Believe or not, most architects thought about becoming chefs at one point or another in their lives. I know I did. If I had known more about how an actual kitchen worked when I was a child, I might be a chef today. I just assumed that professional kitchens operated just like the kitchen in my house – which meant you washed your own dishes and since I really didn’t like washing dishes, I decided that becoming a chef wasn’t the career path for me. Can you imagine how different the world would be today if I hadn’t become an architect? This would be a (gasp) FOOD BLOG!!!! Lord knows there are already enough food blogs out there, we don’t need any more.
This is where all the culinary magic in my house happens – very simple, very efficient, and very old. I happen to like the way my kitchen is laid out despite the fact that it lacks a few of the current trends that I think are pretty nice – like connection to other spaces working oven…etc. This is an eat-in kitchen that was designed as a dining room … there is even a fireplace in here. Since most people who come to this site can read drawings, I’ll let you figure out just how efficiently laid out this space is – in a good way.
For those of you who don’t read drawings – here are some photographs of my kitchen (I took the island out of these photos for clarity). When we first moved into this house, the kitchen was in horrific shape but I didn’t have the where-with-all to make the final solution a priority. I ended up doing some minor renovations – like getting rid of the electric coil cooktop that was that talk of the town (in 1967). I also replace the dishwasher, countertops, sinks, and faucets. There wasn’t a working exhaust fan so I hung our microwave over the range (since it had a “venting” function to it). The one fixture that I kept – much to my chagrin – was the 24″ double oven made by (drumroll please …) Waste King Universal!!
Who?!?
That’s right … Waste King.
Here is a close up of the label and some of the control magic going on … that grime is INSIDE THE GLASS!!! and I can’t get it off. [sigh] I left the double ovens in place because I didn’t want to go buy a replacement 24″ double stack oven knowing that eventually I would be replacing it with a range and I didn’t want to buy something with such a limited life span.
Here is an additional view of the kitchen – pretty simple and straight forward. All of the renovations I made when we moved into the house were inexpensive moves to just create a clean environment without breaking the bank – it certainly wasn’t the end move.
This is looking into the “Dining” area of the kitchen (complete with the architectural requisite Danish dining table set). I do have to confess, it’s nice having a fireplace in kitchen. There is a 1960’s wet bar in this kitchen as well (… groovy baby). I have only designed a true wet bar into one of my projects twice in the last 12 years, but after living with mine for the last 5 years, I think they should make a comeback. Last party I had at my house, there was a mob around the wet bar. I’d like to think that’s because that’s where I was … but it’s because that’s where the booze is.
My groovy wet bar (complete with George Nelson Ball Clock by Vitra). This is a well stocked area but that’s not why it’s my favorite area of the kitchen. I love my wet bar because it has two of my most favorite things in my kitchen …
My “Odin” single handle lavatory faucet in matte black (specs) by Brizo and my cast iron whale that I picked up when I visited Sea Ranch Lodge along the Northern California coast (details) .
Sometimes it’s the little things … but in a kitchen, it should be the big things. And that means awesome kitchen appliances – and I’m not talking about blenders. I’m talking about:
- Ovens
- Refrigerators
- Ranges
- Cooktops
- Coffee Systems
And I am going to confess that if I won the appliance lottery, I would select SubZero Wolf appliances.
SubZero Wolf appliances are by far the leading brand that ends up in our projects. I generally work on high-end residential properties and this is the brand that my clients select – repeatedly. As a result, I spend my time making sure that I am up to date on the entire SubZero Wolf line of equipment. Last year, I only took two trips out of the office, and one of them was to visit the SubZero Wolf facility in Madison, Wisconsin, when they invited my to come see the most sweeping product rollout in the company’s history – the introduction of the “New Generation” line of SubZero Wolf appliances.
At the time, we were in the middle of selecting the appliance package to the KHouse Modern project and the owner wanted to know everything there was to know about the “New Generation” of SubZero and Wolf products and the timing of this trip was perfect. There is actually some irony to this whole process because despite being very knowledgeable on these appliances, I rarely have to convince my clients to use them. No, this post is really about me dreaming about the appliances that I would use in my own kitchen.
I spent some time looking through the inspiration gallery on the SubZero Wolf website and found all sort of kitchens that are extremely “drool” worthy. Here are some of my favorites … it’s clear that I have a type. Despite being a modern architect, I don’t like most modern kitchens – at least what most people think of when they hear “modern” kitchen. I like, bright, clean, efficient, effective and beautiful spaces and this is what I want to bring into my own kitchen.
(since I think that this is possibly our next big home renovation project – yay!)
These kitchens all have at least two things in common – They are all beautiful, and all are beyond the scope and budget of my tiny kitchen.
But … even architects can dream.
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Happy cooking!
p.s. I almost forgot …