The new home design idea is to have 2 kitchens: 1 for cooking, 1 for show

[swampwiz]

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/05/the-curse-of-an-open-floor-plan/560561

While Weninger-Ramirez tries to hide plugs and appliances, a modest remedy, Schumacher Homes’ “messy kitchen” opts for a more extreme approach: to hide one kitchen behind another.

The design looks familiar at first. An open kitchen island faces a large, vaulted great room with second-floor gallery and flanks an open-plan dining area. But this part of the kitchen is markedly smaller than the average in a home of this size (3,718 square feet by stock plans). The public kitchen boasts a range top, oven, microwave, and sink, but the rest of the kitchen, at first, appears to be missing.

It is housed in a separate room behind the public kitchen. There, the refrigerator, pantry storage, cabinets, and another sink and dishwasher are situated, with a long countertop extending the length of the space. The idea is that the pre-meal food prep and post-meal food waste can be stowed out of sight in the “messy kitchen,” leaving the public kitchen for the cooking, eating, and visiting.

[Lan Mandragoran]

lol...

[Cassie]

Growing up in the Midwest without air conditioning it was not unusual in Italian families for there to be a kitchen in the basement because it was cool in summer and they did a lot of batch cooking.  This on the other hand is ridiculous.  So much $ wasted when it could be doing so much good.

[Miss Piggy]

Actually, I think it has a hint of brilliance. It's not two full kitchens; rather, it's one big-ass-kitchen that's cut in half by a wall. My friends who have open floor plan homes have grown to hate the visible mess in the kitchen when they entertain. This solves the issue.

It's not for mustachian houses, but for people who were going to spend a ton of money on a house to begin with, I think this is rather smart.

[honeybbq]

WTF. I've heard of show towels but not show KITCHENS!

I want people to see the giant mess I made. Good food takes labor and hard work and messes. Why should I hide that under some pretense or illusion?

[boarder42]

this is actually a really good idea - there already are large walk in pantrys in most houses all this does it make it slighly larger and add a back prep area to bring food out etc.  I could see this being something that interests me.  really doesnt eat up too much square feet.

[boarder42]

are any of you actually looking at or reading the article.  here is a picture of what its proposing - the only things duplicated are a sink and maybe a dishwasher.  in jewish households you could add a second fridge to the pantry to meet their separation requirements.  if we doubled the size of my current walkin pantry we'd have this and that would make my neat wife very happy. 

[ketchup]

Yeah, I'm with boarder42 on this one.  It seems insane at first blush but it's really just about having more kitchen space.  Far from necessary, but not as asinine as I thought when I opened the thread.

[mm1970]

this is actually a really good idea - there already are large walk in pantrys in most houses all this does it make it slighly larger and add a back prep area to bring food out etc.  I could see this being something that interests me.  really doesnt eat up too much square feet.

What houses?  Where?  New houses?

'Cuz my 1947 1140 sf house doesn't have a walk in anything.

[TheWifeHalf]

I'd be suspect if I was invited for dinner and the kitchen was spotless.

I cook - my kitchen looks like it's been cooked in, so what?

[Cassie]

I didn't read the article and assumed there were 2 full kitchens.  This is a different story.  Our 1950's ranch only has a walk-in closet because we turned the 4th small bedroom into one.

[OtherJen]

this is actually a really good idea - there already are large walk in pantrys in most houses all this does it make it slighly larger and add a back prep area to bring food out etc.  I could see this being something that interests me.  really doesnt eat up too much square feet.

What houses?  Where?  New houses?

'Cuz my 1947 1140 sf house doesn't have a walk in anything.

Neither does my c.1952 950 sf house.

[Cassie]

Even when we lived in a 20 yo home 6 years ago no pantry at all.

[Dollar Slice]

I should tell my SIL about this. They have three living rooms and an ridiculously big kitchen. (Two ovens, three sinks, etc. for a household of two adults and one child.) A show kitchen might actually make sense in a giant clown house, if only to have a vague purpose for otherwise wasted space.

'Cuz my 1947 1140 sf house doesn't have a walk in anything.

