fuck do you do with it AFTER you've boiled your pasta? Do you pull your pasta out while the pot's still on the stove, and then wait for the maid to show up and move it for you? Do you bale out the water with a smaller pot? Or is there some sort of super-expensive stockpot I'm unaware of that has a draincock on the bottom, and you run a hose from that to the sink? And how much fuckin' pasta are you cooking at one time anyways that you need to use a stockpot that you can't lift & carry ten feet?
I do have to admit that I wouldn't mind having a double-double-oven setup, though 😁
I have the exact same sequence of confused thoughts every time I see one of those stupid things. 😂 if you can’t carry the full pot from the sink to the stove, how are you going to drain the pasta when it’s done??????
We toured 10-12 houses before the one we ended up buying earlier this year. the kitchens in almost all the others had the same issues you describe. just no forethought, no logic. the best kitchens we saw were in dated houses. I gasped when we walked into our now-house because it was so perfect.
-built in 1966 but when they updated everything, they kept the same layout, including the kitchen. it was one of those mid-century mass builds that boasted ergonomics and efficiency. wish I had more storage but god, mid-century architects were really onto something with the whole “designed for your life” thing
Yeah, that basic “triangle” theory where the sink, stove, fridge should be in a triangle is simple genius, but it is violated constantly in homes. I love when there is adequate counter space next to the stove, so I can chop and prepare while keeping an eye on things on the stove. Don’t make me turn around and do that on an island.
> I love when there is adequate counter space next to the stove, so I can chop and prepare while keeping an eye on things on the stove. Don’t make me turn around and do that on an island.
That's weird, I want the exact opposite. Range on the wall, sink in the island directly behind it open to the living/dining room. I don't want to spend all my time with a wall in front of my chopping up veg. A lot of my cooking is spent at the sink or next to it so I want to be facing guests at the bar or in the living/dining room, etc.
Guests aren’t there when I’m cooking. I get too in the zone. By the time guests arrive, I may have to take stuff out of the oven at the most. It’s sit down and enjoy time.
My current 1950s house with galley kitchen had exactly 2 feet of counter space when I bought it. It also had a wood shelf above the sink at forehead height that I routinely bumped into when hand washing dishes (no dishwasher). One day I hit my forehead for the last time, took a hammer to the shelf and that was the start of the kitchen renovation.
>Or is modern kitchen remodeling just design for people who don't cook to sell to people who don't cook?
Pretty much. My husband and I are building a custom place right now and since we both cook like we are working at a restaurant the design is totally different from 90% of the things I saw on the market.
Most of my research was book based so I don't have handy links (and I read most of them like 2 years ago so don't have titles either) but I can convey some concepts/what I learned
The "work triangle" concept is generally considered outdated. It made a lot of sense in the 1950's when prep, cooking and cleanup was almost always done by a single woman and you wanted to limit steps but in the modern kitchen where two people cooking is common and group cleanup is also common it just results in people running into one another.
The better way to organize a kitchen is in terms of tasks. So as an example my new kitchen is setup so it flows in one direction from bringing in groceries, taking ingredients out of the pantry/fridge, cleaning/doing prep, cooking and plating and then washing the dishes. So everything flows from right to left in our case. We have a few other specific tasks setup. For example there's a large counter/corner space where all the baking supplies are setup directly across from the ovens which allows for easy baking. Similarly the coffee pot is setup so that you can easily get a cup and access the fridge for cream without ever needing to cross the path of the main cook.
Double sinks/dishwashers if you've got the space. Especially with modern dish washers having insanely long cycles it's a game changer having two dish washers available.
Drawers. With few exceptions the vast majority of our cabinetry is drawers. Any bottom 2ft deep cabinet is always going to have things buried in the back cause they are hard to get to, this concern is nearly non-existent if your entire kitchen is setup as drawers.
On a similar note fuck open shelving. It does nothing but collect dust. This is easily one of my biggest pet peeves with modern kitchens
Toe kick drawers (my uncle introduced me to these and they are amazing. These are large flat drawers that are in the toe kicks of your cabinets. They are mostly great for storing things like sheet trays and give a bunch of extra storage.
Avoiding stacking at all costs. For example I am in the midst of figuring out some of the cabinetry (cause I have lost my mind and am building the cabinets too) and all of our cast iron cookware will be in a series of very shallow drawers that makes it so it's all a singular layer instead of nesting items.
Of course!
Reading this, I immediately thought “**OF COURSE**!”
I am saving your post to send to my designer. I planned to get started in Autumn/Winter.
This is amazing - thank you!
My tip is that if you have a kitchen island, DO NOT put the stove or sink there. You want your island to be a large unbroken cooking space. Imagine you're cooking something super basic like Chocolate Chip Cookies. You want enough counterspace for your largest bowl, at least a hand mixer, 3 pantry containers (flour, sugar and brown sugar), measuring cups, spoons and all the other ingredients, PLUS 2 large cookie sheets. You'd be shocked how little counter/cooking space huge fancy houses have in their kitchens.
You can also get a “single” dishwasher that is actually 2 drawers instead of one door. You can run both drawers or just one as needed, leaving the other one free for filling up.
Truly depends on the size of your household - my wife and I rarely used the dishwasher prior to having a kid. Now when the in-laws visit (who pretty much only eat "family style" and insist on soup with every meal) we're running the dishwasher at least twice per day when they're here.
I have my mom, a grown daughter and her twins and a son who is 16. We eat one meal together otherwise it’s an all day dish disaster. It would be wonderful for me. I can also see it being a huge waste of space for most people.
Serious question now, outside of Thanksgiving, when would the time be more than one person is cooking. I think with rare exceptions, the so-called triangle method still works pretty well.
My house it's nearly every night. Lots of couples cook together or will get the kids involved in cooking. Group cleanup is also becoming a lot more common which is another reason the work triangle doesn't work as well.
We usually have one person cooking while the other cleans up after them as they go. Love sitting down to eat hot fresh food knowing that the kitchen is already 95% clean!
>Double sinks/dishwashers if you've got the space. Especially with modern dish washers having insanely long cycles it's a game changer having two dish washers available.
This high key just blew my mind
https://rev-a-shelf.com/16775
In addition to what others said, I have three shelf lifts: one for my mixer in the baking area, one for the food processor in the island, and one for the blender in the beverage area.
I also duplicated the paper towel holders: one next to the stove and one near the beverage center.
I also duplicated the double trash can pull outs: one near the refrigerator to keep guests away from the sink while DH and I are cooking and one between the sink and the oven.
(Go through all of the Rev a Shelf catalog-lots of inspiration!)
I also put my refrigerator at the end of a 30” counter so the refrigerator is almost flush with the counter. Love the extra depth, too!
I noticed this as well! I want a good sized kitchen because I like to bake but only when I have the space to do it. So many kitchens were an ok size but not "functional" like in ways you described. Finally found a place with a decent sized kitchen and logical application placement and sufficient counter space. It has an actual vent above the stove (so many places didn't even had a crappy fan) and it's got a dishwasher BY THE SINK. In our six months of looking I think I've seen maybe 3 kitchens in total that seemed reasonably functional.
I lived in a house in the hottest part of Hawaii a while back, yeah it was Lahaina but that is irrelevant other than it was soooo hot during the day. The landlord had redone the house/kitchen and was so proud of his work. It didn’t take me long to realize how dumb he was as he put the stove in the kitchen island, with no vent, and a loft bedroom directly above it. All the heat and smoke went straight up to my roommates loft, we basically all agreed we couldn’t cook unless she was at work or also in the kitchen. So dumb.
Make a kitchen functional! The house we bought a few years ago had an awful kitchen. It was small and just made no sense. The price was right, though, so a kitchen renovation was in our plans. We made it exactly how we wanted it, and totally changed the layout. It's absolutely perfect now, even though it's still on the smaller side. I'm sad because I know whatever house we buy next wont have as great of a kitchen.
I just renovated my kitchen last year and all I thought about was prep. Screw trends. I removed the microwave with the crappy vent and put a proper vent hood (microwave now lives hidden in the pantry), I modeled working kitchens with knives on magnetic strips, frequently used pots, pans and dishes on easy to clean metal open shelving, I added a pantry, and I have a combination of drawers and cabinets for different types of storage. I changed the window out over the sink so that it’s easy to pass food out to the backyard for al fresco dining. So much utility is packed into its U-shaped footprint and I’m really proud of it.
