A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2005 Kitchen Update

Small kitchens are terrible things!!!! This kitchen used to be only 9 1/2 by about 11.....now it's 9 1/2 by just under 20 feet.......knocking out the rest of the wall between the dining room and kitchen really made a dramatic difference!!!

Hey Triss, our living room is huge too!!! Go figure.....Big living room, tiny kitchen, tiny dining room....Then again our house IS over a hundred years old........I guess they didn't need a big kitchen way back then, they probably cooked outside or something....LOL

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones...my kitchen measures 12.6ft X 12.6 ft

I know you're gonna love all of that extra space,Loz!

G-Mom

I like the whole "gathering space" idea for a kitchen area. My dream kitchen would be 20x20+ and attached to a 20x20+ family type room with a fireplace. Very comfortable and lots of space to hang out while cooking.

You could really use that space Triss with all of your children......It's funny how the kitchen really is the heart of the home....at my parents house we all gather in the kitchen(she had hers redone last year).....

Maybe Mark will come home today with the trim or a few of the upper cabinets....It'd be nice....LOL

Maybe I should take a picture of mine. Not even room for a table. The kitch is behind the gerbil cage. Now...ignore the messes on the counters...I'm taking a break from cleaning out the cabinets under the counters. Oh...and Cindy, friend, you will notice that my refrigerator is looking a little more cluttered since you last saw a picture of it.

That's GREAT!
Let me know if you need any magnets!

Cindy The Magnet Freak

I guess I have you allbeat! My kitchen is 7ft by 6ft from cabnet to wall. You can barelt turn around in it...well actually, you don't have to turn around in it..you don't have ROOM! It is the most awful kitchen I have ever had! It has a whopping 2 drawers in it...I thought I was gonna die! I ended up haveing to gut the laundry room out and making it into a pantry just so I could have some cabnet & drawer space! Our other house had a large kitchen with a bakery room attached...really spoiled me! I MISS my big kitchen!!!!

I have a few magnets but I like them to be all in order....LOL I know I'm weird....It drives me nuts because my sister Allison will come over and mess them all up when I'm not looking....she thinks she's pretty funny I guess....

Vanessa, that sounds SO small...I don't know how a baker like yourself can stand it...I bet you do miss your old kitchen. It's hard to go from a big kitchen to a small kitchen....In the apt. we lived in for 5 years the kitchen was huge...then we bought this house and the first thing I said when we looked at it was....Oh, the kitchen is tiny....Do you have a place in your kitchen now to work on your baking????

In the late 70's we rented a farm in Plum Texas ( my wife would joke and say by the time you realize your in town your plum through it) was built it 1800'sI think around time of the civil war. House was four bedroom's all large huge dinning room and kitchen was 20 ft. wide and 40 ft long ceilings was 10 ft. high. My wife loved this kitchen she had a picnic table in it to set her mixer and make her bread and cookies (man I miss those too). House had no insulation so impossible to heat. In 1980 had the worset heat wave in history I think close to 100 days with heat in excess of 110 and humidity just as high we had no A/C but had a porch went around the house our bed room set so a breeze was always blowing through it beleive it or not could sleep real well with windows open and afan blowing.
Jimmy

Jimmy,

That place sounds AWESOME... maybe I will rethink the size of my dream kitchen

The walking space of our current kitchen is about 4x8 (and that is probably being generous)and the counters are a U shape around the floor area which is the only thing that saves my sanity when cooking or baking.

Wow Jimmy what a huge kitchen--sounds like one heck of a house.......Triss maybe you should rethink the size of your dream kitchen.....could you imagine having that much space with all of your kids....WOW...You'd have to have a walkie talkie to communicate with whoever was at the other end....LOL

I would be in kitchen heaven. The only thing that enables us to all eat around the table is that my fil made us beautiful benches so we get several little kids across the back of the table and we can put the table very close to the wall. The eating area is L-shaped off the kitchen. Oh I have to take pics so you can see what I mean.

Triss

Here is the kitchen, uncleaned after dinner, and the eating area, cleaned cuz the kids did their chores. I am standing in the same spot taking both pics and just turned left to take the eating area pic.

I had a small kitchen like that one time. I think it is called a galley kitchen? Wasn't too bad at the time I was living there because I was a divorced mother with 2 children. I remember my 2 year old daughter climbing into one of the bottom cupboards and I about had a hissy fit trying to find her. Good thing that I kept the bottom cupboards empty!

Dianna

Thanks for the pics Triss.....it's nice to see what someone is talking about.....at least there's one good thing about a small kitchen, you don't have that far to walk to the sink, stove, and fridge......

Those benches probably are really helpful that your FIL made...you must have to cook some HUGE meals to feed all of your family....I cook a lot for just the 2 of us because we both eat a lot...couldn't imagine cooking for 8 people!!!!

So far not too bad on the cooking cuz 4 of them are under 5 and Zack eats like a bird. But the good thing is that I LOVE to cook, got that from my mom and dad. Looking very forward to making cookies tomorrow if I can remember to get brown sugar at the store

Nope, I just have to juggle everything! The ONLY thing that saves me is the "pantry" room. I designed it myself and every inch is utilized...I mean every inch. It's about the only room that is finished...except we haven't built the doors for the cabinets yet. Instead of building drawer space I left cuddy holes that the rolling rubbermaid drawers would fit in...so when I am working on cakes I can roll the drawers into the kitchen...and then you REALLY can't move in there...okay...dirty as it may be I'll go try to get a few picks...
Triss your kitchen looks about the same size as mine except it was designed better and you have a TON more cabinet space!!! POOH!

The cabinetes are good. I like you utilize my laundry room to store things, like the kitchen aid. In fact, I think my laundry room is bigger than my kitchen.

Wow..it actually looks bigger than life here! And that's JV's banana nut bread on the counter...I have been cooking all day! I wanted to take a pic of the pantry...but man it's the pits right now...you all would come and have my house condemed...Hhhmmm...now there's a thought! I dislike this house SO much!!!!

LOVE that color! But you are right, it is small for baking.

It is small for ANYTHING. If I stand under the pot racks...I can easily touch the fridge & the dishwasher with my arms slightly bent! And, when you open the freezer door...it will hit the pots if you don't watch it...but I had to have the rack because I didn't have a cabinet for the pots! Did I mention that I dislike this kitchen????????

loz, are you redoing the whole house? It's nice to have a handy person around. Is your wall red? I love that color.

Yep, you mentioned that. We do have one really cool thing about the kitchen. The lower cabinet on the left is a spinning cabinet, not quite a lazy susan but I dont know what to call it and it has all kinds of room for pots.

You know what I'd really like. I big garden window over the sink where I could grow some herbs indoors. That and watch the kids play outside.

I priced one at Lowe's and they were VERY expensive! But, then I got a price from a builder and it was a lot better, am going to have one put in when we re-do the kitchen. It has to have all new cabinets...these are rotten. The dining room is as small as the kitchen. It makes it so difficult to have all of the kids/grandkids here at the same time....we just have to step over each other!