Heck, I barely have a walk-in kitchen :-)

[Awesomeness]

I guess if you have the money and space go for it. Sometimes I put my crock pot in the garage so it won’t smell up the house or grill outside because the kitchen warms up fast in the summer. Had a bar, sink area put in my basement but now there’s a second kitchen down there, but I rent it out. I’ve seen homes with stoves in the basement.  And some bigger older homes have nice butlers pantries.  So I guess it’s that trend coming back but nicer and more user friendly.   

My 918 sq ft House was gutted so I saw the opportunity to make a pantry by bumping into the second bedroom but you can’t walk in it. Still really nice to have the space.

[elliha]

In many farm houses in the region I grew up there were two kitchens. The upstairs summer kitchen and the downstairs kitchen. If money got tight you could rent out all or parts of the upstairs if you had a kitchen ready. The summer kitchen was usually very simple, just a bench and a wood burning stove, water would be carried up or if you were lucky you would have a simple sink but this would not be the case for most families. If you used the whole house yourself the summer kitchen would be used for cooking in the summer because the regular kitchen would be towards the north and ideally also towards a forest and would be the coldest room in the house in summer so if you cooked in the summer kitchen this room could be as cold as could be and food which was still kept there would be less sensitive to the heat and people would have a pleasant place to be in. A wood burning stove in summer makes a room very hot so if the stove was used the kitchen was super warm. In the evenings most of the heat from the stove would be gone and you could still use the summer kitchen as a bedroom. In the winter the stove was used to heat the room for the most part but if you were cooking a lot for Christmas for example you could of course use both kitchen. During the rest of the year the heat from the stove in the regular kitchen was just a good thing since the kitchen was were people gathered so they would be nice and warm there.

[jax8]

I'm not impressed.  It's basically going back in time from the eat-in-kitchen to the small work kitchen off the dinning room and a swinging door to separate them and keep the cooking area out of view. 

"Fashion isn't an island, it's a response."  This is home design responding to the trend of hobby gourmet cooking.  To me, this feels obnoxious, like our society is trying to pretend that cooking shows are reality.  You can walk up front and dump pre-chopped ingredients into your pan in front of your guests while stage hands whisk the mess off camera!  Or, even worse, upper-class people can play around and have fun cooking and then leave the mess for their help to come in and clean in the back room tomorrow.  Even if it's just a farce that's playing out within the family, I don't like the idea of presentable "front room" cooking and distasteful "back room" work.  Whoever has to go back there and do the work is cut off and hidden from the rest of the family while they are back there, which makes me feel gross.  Who would want to go in that back room?!?  It's the room for the sukka who gets stuck doing all the hard work no one else wants to even witness.

It's the farce I'm feeling such a physical response to.  We (as a society) were recognizing and even celebrating the hard labor and time suck of cooking by moving it to the center of the home, but this is almost mocking it and trying to make it seem easier and/or magical.  As a woman/mother/main cook, it's making me angry.

(I'm not sure why.  I should probably process all of this over a glass of wine tonight and figure out why it's bothering me so much!)

[Bateaux]

I'm buying a house in Florida with two kitchens and will have a third outdoors by the pool.  It has an everyday kitchen, and a formal kitchen for special occasions.

[Awesomeness]

I forget this site is also about minimizing environmental impact so yes looking at it with that in mind and it seems over the top. Make this a multigenerational home so the space will be used at least. Personally don’t like having things that rarely get used.

[NorthernBlitz]

Growing up in the Midwest without air conditioning it was not unusual in Italian families for there to be a kitchen in the basement because it was cool in summer and they did a lot of batch cooking.  This on the other hand is ridiculous.  So much $ wasted when it could be doing so much good.

My grandparents are German and they also did this.

But, the only thing they did for show was wrap their couches in plastic so that they would still look good when company came over 30 years after buying them.

[totoro]

Seems practical and not that much extra cost.  I think it is a great idea for those that entertain large groups often.  Not necessary of course, but if entertaining at home is really your thing makes it easier to prep and clean and organize for parties.  I'd enjoy having everything ready to go in back in advance and a place to put the dishes/leftovers prior to clean-up. 

[Cassie]

Northern, the plastic gave off a nasty smell in the summer.  Some people did that in their cars too.