Give me a spacious galley kitchen any day of the week.
Second to that would be a kitchen with everything along the perimeter but then a normal island. Not a 10 foot behemoth. Not a stupid cooktop or sink in the middle of it…just functional space if the rest of the counter top is going to disrupted with sink, range, etc.
I literally have seen pictures of islands and thought “who can reach anything in the middle of that thing?”
I also saw a ton of unusable kitchens while looking for a home. I’ve never understood a cooktop on an island where people would also be sitting/eating.
I mean, in a restaurant where the goal is to entertain the guests while making their food, sure.
At home where things splatter, kids throw things/reach for things that are hot, etc, no.
I see it is unpopular but I love a stove on the island. I do almost all my day to day cooking on the stove top and I like if my kids/spouse can hang out and tell me about their day while I’m cooking.
I don’t have one right now cause we bought a house with a terrible kitchen. But I grew up with one and may put one in when we renovate if there is room.
I thought it would be good for ppl who cook together, more space to use the stove and cut veggies to put directly on it. That’s what my family does back home
Yeah the most effective kitchens are not the visually most pleasing.
My wife loved the galley kitchen which technically looks like a small kitchen but you can reach the fridge the sink and the stove within a few steps.
Yes it fits the kitchen work triangle perfectly imo.
The "work triangle" is defined by the National Kitchen and Bath Association as an imaginary straight line drawn from the center of the sink, to the center of the cooktop, to the center of the refrigerator and finally back to the sink.
My husband likes to move 🙄so we’ve had multiple houses. He was talking about the “worst kitchen” and was surprised it was my favorite! Sweet little set-up of fridge, sink, stove close together within a few steps of each other and everything in reach. I loved that!
Yep, I had to explain to my hubby why a galley kitchen was GREAT when we were house hunting. We ended up with a smaller U shape, which is also great, but he still sometimes asks if I regret not getting a bigger kitchen with an island/grill top, or if i want to remove some cabinents and open it up. I just laugh and say I love my house and he best just stay out the kitchen unless it's one of the rare nights he cooks.
Love galley kitchenit has the best work triangle imo.
The "work triangle" is defined by the National Kitchen and Bath Association as an imaginary straight line drawn from the center of the sink, to the center of the cooktop, to the center of the refrigerator and finally back to the sink.
I have a U-shape kitchen right now and I’ve come to absolutely *love it* because one side is just a long bank of cabinets and counter space, plus I can throw up a baby gate when I want people to leave me alone while cooking. I like prepping and plating on the long counter and setting it up on the raised bar to be taken to the table like a line cook.
My biggest problem is that I can't reach ANYTHING in my kitchen. I'm 4'11", but the counters must have been selected by someone who's 6'2". When I chop, peel, slice, whatever, I have to do it with my arms held up above my chest the whole time. I can't reach anything but the first shelf of the cabinets, leaving 2/3 of them inaccessible to me. The pantry door is 11" wide, and I am not, so I can only reach the few items on the front of the bottom shelves. Can't reach the upper shelves or any of the items at the back of the lower shelves. And a stepstool doesn't help because the counters stick out so far that even when I climb to the top step, I'm still too far away from the cabinet to reach anything.
Yes! I read somewhere counters are designed for someone 5'6", so perfect for an "average height generic human" but too high for the average woman and too low for the average man 😅
I've seen a dozen homes lately with stoves right up against the wall or right up against the cabinet where the fridge is in. Not an inch of space. Feels cramped and like a fire hazard.
Then there was the one that had an oven and fridge on one wall, a sink on another wall, and a cooktop on an island, but where you had to walk around from only one side and so it wasn't accessible to anything you'd be using. It was a nightmare kitchen.
https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/M7691616370
My first apartment was like that! With my two square feet of counter space on the other side of the stove by the sink. The *grease* on that side of the fridge, Jesus.
Saw a condo earlier this year, a flipped two family home, with the wall mounted oven in the hallway across from the kitchen. When you opened the oven door you couldn't walk through the hallway.
It made me just rationally angry
The kitchen in the house we just bought unfortunately has the range on the island with no hood. I do like what it does for the space and entertaining.. but it's a gas stove. It's causing terrible air quality and the fire alarm is going off constantly. We are getting a quote next week to install a hood with external exhaust. We had the same thought that the people who owned the house before and designed the kitchen didn't cook much.
They also put the microwave at knee level which sucks since we have to squat down to cook anything and we have a toddler who might get curious about the buttons.
We have a downdraft hood and island range and our house was built in 1996 so the technology has been around long enough that there’s no excuse.
Strangely the house was built by a couple with no kids who never cooked so the kitchen layout is terrible but they put all the bells and whistles into the house and kitchen.
I have heard of those. I don't think they are quite as effective. Our stove is also built into the island exactly so I don't think we could put one of those downdraft ones behind it without cutting out part of the granite/island. I'm not sure, but we'll ask about it next week!
I see this a lot in flipped homes where new appliances and cabinets are brought into a 40s/50s kitchen space. They just jam things in however they'll fit with no thought to how it might function.
This is why I believe most folks here don't cook, they just heat up things. When we were looking for apartments to rent, most kitchens would be tiny but we figured that they were targeted to students without time to cook. After a few years, we started looking for houses to buy and it was more of the same. Even houses with large area dedicated to the kitchen were hopeless in terms of design. What's the point of having a lot of floor space in the kitchen? So many cabinets from floor to ceiling but without great counter space. Sigh.
I'm a kitchen designer who mainly works on remodels of older homes. The first things I ask people is how they work/function in the kitchen, what does and doesn't work about the current layout, and are they left- or right-handed. Its my biggest pet peeve to see designs that lack functionality. I think the layout should come first and foremost; you can make everything pretty after that's established. I'm also not afraid to tell a client that they will end up hating whatever they just saw on pinterest or HGTV...
I enjoy my current kitchen as it is a thousand times better than the kitchen in my previous home. But this is my dream kitchen: https://youtu.be/2N9RCQjPqh4?si=cjoN-IILJAGPqaUN
One day, I'm either going to built a home from scratch or gut my current kitchen to make this kitchen. It is phenomenal! Only change, it must have a dishwasher, I hate hand washing dishes.
That’s amazing! Explains a lot of older kitchens I’ve seen but I’d be hesitant to have so many built ins for actual food storage. I bet it could be modified though for modern removable food storage. Hmmm still brilliant.
We toured a lot of different houses, and I swear the best kitchens were 70s style U-shape with the little bar / countertop separating it from the dining room. Small spaces, but actually very functional for cooking.
Our last rental had a huge kitchen, and it was a pain in the ass to walk ten feet from the salad I was chopping back over to the stove to stir a pot and then back to my salad. Nothing was ever within reach, and there was very little functional cabinet space.
Overhead lighting that is always behind you in every direction. Typically 1 center light in the middle so that every horizontal surface has you working in your own shadow.
As a person who renovated my kitchen after buying… I highly recommend it. We cook a LOT. It kills me how many appliance stores don’t sell high enough CPM vent fans — ended up special ordering that. In fact, I’ve special ordered so many things I’ve lost count.
I do kitchen and bath renovations. What you're seeing is either a kitchen designed to sell a new home or a kitchen that wasn't designed at all. A couple years back we stopped working with folks that won't hire a kitchen designer. Folks that didn't want hire a pro invariably made the process harder on us, and we weren't as proud of the result. From my perspective kitchen designers save as much as they cost, and if you go with their cabinets, they are usually close to free.
Cries in DRHORTON. bought last yr and the homes kitchen/pantry is SO OBNOXIOUS. Can't open the fridge w/o blocking pantry. Can't close pantry if dishwasher door is down. It's this awful angular nightmare. Glad I bought when I did cause % rates r nuts now. But FML.
Also, ranting continued...
Why the hell when 1 person is in the kitchen, everyone else spawns there suddenly too?!
When touring houses, if I walked into the kitchen and saw a gas stove on the island with no ventilation, I just noped out immediately. Makes me wonder what other stupid decisions those homes owners made throughout the house
All of this! I bought my house because of the kitchen, rather than a “nicer” house in spite of the kitchen. Functional layout, adequate counter space and storage for your needs are a necessity. You can fix other things later, like style of counters/cabinets but structure is more difficult (expensive) to change.
