When did big kitchens become fashionable?

[passatdoc]

sometimes kitchens stayed small into the 1980s

I have friends with an early-80s tract home. About 2500 sq ft, two story 4BR, LR + DR, nice sized lot. Family room opens off the kitchen. However, for reasons that escape me, there was no breakfast counter/bar to separate the kitchen from the family room. So on one wall they have a fridge and pantry cabinets, and (moving clockwise) they have two walls with counters, DW, sink, cooktop, and double wall ovens. So, counters along only two walls. There is room for a kitchen table, but nothing separating the kitchen from FR, which would provide more storage and counter space for cooking. THey remodelled in the early 90s with new cabinets and counters, but kept the same cabinet/counter footprints. VERY little counter space for a family of five who use the family room a lot and hence are always in or near the kitchen. They didn't have room to add a bar/counter as a room separator because they would have infringed on a very wide glass door that goes out to the patio. If I'd been in charge, I would have looked at a narrower glass door and try to reclaim 3 feet of space to add a breakfast bar/counter----which then would have infringed on the space where the kitchen table rests. It was a no win situation. The cabinets and counters and the appliances they updated (they left the old wall ovens in place) have a contemporary feel, but the small size of the kitchen and restricted counter space give it a pre-80s look. They have a smooth electric cooktop which they often use as "extra counter space" when not actually cooking on the cooktop.

Evidently the tract architect wasn't thinking yet of the kitchen as family/friend gathering place. By pushing the kitchen out by three feet or so into the yard (plenty of room in the backyard) he or she could have added a wrap around counter/bar to divide the room and make it more useful. There might even have been room for a small island in the middle. But evidently buyers of that era (my friends are not the original owners) didn't have "large kitchen/family room with lots of counter space" high on their priority lists.

 

[hydralique]

Lots of tract homes aren't designed by architects, but rather by building designers who may be decent or may be mediocre. Builders of tracts often don't want to pay for the time required for good designs or to adapt a previously designed floorplan to a specific site. Very possibly the builder had ordered lots of those extra-large patio doors and had no interest in buying some smaller doors so as to make that kitchen work. Cabinets are expensive too, so by maximizing the view of the backyard and minimizing the cabinets the builder saved himself money and provided a big, light, airy feeling room that functions poorly, but many buyers won't notice that until they've moved in. I've seen many rooms that look fine, but aren't conducive to any reasonable furniture layout but it's amazing how many people don't initially notice this.

One pet peeve of mine is the use of a built-in oven in a small kitchen, rather than a free-standing range. Even a small built-in oven takes over 2 feet of countertop space, and the only advantage is to offer an eye-level oven. That's nice but for most people the extra countertop space is much, much more useable.

 

[mattl]

Thanks, Steve. The backslash was a budget compromise. They wanted $2000 to do a 4" granite backslash, ridiculous since I only paid $3000 for all the counter tops. I was going to do a running bond white subway type tile but the budget was so over the top I took the cheap way out.

A lot of thought went into that design. My brother was a kitchen designer in a previous life. He, my interior designer and I went over 1/2 dozen possible layouts before we settled on this. One of the goals was to have an area for kids to do homework as the folks cooked, so the overhang works well with a couple or bar stools. My real estate agent said if feels like walking into a new home with all the grace of an older home. Too bad the market bottomed out, ended up renting it for a couple of years while I wait out the market.

Someday I'll post a few other before and afters I have of the project. It's a very nice piece of property.

 

[tlee618]

Matt, that is a beautiful kitchen. It must be fun to cook in. I love the under counter lighting!!

 

[58limited]

I guess my house has a pretty big kitchen for the time it was built: 1936. All of the previous owners used to put a small dinette set in the kitchen and used the adjacent space for the washer and dryer. I turned that area into a breakfast nook (I moved the washer and dryer to the office) and put an island in the kitchen. Originally there was no pantry, so I built one. See link below (note - I have some more remodeling but have not updated the pictures. The wallpaper is gone, walls and ceiling are painted. I did post some updated pics on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1381296162&ref=name#!/album.php?aid=2014615&id=1381296162

http://home.roadrunner.com/~limited58/kitchen.htm

 

[xraytech]

I am not a fan of big kitchens.

In all the home kitchens I have worked in I find my grandmothers eat-in galley kitchen the most useable, being the original kitchen from when the home was built in the late 1940's it has on one wall about 48" of counter on either side of a 40" electric range, on the other long wall is a free standing metal sink cabinent with porcelin top, and a cart with a microwave and a frifge line that wall, there is a nook for a dining table and 6 chairs. I have had many baking extravaganzas, plenty of time canning, as well as cooking for parties of 200+ people in that kitchen, it works better than a larger kitchen, only problem is that there are only 2 outlets in the kitchen,one being behind the fridge.

At home we have a U shaped kitchen that is open to the living room, I hate it, doesnt have a nice flow and things are too far apart, I however do understand why my mother had the house designed this way, before building the house in 1993 we lived in my fathers grandparents house and the kitchen was down stairs and everything else was on the second floor, so after being so secluded in the kitchen I understand the need for an open floor plan.