[BudgetSlasher]

I loved this line from the author

Some buyers might even be able to locate theirs close enough to a city that they could enjoy it for a spell in the mornings or evenings before commuting to and from work in those automobiles Wright so admired.

[simonsez]

About 4 or 5 times a year, it would be AWESOME to have two ovens.  Maybe a bigger sink but not two kitchens.

[chrisgermany]

This has been popular for ages in the part of Germany I grew up. Single families homes always have a basement. When the family decides that it is time to get a new kitchen with all the bells and whistles the old kitchen goes down into the basement. It will be used to keep the new kitchen in pristine condition as long as possible.

[mrcheese]

So basically it's what the rest of the English speaking world refers to as a scullery.

[Dicey]

Hmmm, interesting timing. I'm planning a new kitchen for our flip project. From the studs out, anything I want. No, nope, not doing this. I do notice they're also trying to nudge people out of Shaker cabinets. Baby steps.

[former player]

So basically it's what the rest of the English speaking world refers to as a scullery.

Thank you, yes.

Old farmhouses in my rural area of England, once they got bigger than the standard small-pattern cottage, would have one of the main rooms at the front as the farmhouse kitchen (current nomenclature: kitchen diner) with the range in the farmhouse kitchen and the scullery and dairy in the secondary part of the building behind.  When these houses first started to be modernised the new fitted kitchen would be put in the scullery.  Much more recently the new fitted (or unfitted - the current trend in farmhouses) kitchen goes in the main room and the scullery becomes a utility (laundry) and/or boot room.

Houses here are advertised on line with plans of the layout.  It's easy to tell just from the plans in which era an old house was last modernised.

[soccerluvof4]

I dont see really the big deal either if your  into building a bigger home. If to the right of that is the dining room it strategically would make sense as just a bigger butlers pantry. As others noted not much in the room really thats of great expense.

[Imma]

Seems practical and not that much extra cost.  I think it is a great idea for those that entertain large groups often.  Not necessary of course, but if entertaining at home is really your thing makes it easier to prep and clean and organize for parties.  I'd enjoy having everything ready to go in back in advance and a place to put the dishes/leftovers prior to clean-up.

Surely, the easiest way would just to be a seperate kitchen and dining room, like people always used to have? Although we took the door out for practical reasons, I love having a separate kitchen and would not want to go back to open plan.

Of course, in the country, having two kitchens is normal, but it's not for show, it had a purpose. One is for day-to-day use, the other is for canning, butchering and other things that can get messy.

[CupcakeGuru]

Surely, the easiest way would just to be a seperate kitchen and dining room, like people always used to have? Although we took the door out for practical reasons, I love having a separate kitchen and would not want to go back to open plan.

+1

[Fomerly known as something]

My Mom and I are on our annual, for $10 this is very entertaining visit to the local parade of homes.  After this article I can say, I'm seeing the trend.  And as those have mentioned it's not really 2 kitchens but move of a large pantry/stack of cabinets  so which allows for a smaller footprint of the actual kitchen because you basically have a galley style set of cabinets behind your kitchen instead of a great big U.  Sometimes the 2nd kitchen was half pantry/half mud room and I could see it being half pantry half laundry room.

[ca-rn]

Of course, in the country, having two kitchens is normal, but it's not for show, it had a purpose. One is for day-to-day use, the other is for canning, butchering and other things that can get messy.
[/quote]

other countries commonly have two kitchens- a "clean" and "dirty" kitchen.   

The first time I saw one locally in california, it was a shock because i was never aware of them before but after it was explained, it makes perfect sense.

"clean" day to day non smelly cooking, easy to keep clean.
"dirty" for smelly, oily, messy cooking and may be constructed outside or in another room or separate building. 

or a summer/winter kitchen.  especially useful in hot humid areas doesn't make the rest of the house hotter.

[Rural]

Kitchens used to have doors, which is the best arrangement. Well, aside from a summer kitchen in a separate structure out back. For the luxurious, it could be connected with a dogtrot. That way, not only does it avoid heating up the house, but the family still has a place to live if the kitchen catches fire and burns.