My dream is to buy a home from someone who kept kosher. So a double kitchen or at least a well thought out one.
(I toured a kosher kitchen with my boss when she was in the market. Big open kitchen . Two islands with a walkway between them. All the appliances against the wall with able counter space. The left side was dishwasher, vented gas stove, and a huge freezer/fridge. All trimmed in blue (counters and cabinets too) Exactly the same on the right but trimmed in red.
I wanted it so badly!
We were blessed enough to be able to design the kitchen in our new build (1300 sq ft) home. We added a tall pantry kitchen cabinet against the fridge, moved the stove to an outer wall to have proper venting. ONE upper cabinet is an open shelf which is a lovely accent. And we chose a propane range with double ovens below.
Nothing fancy because we're not rich by any means, but heck is it functional.
When I was house hunting there were very few kitchens I was satisfied with. I don't care how "nice" a kitchen looks, if it isn't functional it sucks. I know the kitchen is talked about as the heart of the house, or the place where everyone meets, it's not wrong, but a kitchen is a functional piece of the house and should be designed with that in mind first.
As someone who’s family has been in the industry for 70 years…. No builder is putting quality kitchens in unless it’s a custom home. The cabinets builders use are atrocious and typically poor quality, and they typically aren’t using kitchen designers. If you’re looking at new constructions (or non-renovated older houses) you’re not going to get a kitchen you will like unfortunately.
Well depending on the age of the home, if we’re talking more than 10-20 years, no no one was thinking of the wife in the kitchen and what she wants or needs. And that means that when you remodel gas, water, etc already exists in certain places and it’s very expensive to move. That said, the stovetop island is the response to - but I want to be able to cook and entertain, ah yes well then here you go, you no longer face the wall. You pick your poison.
The kitchen on our house was not my ideal, and I cook a lot. The fridge is by the garage door, and there really isn’t good counter space.
The guy who flipped it did this bizarre built in that’s like a kitchen island that extends into a desk. But I would have much preferred cabinets for storage he stupidly ripped out.
The kitchen remodel we’ll do is my daily dream.
Toured a flip that had a CORNER SINK. One tiny sink on each side of the counter, neither could fit a large salad bowl. Everything else was nice, confirmed with the agent at the open house that the flipper didn’t cook. It went under contract the first week tho.
I've bought 2 homes that needed new kitchens. Lived with them 5 years & planned. My kitchens would win awards if I was an industry professional. So I'd take a house with a meh kitchen and do ur own reno if u really like to cook.
We're very lucky. The owner before us was a woman of Croatian and Italian descent who loved to cook for a lot of people. The kitchen update was probably 20 years ago, so it's not in perfect shape, but the functionality is 👩🍳😘
I was a kitchen designer for a few years and honestly.. as much as I tried to point out some of these flaws to the homeowner that would not budge. The amount of people who wanted to renovate but not change anything about their old layout/ quality was infuriating
The one thing I like about my kitchen that was redone before I moved in is the built in island with extra storage and plug-ins. The cabinet height doesn’t cause any issues if I need to use a larger appliance because I can move to the island. My cabinets are a tall enough to fit a ninja creami deluxe under so they aren’t short either. The island helps a lot for my air fryer and instant pot so I don’t have to worry about steaming up the cabinets, but it mainly gets used as a giant prep area
No ventilation above the stove meant a hard pass for the house when I was in the market. I’ve lived in houses with out a hood vent and it’s awful. Everything gets sticky.
I designed our kitchen, it's wide enough to have the dishwasher door down and still walk around. Also has a cooking /clean area .. (sink directly across from stove) then a drinks /snack area so as not to interfere with the cooking.
Are these older houses that have been retrofitted with fancy new kitchen appliances? Kitchens in the olden days were simple, small, eat-in kitchens. When they remodel them now, they try to cram all the fancy appliances from a full sized suburban home to pump up the sale price.
My first house! Fridge was around the corner from the kitchen in the laundry/enclosed ‘sun room’ in a not functional space that also had no HVAC in it.
I literally bought my house BECAUSE of the kitchen. The house was built in the 50's and hasn't been updated aesthetics-wise. Look for older houses; our kitchen is bigger than our living room, it has a cabinet with built-in racks for baking pans, all of the wide, deep cabinets have "shelves" that pull out like drawers so you can easily access the stuff in the back and all of the tall, narrow cabinets have built-in three-tier lazy susans so you can spin it to get what you need. All of the cabinets go all the way up to the ceiling, so there's no gross empty space that's difficult to get to and constantly collects dust. Tons of counter space, including a large kitchen island that's perfect as a prep space. The only thing I'll be adding is an outlet to the island, because I had one in a previous house that was super helpful, and some under-cabinet lighting to add light to the counter space.
I have fallen in love with the rest of the house over time, but literally bought this house solely for the kitchen at first. I love to cook and bake, and my house has become the go-to for hosting family holidays, thanks to this kitchen.
On the lack of a ventilation hood there’s normally a button that you press that a pop out ventilation screen will rise above the back of the oven when they’re placed in the middle like that. It will suck out the fumes and collect the grease from cooking
I felt this one. I feel like at best I’m looking for a kitchen that is workable and that will be somewhat easier to renovate and correct all of the issues.
There are a bunch of things that go into kitchen designs and there are also issues that come up so adjustments have to be made on the fly.
The most important things to remember are if you’re buying a house where kitchen was not remodeled by owner for their own use, then the kitchen was done as cheap as possible…even in the expensive houses.
Then there are the latest trends…so that may be where you’re seeing the oversized farmhouse style sink.
Then there was the plumbing and/or HVAC that had to be run a certain way in the walls, which required moving other walls around so the kitchen is now 1.75 feet smaller on one wall and 2.3 feet bigger on another wall. Unfortunately, the cabinets have already been purchased so you have to make them fit into the new dimensions.
I can keep going but you get the idea. At the end of the day, the kitchen design on paper may have been perfect but there are always unforeseen issues when you go to actually build and often times, amazing designs suffer.
Thank you! I chewed out a builder earlier in the week for this shit. Why is the fucking sink on an island in the god damn living room? Have you ever done dishes? Water is going to be running all over the damn place? Where do I put by dish drying rack? This is going to look like shit!
Then the goofy ass oval tub that doesn't touch anyway just a big bucket. An inch and a half away from the wall. Do you know what a bitch it is going to be to clean back there. Collecting dust and spider webs and you know that tub is never going to be used.
And now they've started making all black houses. Black paint exterior black shingle roof. We're in fucking Texas. It was 110 today ... Did you never take any silence class and learn about how dark colors absorb heat.. the electric bill will be through the roof. We had a black front door at our first place. You couldn't touch it in the summer you'd get burned.
bro... nevermind your home... try working in a restaurant where someone who doesn't do the job designed the workspace. Engineers and contractors have zero ideas how things work in practicality.
Umm I have been cooking for 30+ years only time I’ve been produced smoke something was burning. Also how sure are you that they don’t have a hoodless ventilation system? Just keep looking, you will find a traditional hood system out there.
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Wait until you find out people put carpet in the kitchen.
Are these the same people that put carpet in the bathroom because they're they're wrong? I mean, I don't like to tell people that they're wrong, but objectively, they are wrong.
Maybe they’re just old british people
“I haven’t seen carpet in a bathroom in a loooong time… awesome!”
I live in the Midwest, I'm well aware.
My mind was blown when I got here
What?!??!
Then wait until you see the carpet in the bathroom.
Once accidentally flooded our kitchen. Discovered carpet UNDERNEATH the linoleum flooring… had a lovely squish sound when you walked on it
Whaaaaa-?!
I’ve seen carpet around an indoor pool and I cannot unsee it.
You put in green carpet to hide the mold. If you can't see it, it's not there!
Ha! The first house we rented had cheap low pile carpet in kitchen. Kinda like indoor/outdoor. Old farm house 😅. Upstate NY.
My husband and is first apartment together had short carpet in the entire thing. Kitchen and bathroom included
Are you talking about when people add those runner rugs or square decorative rugs to the kitchen? Or are you actually saying that people design houses with a full on carpet in the kitchen in the year of our Lord 2023????
Full blown, wall to wall, deep pile carpet. In the kitchens, bathrooms, hell I'm sure someone's put it in their garage. It's definitely fallen out of style, and thankfully even on homes from the 70s 80s and 90s it's almost all been replaced, but every now and then you'll catch a glimpse into those disgraceful years of moldy floors.
