This Space for Rent

Whoa, now, let’s not be too wild here!

Some homeowners use their kitches as much for cooking and baking as for family gatherings.

–from “Cabinets designed with you in mind” (Taunton’s Kitchen & Bath Planning Guide 2008)

Now don’t be too hasty here; if you cook in that kitchen, you’ll spoil the finish on that US$10,000 Viking® stove and Kitchenaid® mixer. You don’t want to do that, do you, because what will your friends think if they discover that you’re actually (shudder) preparing food in the kitchen?

No, you’d better order takeaway food again; it’s okay to use the kitchen island as a dinner table, just as long as you don’t dirty your hands with food prep.

… *shudder*

I just don’t understand interior design fashions. Between “master suites” that are as large as the first floor of our house, “great rooms” that look like they have the charm of an aircraft hanger (pilots may have a different idea of what an unappealing echoing vacant space might be,) or kitchen remodelling magazines that think that people who use kitchens as kitchens are a sort of rare and exotic species that need to be pointed out as if they were exhibits at the zoo, it seems like some vastly alien world where usability and livability take a remote backseat to a variety of increasingly absurd architectural potlatches. I’d ask “why?”, but I don’t think I want to know the answer.