The Way We Live Now: The Kitchen

The kitchen has long been the most important room in the house. That’s why we’ve seen it evolve from being a separate outside room (fire danger) in the 1700s, moved into the back of the house in the 1800s (where servants and women congregated), to a selling feature for the “modern woman” in the 1900s, to today when most new construction places the kitchen as the most central feature of the home. I love the retro photo above of an open kitchen of the 1950s, where you practically need to crawl over the sink/island to access the refrigerator!

Today, the kitchen is truly the hub of the home. And during this time of quarantine, our kitchens need to work harder and function better than ever! They are not only where we cook and gather as a family, they also need to have room to go from baking station to arts-and-crafts area to zoom meeting conference room!

Luckily, I’ve long been a fan of the full-length kitchen island, so hopefully my clients have the space they need while we are all sheltering at home. Mom or Dad can prepare a meal on one end, while the littles can work on a messy craft project on the other end, and everyone’s happy.

I will say that some of the kitchen features of yesterday are making a lot more sense today. Like a large walk-in pantry/dry storage, common during the 1800s, and essential for surviving long winters. I think we’ve learned that having a bin to store 25 lbs of potatoes, and shelves for cartons of of granola bars and a zillion boxes of pasta is a good thing. We all purchase bulk goods via Costco and Amazon anyway, and frankly most of us have trouble managing to store it all, so walk-in pantries are the perfect solution.

Another retro kitchen item making a comeback these days is the kitchen desk. I admit I thought it was a bit of an anachronism from the days when the lady of the house would sit there to compose a shopping list or pay the household bills, things we just do on our phones now. But in a time when everyone in the family is either working from home or remote-schooling, the more desks the better! I’m seriously wondering if we should begin to add these back to kitchen floorplans!

We are even asking more from the smallest space kitchens, like the beach house kitchen I designed above. Tiny but mighty, with all the features you’d expect in a kitchen twice this size. We’re all cooking more than ever, so having everything in its place and ready to create a culinary masterpiece is more important to us than it was even 4 months ago. I could shelter-in-place here!

What features do you think are important for the kitchen moving forward, as we demand more and more of our living spaces? I’d love to hear in the comments below.

Be safe and well.

Warmly,

Beth