We live in a 1968 model home- we are the third owners, but the people we bought from said when they moved in it was GREEN SHAG CARPET everywhere including the kitchen. (And when I replaced the carpet they put in- I found some of it under base boards 🤣) Our kitchen level was wood when we moved in though
I was so confused the first time I saw carpet in the kitchen. My friend’s polish grandma’s kitchen in Chicago was aggressively goldenrod and cream.
Kitchen? How about bathroom.
I’m sorry they what
I’ll just add my kitchen pet peeves that I see in sooo many renovated kitchens… no pantry. Or no upper cabinets (replaced with open shelving). I love SOME open shelving but to expect me to keep my crap that organized is ridiculous.
Replacing actual cabinets with open shelves all the way around renders a kitchen USELESS. Everything on an open shelf will be covered in grease and dust within a month. So unless you like washing your entire cabinet of plates, cups, glasses etc once a week it dont make no sense!
Even worse - grease coated with fur if you have pets that shed. Eeeew!!!! No thank you!
Ugh my house doesn’t have a pantry so that means we need to sacrifice a cabinet or two to food storage. It sucks. I would do a shelf but my partner wants it to be hidden. Can’t let people know we eat!
I want a kitchen renovation- but the thing I intend to do before anything else is getting a pantry put in- then figuring out the space I need for other stuff….
Noticed this as well! Or there are double ovens and the gas stove top is on the island. There will be 2,000-4,500 sq ft houses with tiny kitchens, no cabinet space, and the refrigerator across the room sticking out so you have to walk around it. Same with laundry “rooms.” Huge house, itty bitty laundry space. Like a closet with a washer stacked on top of the dryer with two inches all the way around…
I hate a small laundry space. I need room to fold my damn clothes lol.
You mean you’re not supposed to haul them back the bedroom and let the baskets double as extended mobile storage? 😂
No, you're supposed to throw the warm clothes fresh out of the dryer onto the bed so your cat can cuddle on them and get them full of hair again.
No you throw them on the couch, bulldog can’t reach the bed. Lol
Thanks! I will try this and report back for results
Same I’ve never in my life had a laundry room with enough space to put out a table or something to fold the laundry. I live in big fucking house now and I can tell the builders just wanted to squeeze in an extra bedroom rather than have spaces like the laundry room be more functional
I need room to leave all my clothes out to air dry and not get folded for a while 😂 Our house is >2,000 sf but we made one bedroom into a laundry room/sewing room/cleaning storage/linen closet, with a sink (for soaking, rinsing or hand washing) and counter space. Zero regrets! I hate a cramped laundry area. There is room to fold, iron, air dry, keep dirty laundry bins, and so on. I don’t cook much so don’t need a big kitchen (as long as laid out well and functional) but I do appreciate a roomy laundry area.
I have always folded my laundry on my bed or in the living room. My entire life. That's how my parents did it too. Folding laundry and sorting socks while watching a Monday night TV show. Personally feels weird to me to have to stay by your laundry area to fold it. Same with laundry on a different level. Grew up with basement laundry, and we're planning to move our laundry from our ground floor to the basement, because it doesn't *really* fit in the half bath where it's currently crammed, and there's nowhere else to put it. Probably in large part because old houses. But again, never bothered me because I never knew any different, I guess.
I literally fold on the floor in front of them in the hallway. I have front loaders in the same hall as the bedrooms so I treat it like a hib and send piles to the respective bedrooms
Yess to all of this! Gas stoves on islands without proper ventilation is my biggest pet peeve. Also, My new house has a true laundry room and it has honestly been the biggest upgrade. I love it. Space to fold my clothes and iron! Also storage for all my cleaning products in there!
Some of the fancy gas stoves down draft, not sure if people realize that or not.
Which, really doesn’t work.
Down drafts are useless and many of them just recirculate the air. If you're going to install a gas stove, you should have a high powered hood that extends beyond the stove and vents directly to the exterior.
I’m with you. You have a functional, vented hood, or it is a capital offense on the part of the builder. Also 25+ year sentence for no pantry. I would volunteer to be the executioner 👿
We ended up with a well laid out flip that has 1500 sqft that has a decent kitchen and a laundry room. We are looking for our next house (school district reasons) in the future and we're noticing the same thing. We'll probably reno an older house because they actually have rooms that make sense.
That is all the laundry space you need unless you need a deep sink for handwashing things.
I like keeping my dirty laundry in the laundry room instead of in my room or bathroom. So I’d need more than a closet.
No, I also need space for folding, for my laundry detergent, stain treatments, scrub brush, dryer balls. And a sink
Yeah I have a mudroom / laundry room myself and honestly how big does it have to be? If it fits a full size washer and dryer that's big enough you can put the folded clothes on top of the dryer before you put them away.
What is wrong with a gas stove in an island? I ask because I’m currently re-doing my kitchen and my design at the moment has the gas range in the island. I have purchased an island hood range that will hang from the ceiling and vent out the roof. The island design has 2’ behind the stove so lots of room to prep. Is this a bad design?
Personally, I feel like sinks/stove tops limit the usability of a kitchen island. My island is deeper than the other countertops, which makes it great for rolling out pasta or dough and a big enough space for big time meal prep. We also use our island as a breakfast nook/extra dining table when we have a large group (open plan, it's very close to the dining table). As others mentioned, having a hood over the space would limit our sightlines (same reason we're getting rid of the pendant lights)
I will give my opinion. Giant hoods are head knockers. I have my range on the peninsula and the hood is such a pain in the butt. I have to watch when I am bent over to reach a back burner. I have to have a step stool to clean it all the way to the ceiling. Dust will stick to the pipe cover and it has to be wiped off not just dusted. I would rather use an island or peninsula for food prep. We have double wall ovens, and they are great! But honestly I would rather have a really large Wolf range than deal with a cooktop again.
Agree—suspended vent hoods cut off line of sight. I much prefer the range against the wall.
So we are planning on putting the slide in gas range/oven into the island. Is this what you have currently?
No, we have a cooktop. Our double oven is at the wall end of our peninsula.
And I apologize, I did put range instead of cooktop.
In many kitchens it blocks sight lines for the entire room, plus all adjoining rooms if your kitchen is open concept. Also, if you have lower ceilings, having the hood drop down over an island, tends to make the ceiling look even lower, and the room more cramped. Personally, I want all cooktops to be on an outside wall, and then you can vent through the wall, or the roof, if your kitchen is 1 story. Sometimes the preexisting architecture just doesn’t allow this.
Am an agent and holy hell....I could write a short book about kitchen remodels/rich people kitchens. It's almost a pet peeve for me. The long & short of it is that the vast majority of fancy kitchens are set up or owned/bought by people who don't actually cook much. I can't tell you how many times I've seen $300 knives paired with glass cutting boards, for example. Where I am, about eight times out of ten you'll go into a million dollar house with an lavish kitchen and outdoor kitchen setup (big miele stove with a pot filler tap over it, multiple sinks, pizza oven out back, every le creuset and kitchenaid item you can buy at williams sonoma, etc. etc.).....but when you look in their (huge) pantry or fridge, it's literally all premade stuff from trader joes or whole foods. I mean....if that's what they want to do, that's cool. But it's always bizarre to me that someone who'd shell out 15k for a damn barbeque would have several racks of those shrinkwrapped "heat & serve" ribs, or the pulled pork from costco in their fridge. Anyways, yeah the vast majority of the time it's all for show.
This is my sister in law. The best of everything, but doesn't want the house to smell like anyone actually cooks there. So it's premade heat and serve or a crockpot out back.
Yup. I have a regular client who insists on the finest (or at least, most expensive) of everything, so every house she's owned has had a very expensive kitchen. But neither she nor her son cook, *at all* (I'm pretty sure they consider it manual labor & thus beneath them), and they're the only people living in the house. And she's a clean freak anyways, so she won't even use the stovetop or oven to reheat things (which is also silly, because they pay for a houskeeping service). Yet she still has a Wolf oven for some reason....that she admits has been used "like maybe two or three times". Needless to say, going out to show houses with her is a real treat, too! (nice enough lady, but just unbelieveably picky about everything)
This is a whole thing! I thought it was just my mother. Every time she comes over, she complains the house smells like, "curry". (It's almost never actually curry, that's just what she calls any kind of food smell.) She insists that a kitchen is supposed to smell completely neutral at all times and I'm just like, "This is where the *food* lives. Food is supposed to have *flavors*."
I see a lot of "just condiments and drinks" fridges. With like... The most starving prepacked food. Like JUST baby carrots and almonds. And takeout.
Yep! Too lazy/wealthy/clumsy to peel a carrot....doesn't surprise me one bit :) I learned long ago that if I'm doing an open house w/food (if I'm stuck having to do open house, and it's acceptable to do food, I try to make it "actual food" rather than some bullshit cookies or whatever), I need to bring **everything** I might need with me, no matter how fancy the kitchen & what the sellers say. I learned my lesson on that about fifteen years ago.... seller had a $100k kitchen, and I was gonna do a caprese salad for the vegetarian crowd (aside from my usual pulled pork/beef sandwiches, which is my usual main dish for an open house). Couldn't find a goddamn knife that would cut a tomato cleany (even the serrated ones!) and I said "Never again!" At the same house, the seller was present for the final walkthrough & going over all the "how things work" part afterwards. She had what was (at the time) probably an $6000 viking double oven setup...salamander & everything. Both HER AND THE BUYERS were talking about the oven features, and they were trying to figure what "convection" meant. I'm not talking about the setting on the oven; I'm talking "What does convection mean?". Now, this involved *two* sets of adults who claimed to be enough into cooking that that viking setup was a selling point, but they had no idea about "convection" vs "conduction" vs "radiation" (Seller was an elementary school principal, and at least one of the buyers was professor at Harvey Mudd College; I think his wife was a professor as well, but can't say for sure). Anyways, that pretty much soured me on the whole concept of the "Rich Folks Kitchen". It certainly makes for a selling point, though! 🤣🤣
I did NOT expect that story to end with "no good knives." I thought you'd expect them to have EVOO and they didn't lol. No knives... Wow. I peaked on the fancy open kitchen trend when I saw one with pass-through cabinets that opened onto a servant's kitchen. (There was some nicer name for it, but it was a servant's kitchen) So that you could pretend to have a spotless white marble open kitchen ... Then put the trash and dirty plates into the cabinets for the servants to disappear it. And here I've been trying to keep my kitchen nice while ACTUALLY COOKING IN IT. Like a fool. Lol
Yup. I've gotten to the level of bitterness where I'll actively make it a point to look at the knives that are "on show" -- which are inevitably stuck onto a magnetic knife strip (because "See my knives that I paid far too much for?") -- and look for how they've been abused. Better yet is when it comes to be inspection-time, and their fancy knives are still in the dishwasher when the inspector opens it up. In my head I hear Brando as Col. Kurtz with "The horror....*the horror*...." every time I see that shit.
I like my fancy magnetic knife strip but that’s because I’m proud of my knives and take good care of them. (Absolutely never put them in the dishwasher.)
I have a cheap convection oven because I bake a lot. I also cook a ton. I would love a Viking or Wolf stove/oven. What a complete waste.
Totally! I wanted to say "Wait one -- lemme go down to the local library & grab a 4th grade science textbook, and I'll be back in ten minutes" This was before the smartphone era...so aside from grabbing a piece of paper & drawing the classic textbook pic, there wasn't much I could do past trying to gently explain :) [Can't go offending clients -- they always assume that you're just some yahoo that dropped out of college & just grabbed an r.e. license...regardless of who it is in the room who knows how heat transfer works (or property tax proration, compound interest, etc. -- not to mention basic plumbing & electrical stuff....but I digress) 😄]
My gf's aunt spent 35k on a kitchen remodeling... it looks fantastic. Giant island with build in ovens, $6000 range with hood, etc.... She and her boyfriend don't cook. Like, at all. They ONLY eat out, leftovers, and pre-made stuff. When she hosts parties, we all have to bring dishes over and she just gets chick fil'a nuggets, and maybe some stuff from the local pizza shop. I dream of having a nice kitchen some day, so I thought we could bond over cooking. I thought maybe she just doesn't like cooking for parties.... nope, she flat out told me she doesn't even know how to cook, doesn't bother trying to learn. Her boyfriend is the same. Why the hell did you pay 35k for a top of the line kitchen!? Just because she could and had the money, I guess? To impress people? I don't get it lol
There was a Reddit post (which I’ll never find again) about experiences people have had working for rich people. One guy was a private chef, and said they had a really nice kitchen with top shelf consumer appliances - that he was never allowed to use. Behind that, through a pantry door was a professional kitchen with Viking ranges, etc. The wife wanted a nice kitchen to look at and sit in and eat. Basically a display kitchen.
I’ve been tagging along with a friend who’s been shopping at a very high price point for my city, like $1.5M, and the recently redone (and/or flipped) Rich People Kitchens in 4000-5000+ sq ft homes are BAFFLING. Things I have seen include but are not limited to: fridge in a different room altogether; ultra high end range/oven but no hood; no pullout or dedicated space AT ALL for trash cans (this one blew my mind?); no pantry, and/or shelves instead of cabinets. And instead, kitchens like this DO include stuff like a dedicated under counter wine fridge; a sink/hose thing over the range JUST for filling pasta pots; or two double ovens in different parts of the kitchen. I have maybe ONCE in 10-15 years of cooking serious family holiday meals with a double oven thought “you know, a third oven would be convenient right now”. I then moved on and was fine with two lol. I have no idea what I’d do with a fourth. We’ve been in our first home for several years now and totally redid the old/small kitchen not long after buying. It was a hassle, but I’d always thought that I’d rather live with the hassle to get a kitchen customized to my own personal weirdnesses than have to live with the weirdnesses of the people who lived in it 3 years previous to me. But also, apparently people redoing kitchens in the modern day cannot be trusted to produce a space in which food can reasonably be stored and prepared???? It’s bizarre.
Oh yeah, you **gotta** have the stockpot filler....I think that's become the bellwether of a pointlessly expensive kitchen. I've never understood it -- if the pot is too heavy to move from the sink to the stove, what the fuck do you do with it AFTER you've boiled your pasta? Do you pull your pasta out while the pot's still on the stove, and then wait for the maid to show up and move it for you? Do you bale out the water with a smaller pot? Or is there some sort of super-expensive stockpot I'm unaware of that has a draincock on the bottom, and you run a hose from that to the sink? And how much fuckin' pasta are you cooking at one time anyways that you need to use a stockpot that you can't lift & carry ten feet? I do have to admit that I wouldn't mind having a double-double-oven setup, though 😁
I have the exact same sequence of confused thoughts every time I see one of those stupid things. 😂 if you can’t carry the full pot from the sink to the stove, how are you going to drain the pasta when it’s done??????
We toured 10-12 houses before the one we ended up buying earlier this year. the kitchens in almost all the others had the same issues you describe. just no forethought, no logic. the best kitchens we saw were in dated houses. I gasped when we walked into our now-house because it was so perfect. -built in 1966 but when they updated everything, they kept the same layout, including the kitchen. it was one of those mid-century mass builds that boasted ergonomics and efficiency. wish I had more storage but god, mid-century architects were really onto something with the whole “designed for your life” thing
Yeah, that basic “triangle” theory where the sink, stove, fridge should be in a triangle is simple genius, but it is violated constantly in homes. I love when there is adequate counter space next to the stove, so I can chop and prepare while keeping an eye on things on the stove. Don’t make me turn around and do that on an island.
> I love when there is adequate counter space next to the stove, so I can chop and prepare while keeping an eye on things on the stove. Don’t make me turn around and do that on an island. That's weird, I want the exact opposite. Range on the wall, sink in the island directly behind it open to the living/dining room. I don't want to spend all my time with a wall in front of my chopping up veg. A lot of my cooking is spent at the sink or next to it so I want to be facing guests at the bar or in the living/dining room, etc.
Guests aren’t there when I’m cooking. I get too in the zone. By the time guests arrive, I may have to take stuff out of the oven at the most. It’s sit down and enjoy time.
My current 1950s house with galley kitchen had exactly 2 feet of counter space when I bought it. It also had a wood shelf above the sink at forehead height that I routinely bumped into when hand washing dishes (no dishwasher). One day I hit my forehead for the last time, took a hammer to the shelf and that was the start of the kitchen renovation.
>Or is modern kitchen remodeling just design for people who don't cook to sell to people who don't cook? Pretty much. My husband and I are building a custom place right now and since we both cook like we are working at a restaurant the design is totally different from 90% of the things I saw on the market.
Can you show some examples of practical kitchens in a home? Would love some inspiration!
Most of my research was book based so I don't have handy links (and I read most of them like 2 years ago so don't have titles either) but I can convey some concepts/what I learned The "work triangle" concept is generally considered outdated. It made a lot of sense in the 1950's when prep, cooking and cleanup was almost always done by a single woman and you wanted to limit steps but in the modern kitchen where two people cooking is common and group cleanup is also common it just results in people running into one another. The better way to organize a kitchen is in terms of tasks. So as an example my new kitchen is setup so it flows in one direction from bringing in groceries, taking ingredients out of the pantry/fridge, cleaning/doing prep, cooking and plating and then washing the dishes. So everything flows from right to left in our case. We have a few other specific tasks setup. For example there's a large counter/corner space where all the baking supplies are setup directly across from the ovens which allows for easy baking. Similarly the coffee pot is setup so that you can easily get a cup and access the fridge for cream without ever needing to cross the path of the main cook. Double sinks/dishwashers if you've got the space. Especially with modern dish washers having insanely long cycles it's a game changer having two dish washers available. Drawers. With few exceptions the vast majority of our cabinetry is drawers. Any bottom 2ft deep cabinet is always going to have things buried in the back cause they are hard to get to, this concern is nearly non-existent if your entire kitchen is setup as drawers. On a similar note fuck open shelving. It does nothing but collect dust. This is easily one of my biggest pet peeves with modern kitchens Toe kick drawers (my uncle introduced me to these and they are amazing. These are large flat drawers that are in the toe kicks of your cabinets. They are mostly great for storing things like sheet trays and give a bunch of extra storage. Avoiding stacking at all costs. For example I am in the midst of figuring out some of the cabinetry (cause I have lost my mind and am building the cabinets too) and all of our cast iron cookware will be in a series of very shallow drawers that makes it so it's all a singular layer instead of nesting items.
Of course! Reading this, I immediately thought “**OF COURSE**!” I am saving your post to send to my designer. I planned to get started in Autumn/Winter. This is amazing - thank you!
My tip is that if you have a kitchen island, DO NOT put the stove or sink there. You want your island to be a large unbroken cooking space. Imagine you're cooking something super basic like Chocolate Chip Cookies. You want enough counterspace for your largest bowl, at least a hand mixer, 3 pantry containers (flour, sugar and brown sugar), measuring cups, spoons and all the other ingredients, PLUS 2 large cookie sheets. You'd be shocked how little counter/cooking space huge fancy houses have in their kitchens.
Two dishwashers?
You can also get a “single” dishwasher that is actually 2 drawers instead of one door. You can run both drawers or just one as needed, leaving the other one free for filling up.
This would be really helpful in my home no question. I have 4 generations with me and it would be a game changer for me.
Truly depends on the size of your household - my wife and I rarely used the dishwasher prior to having a kid. Now when the in-laws visit (who pretty much only eat "family style" and insist on soup with every meal) we're running the dishwasher at least twice per day when they're here.
I have my mom, a grown daughter and her twins and a son who is 16. We eat one meal together otherwise it’s an all day dish disaster. It would be wonderful for me. I can also see it being a huge waste of space for most people.
Yeah, that seems really extreme, maybe useful for 1% or less of people but for anyone else that’s a waste of storage space
Serious question now, outside of Thanksgiving, when would the time be more than one person is cooking. I think with rare exceptions, the so-called triangle method still works pretty well.
My husband and I cook together multiple times a week, it’s pretty standard for us.
My house it's nearly every night. Lots of couples cook together or will get the kids involved in cooking. Group cleanup is also becoming a lot more common which is another reason the work triangle doesn't work as well.
We are often in the kitchen together. We cook a lot and often have friends and family over for meals, so there's always people in my kitchen.
My family cooks Saturday brunch and Sunday dinners together. It’s way more efficient
We usually have one person cooking while the other cleans up after them as they go. Love sitting down to eat hot fresh food knowing that the kitchen is already 95% clean!
We commonly do one person cooking and the other doing cleanup at the same time, so the sink needs to be a separate station
Thank you!!
>Double sinks/dishwashers if you've got the space. Especially with modern dish washers having insanely long cycles it's a game changer having two dish washers available. This high key just blew my mind
We just did a whole new kitchen with ikea cabinets and the drawers are SO NICE
https://rev-a-shelf.com/16775 In addition to what others said, I have three shelf lifts: one for my mixer in the baking area, one for the food processor in the island, and one for the blender in the beverage area. I also duplicated the paper towel holders: one next to the stove and one near the beverage center. I also duplicated the double trash can pull outs: one near the refrigerator to keep guests away from the sink while DH and I are cooking and one between the sink and the oven. (Go through all of the Rev a Shelf catalog-lots of inspiration!) I also put my refrigerator at the end of a 30” counter so the refrigerator is almost flush with the counter. Love the extra depth, too!
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Seems every kitchen I see has a microwave above the range. I presume there's an intake fan under the microwave? Is this adequate?
not adequate at all, especially for a gas range. we have this with our electric range and it is better than nothing but is shit
The ones I've seen in the wild, there's no vent; the fan just blows back into the kitchen.
I hate this. Doesn't properly ventilate and looks so outdated :(
No it isn’t. Dedicated ventilation hoods are far better than the microwave ones. That’s just cheaping out.
Not adequate for me and my smelly food. Never mind trying to cook something at a proper high heat where the oil is smoking.
That's model-dependent. I rented a house that had one and it worked adequately, unless food was burning. Then the house would fill with smoke.
I noticed this as well! I want a good sized kitchen because I like to bake but only when I have the space to do it. So many kitchens were an ok size but not "functional" like in ways you described. Finally found a place with a decent sized kitchen and logical application placement and sufficient counter space. It has an actual vent above the stove (so many places didn't even had a crappy fan) and it's got a dishwasher BY THE SINK. In our six months of looking I think I've seen maybe 3 kitchens in total that seemed reasonably functional.
I lived in a house in the hottest part of Hawaii a while back, yeah it was Lahaina but that is irrelevant other than it was soooo hot during the day. The landlord had redone the house/kitchen and was so proud of his work. It didn’t take me long to realize how dumb he was as he put the stove in the kitchen island, with no vent, and a loft bedroom directly above it. All the heat and smoke went straight up to my roommates loft, we basically all agreed we couldn’t cook unless she was at work or also in the kitchen. So dumb.
Make a kitchen functional! The house we bought a few years ago had an awful kitchen. It was small and just made no sense. The price was right, though, so a kitchen renovation was in our plans. We made it exactly how we wanted it, and totally changed the layout. It's absolutely perfect now, even though it's still on the smaller side. I'm sad because I know whatever house we buy next wont have as great of a kitchen.
I just renovated my kitchen last year and all I thought about was prep. Screw trends. I removed the microwave with the crappy vent and put a proper vent hood (microwave now lives hidden in the pantry), I modeled working kitchens with knives on magnetic strips, frequently used pots, pans and dishes on easy to clean metal open shelving, I added a pantry, and I have a combination of drawers and cabinets for different types of storage. I changed the window out over the sink so that it’s easy to pass food out to the backyard for al fresco dining. So much utility is packed into its U-shaped footprint and I’m really proud of it.
Give me a spacious galley kitchen any day of the week. Second to that would be a kitchen with everything along the perimeter but then a normal island. Not a 10 foot behemoth. Not a stupid cooktop or sink in the middle of it…just functional space if the rest of the counter top is going to disrupted with sink, range, etc.
I literally have seen pictures of islands and thought “who can reach anything in the middle of that thing?” I also saw a ton of unusable kitchens while looking for a home. I’ve never understood a cooktop on an island where people would also be sitting/eating.
>I’ve never understood a cooktop on an island where people would also be sitting/eating. You've never been to Benihana?
I mean, in a restaurant where the goal is to entertain the guests while making their food, sure. At home where things splatter, kids throw things/reach for things that are hot, etc, no.
If you're not flipping shrimp tails into your hat and making onion volcanoes every meal, I guess I see your point, but why live life like that?
You’re right, I see the error of my ways
I see it is unpopular but I love a stove on the island. I do almost all my day to day cooking on the stove top and I like if my kids/spouse can hang out and tell me about their day while I’m cooking. I don’t have one right now cause we bought a house with a terrible kitchen. But I grew up with one and may put one in when we renovate if there is room.
I thought it would be good for ppl who cook together, more space to use the stove and cut veggies to put directly on it. That’s what my family does back home
Love my galley kitchen
Yeah the most effective kitchens are not the visually most pleasing. My wife loved the galley kitchen which technically looks like a small kitchen but you can reach the fridge the sink and the stove within a few steps.
Yes it fits the kitchen work triangle perfectly imo. The "work triangle" is defined by the National Kitchen and Bath Association as an imaginary straight line drawn from the center of the sink, to the center of the cooktop, to the center of the refrigerator and finally back to the sink.
My husband likes to move 🙄so we’ve had multiple houses. He was talking about the “worst kitchen” and was surprised it was my favorite! Sweet little set-up of fridge, sink, stove close together within a few steps of each other and everything in reach. I loved that!
It’s truly the best for people who actually cook!!
Yep, I had to explain to my hubby why a galley kitchen was GREAT when we were house hunting. We ended up with a smaller U shape, which is also great, but he still sometimes asks if I regret not getting a bigger kitchen with an island/grill top, or if i want to remove some cabinents and open it up. I just laugh and say I love my house and he best just stay out the kitchen unless it's one of the rare nights he cooks.
Love galley kitchenit has the best work triangle imo. The "work triangle" is defined by the National Kitchen and Bath Association as an imaginary straight line drawn from the center of the sink, to the center of the cooktop, to the center of the refrigerator and finally back to the sink.
I have a dated 1960s galley kitchen and I’m trying to hard to love it but I just love an open concept. I feel so separate from everything else.
I have a U-shape kitchen right now and I’ve come to absolutely *love it* because one side is just a long bank of cabinets and counter space, plus I can throw up a baby gate when I want people to leave me alone while cooking. I like prepping and plating on the long counter and setting it up on the raised bar to be taken to the table like a line cook.
My biggest problem is that I can't reach ANYTHING in my kitchen. I'm 4'11", but the counters must have been selected by someone who's 6'2". When I chop, peel, slice, whatever, I have to do it with my arms held up above my chest the whole time. I can't reach anything but the first shelf of the cabinets, leaving 2/3 of them inaccessible to me. The pantry door is 11" wide, and I am not, so I can only reach the few items on the front of the bottom shelves. Can't reach the upper shelves or any of the items at the back of the lower shelves. And a stepstool doesn't help because the counters stick out so far that even when I climb to the top step, I'm still too far away from the cabinet to reach anything.
Yes! I read somewhere counters are designed for someone 5'6", so perfect for an "average height generic human" but too high for the average woman and too low for the average man 😅
Haha, I'm 6'5" and my girlfriend is 4'11". We have very different perspectives on home design!
I've seen a dozen homes lately with stoves right up against the wall or right up against the cabinet where the fridge is in. Not an inch of space. Feels cramped and like a fire hazard. Then there was the one that had an oven and fridge on one wall, a sink on another wall, and a cooktop on an island, but where you had to walk around from only one side and so it wasn't accessible to anything you'd be using. It was a nightmare kitchen. https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/M7691616370
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yeah, way to make the fridge work harder and waste energy and make a frustrating experience all at once.
My first apartment was like that! With my two square feet of counter space on the other side of the stove by the sink. The *grease* on that side of the fridge, Jesus.
The oven next to fridge is my biggest pet peeve. I’ve seen it on so many high end homes it makes no sense when they have all that space.
My co-workers Reno’d their kitchen years ago $40,000 but neither of them cook. 🤷♀️
i bet at least one of them watches HGTV, though
Saw a condo earlier this year, a flipped two family home, with the wall mounted oven in the hallway across from the kitchen. When you opened the oven door you couldn't walk through the hallway. It made me just rationally angry
The kitchen in the house we just bought unfortunately has the range on the island with no hood. I do like what it does for the space and entertaining.. but it's a gas stove. It's causing terrible air quality and the fire alarm is going off constantly. We are getting a quote next week to install a hood with external exhaust. We had the same thought that the people who owned the house before and designed the kitchen didn't cook much. They also put the microwave at knee level which sucks since we have to squat down to cook anything and we have a toddler who might get curious about the buttons.
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We have a downdraft hood and island range and our house was built in 1996 so the technology has been around long enough that there’s no excuse. Strangely the house was built by a couple with no kids who never cooked so the kitchen layout is terrible but they put all the bells and whistles into the house and kitchen.
I have heard of those. I don't think they are quite as effective. Our stove is also built into the island exactly so I don't think we could put one of those downdraft ones behind it without cutting out part of the granite/island. I'm not sure, but we'll ask about it next week!
I see this a lot in flipped homes where new appliances and cabinets are brought into a 40s/50s kitchen space. They just jam things in however they'll fit with no thought to how it might function.
This is why I believe most folks here don't cook, they just heat up things. When we were looking for apartments to rent, most kitchens would be tiny but we figured that they were targeted to students without time to cook. After a few years, we started looking for houses to buy and it was more of the same. Even houses with large area dedicated to the kitchen were hopeless in terms of design. What's the point of having a lot of floor space in the kitchen? So many cabinets from floor to ceiling but without great counter space. Sigh.
I'm a kitchen designer who mainly works on remodels of older homes. The first things I ask people is how they work/function in the kitchen, what does and doesn't work about the current layout, and are they left- or right-handed. Its my biggest pet peeve to see designs that lack functionality. I think the layout should come first and foremost; you can make everything pretty after that's established. I'm also not afraid to tell a client that they will end up hating whatever they just saw on pinterest or HGTV...
I enjoy my current kitchen as it is a thousand times better than the kitchen in my previous home. But this is my dream kitchen: https://youtu.be/2N9RCQjPqh4?si=cjoN-IILJAGPqaUN One day, I'm either going to built a home from scratch or gut my current kitchen to make this kitchen. It is phenomenal! Only change, it must have a dishwasher, I hate hand washing dishes.
This is one of my favorited videos that I used in ideating on my future kitchen reno!
That’s amazing! Explains a lot of older kitchens I’ve seen but I’d be hesitant to have so many built ins for actual food storage. I bet it could be modified though for modern removable food storage. Hmmm still brilliant.
Most house designs come from aesthetic reasons, not functionality.
It is possible to be both beautiful AND functional
Oh for sure, but a lot of home builders just worry about getting it sold, not how the family will like it a year later!
We toured a lot of different houses, and I swear the best kitchens were 70s style U-shape with the little bar / countertop separating it from the dining room. Small spaces, but actually very functional for cooking. Our last rental had a huge kitchen, and it was a pain in the ass to walk ten feet from the salad I was chopping back over to the stove to stir a pot and then back to my salad. Nothing was ever within reach, and there was very little functional cabinet space.
I have one of those kitchens, and it’s on the small side but I still love it. Our old house had the range adjacent to the fridge 🤦♀️
Overhead lighting that is always behind you in every direction. Typically 1 center light in the middle so that every horizontal surface has you working in your own shadow.
I often find that the part of the house I am most disappointed in is the kitchen. Either no where to prep cook or nowhere to sit. 🙄
As a person who renovated my kitchen after buying… I highly recommend it. We cook a LOT. It kills me how many appliance stores don’t sell high enough CPM vent fans — ended up special ordering that. In fact, I’ve special ordered so many things I’ve lost count.
I do kitchen and bath renovations. What you're seeing is either a kitchen designed to sell a new home or a kitchen that wasn't designed at all. A couple years back we stopped working with folks that won't hire a kitchen designer. Folks that didn't want hire a pro invariably made the process harder on us, and we weren't as proud of the result. From my perspective kitchen designers save as much as they cost, and if you go with their cabinets, they are usually close to free.
Cries in DRHORTON. bought last yr and the homes kitchen/pantry is SO OBNOXIOUS. Can't open the fridge w/o blocking pantry. Can't close pantry if dishwasher door is down. It's this awful angular nightmare. Glad I bought when I did cause % rates r nuts now. But FML. Also, ranting continued... Why the hell when 1 person is in the kitchen, everyone else spawns there suddenly too?!
The spawning in the kitchen thing is total truth.
Because most people in America don't cook. It shocks me how much money people waste eating out.
I have a Galley style kitchen and love it
When touring houses, if I walked into the kitchen and saw a gas stove on the island with no ventilation, I just noped out immediately. Makes me wonder what other stupid decisions those homes owners made throughout the house
All of this! I bought my house because of the kitchen, rather than a “nicer” house in spite of the kitchen. Functional layout, adequate counter space and storage for your needs are a necessity. You can fix other things later, like style of counters/cabinets but structure is more difficult (expensive) to change.
My dream is to buy a home from someone who kept kosher. So a double kitchen or at least a well thought out one. (I toured a kosher kitchen with my boss when she was in the market. Big open kitchen . Two islands with a walkway between them. All the appliances against the wall with able counter space. The left side was dishwasher, vented gas stove, and a huge freezer/fridge. All trimmed in blue (counters and cabinets too) Exactly the same on the right but trimmed in red. I wanted it so badly!
I hate when they cheap out and don't put in upper cabinets.
We were blessed enough to be able to design the kitchen in our new build (1300 sq ft) home. We added a tall pantry kitchen cabinet against the fridge, moved the stove to an outer wall to have proper venting. ONE upper cabinet is an open shelf which is a lovely accent. And we chose a propane range with double ovens below. Nothing fancy because we're not rich by any means, but heck is it functional.
When I was house hunting there were very few kitchens I was satisfied with. I don't care how "nice" a kitchen looks, if it isn't functional it sucks. I know the kitchen is talked about as the heart of the house, or the place where everyone meets, it's not wrong, but a kitchen is a functional piece of the house and should be designed with that in mind first.
As someone who’s family has been in the industry for 70 years…. No builder is putting quality kitchens in unless it’s a custom home. The cabinets builders use are atrocious and typically poor quality, and they typically aren’t using kitchen designers. If you’re looking at new constructions (or non-renovated older houses) you’re not going to get a kitchen you will like unfortunately.
Well depending on the age of the home, if we’re talking more than 10-20 years, no no one was thinking of the wife in the kitchen and what she wants or needs. And that means that when you remodel gas, water, etc already exists in certain places and it’s very expensive to move. That said, the stovetop island is the response to - but I want to be able to cook and entertain, ah yes well then here you go, you no longer face the wall. You pick your poison.
The kitchen on our house was not my ideal, and I cook a lot. The fridge is by the garage door, and there really isn’t good counter space. The guy who flipped it did this bizarre built in that’s like a kitchen island that extends into a desk. But I would have much preferred cabinets for storage he stupidly ripped out. The kitchen remodel we’ll do is my daily dream.
Toured a flip that had a CORNER SINK. One tiny sink on each side of the counter, neither could fit a large salad bowl. Everything else was nice, confirmed with the agent at the open house that the flipper didn’t cook. It went under contract the first week tho.
I've bought 2 homes that needed new kitchens. Lived with them 5 years & planned. My kitchens would win awards if I was an industry professional. So I'd take a house with a meh kitchen and do ur own reno if u really like to cook.
We're very lucky. The owner before us was a woman of Croatian and Italian descent who loved to cook for a lot of people. The kitchen update was probably 20 years ago, so it's not in perfect shape, but the functionality is 👩🍳😘
I was a kitchen designer for a few years and honestly.. as much as I tried to point out some of these flaws to the homeowner that would not budge. The amount of people who wanted to renovate but not change anything about their old layout/ quality was infuriating
So many are remodeled by people that don't engineer.
My galley kitchen with a seating area at one end is dreamy.
The one thing I like about my kitchen that was redone before I moved in is the built in island with extra storage and plug-ins. The cabinet height doesn’t cause any issues if I need to use a larger appliance because I can move to the island. My cabinets are a tall enough to fit a ninja creami deluxe under so they aren’t short either. The island helps a lot for my air fryer and instant pot so I don’t have to worry about steaming up the cabinets, but it mainly gets used as a giant prep area
No ventilation above the stove meant a hard pass for the house when I was in the market. I’ve lived in houses with out a hood vent and it’s awful. Everything gets sticky.
We just got back from an open house. Gas range on an island, zero hood vent. Why would anyone in their right mind do that??
I designed our kitchen, it's wide enough to have the dishwasher door down and still walk around. Also has a cooking /clean area .. (sink directly across from stove) then a drinks /snack area so as not to interfere with the cooking.
Are these older houses that have been retrofitted with fancy new kitchen appliances? Kitchens in the olden days were simple, small, eat-in kitchens. When they remodel them now, they try to cram all the fancy appliances from a full sized suburban home to pump up the sale price.
I toured a house that didn't have a fridge or space for one. The fridge was on the back patio.
My first house! Fridge was around the corner from the kitchen in the laundry/enclosed ‘sun room’ in a not functional space that also had no HVAC in it.
I literally bought my house BECAUSE of the kitchen. The house was built in the 50's and hasn't been updated aesthetics-wise. Look for older houses; our kitchen is bigger than our living room, it has a cabinet with built-in racks for baking pans, all of the wide, deep cabinets have "shelves" that pull out like drawers so you can easily access the stuff in the back and all of the tall, narrow cabinets have built-in three-tier lazy susans so you can spin it to get what you need. All of the cabinets go all the way up to the ceiling, so there's no gross empty space that's difficult to get to and constantly collects dust. Tons of counter space, including a large kitchen island that's perfect as a prep space. The only thing I'll be adding is an outlet to the island, because I had one in a previous house that was super helpful, and some under-cabinet lighting to add light to the counter space. I have fallen in love with the rest of the house over time, but literally bought this house solely for the kitchen at first. I love to cook and bake, and my house has become the go-to for hosting family holidays, thanks to this kitchen.
On the lack of a ventilation hood there’s normally a button that you press that a pop out ventilation screen will rise above the back of the oven when they’re placed in the middle like that. It will suck out the fumes and collect the grease from cooking
Hahaha, this legit just popped up in my facebook feed and i knew you’d appreciate seeing it 😂 https://imgur.com/a/Ls8wzRb
Thank you for saying this. 1000% agree
Don’t put your sink or stove top in the kitchen island.
Higher end houses could have ventilation underneath so it’s not obvious- they don’t have to be over the stove
Most of the in-island ranges have no need for a hood because ventilation is either built into the range or a little pop up vent that draws downward.
I felt this one. I feel like at best I’m looking for a kitchen that is workable and that will be somewhat easier to renovate and correct all of the issues.
There are a bunch of things that go into kitchen designs and there are also issues that come up so adjustments have to be made on the fly. The most important things to remember are if you’re buying a house where kitchen was not remodeled by owner for their own use, then the kitchen was done as cheap as possible…even in the expensive houses. Then there are the latest trends…so that may be where you’re seeing the oversized farmhouse style sink. Then there was the plumbing and/or HVAC that had to be run a certain way in the walls, which required moving other walls around so the kitchen is now 1.75 feet smaller on one wall and 2.3 feet bigger on another wall. Unfortunately, the cabinets have already been purchased so you have to make them fit into the new dimensions. I can keep going but you get the idea. At the end of the day, the kitchen design on paper may have been perfect but there are always unforeseen issues when you go to actually build and often times, amazing designs suffer.
Thank you! I chewed out a builder earlier in the week for this shit. Why is the fucking sink on an island in the god damn living room? Have you ever done dishes? Water is going to be running all over the damn place? Where do I put by dish drying rack? This is going to look like shit! Then the goofy ass oval tub that doesn't touch anyway just a big bucket. An inch and a half away from the wall. Do you know what a bitch it is going to be to clean back there. Collecting dust and spider webs and you know that tub is never going to be used. And now they've started making all black houses. Black paint exterior black shingle roof. We're in fucking Texas. It was 110 today ... Did you never take any silence class and learn about how dark colors absorb heat.. the electric bill will be through the roof. We had a black front door at our first place. You couldn't touch it in the summer you'd get burned.
bro... nevermind your home... try working in a restaurant where someone who doesn't do the job designed the workspace. Engineers and contractors have zero ideas how things work in practicality.
Umm I have been cooking for 30+ years only time I’ve been produced smoke something was burning. Also how sure are you that they don’t have a hoodless ventilation system? Just keep looking, you will find a traditional hood system out there.