Kitchen list (yes, updated from last year's Facebook note)

Size?
current kitchen is a 17'x8.5' galley

New room will be 20x25, and will be kitchen, dining, and sm. family area.
Kitchen will be against 17 foot-long wall.
Looking into cost of moving sink & dishwasher to island so i can look at family area/ backyard windows instead of 17-foot-wall.

beautiful city loft kitchen I admired was 22'x10.5'

Things I definitely want

• Lots of natural light
• rectilinear.  Put your french curve away.
• Full-size oven.
• gas cooktop.
• pull-out trashcan/recycling holders to the left of sink.
• Dishwasher to right of sink.
• pantry space for my shelf staples.
• Place to keep 25 or 50 pounds of flour on hand.
• larger fridge.  Or, at least easier to get into.
• command/control center in the room, for family scheduling, bills.  
• Large, deep sink.  Stainless steel works.
• Storage for my big pieces: soup tureen, party drinks bucket, pressure cooker
• Somewhere to place my ubiquitous bowl of fruit.
• Appliance garage so my kitchen aid stand mixer is handy.
• Vertical storage for cookie sheets/cutting boards.
• handy place for broom, dustpan.

Things I might like:

• open shelving to store tomatoes, onions, and winter squash.
• Double-size fridge/freezer.
• Somewhere to stick the laptop when I use a recipe straight off the internet.
• Double oven.  So vegetarian food cooks separately from meat food.  Or dessert bakes concurrent with dinner.

I'd like it, but the appeal is not universal:

• I need a place to hang my huge white board. Can't think if I can't draw.
• crazy thought: smart board.

Openness.
I never wanted a kitchen/family room combo, but I'll do anything to get my kitchen into the back of the house.  Counter-height islands look lovely in model homes, but there's a mess on the counters every night when we eat dinner.  I'm wondering about half walls, not counter height, to conceal the makings of dinner.  Possibly higher than bar height.

Cabinet ideas:
--Not into exotic woods, or even apparently expensive woods cherry.  Though wood is nice.  But I'm open to non-wood.
--Modern probably means flat front. However, floating panels were invented to keep cabinet doors from warping so flat-front wood looks a bit contrived to me now.
--bamboo?
--those stripes of wood framed in metal Jennifer put in at City Lofts
--Those cabinets like Jennifer put in the bathrooms in that other City Loft (I took picture)
--Not espresso. I've seen so many espresso cabinets, I've decided it's 2008.
--my friend's Arclinea kitchen is beautiful.

Counters.

Quartz.

or Granite.

and/or some stainless steel.

love marble, but don't see it in an Eichler.

Flooring

will be the same throughout the house.  Probably tile.  Current kitchen is tile, fwiw.

Do Not Want, at this point.
--Pot filler. I don't like pasta, though I'm making it once a week.
--Don't like glass doors, since things inside the cabinets are a bit of a jumble.
--Especially don't like open shelving, because without cabinet doors we get dust.
--Second prep sink. Just don't get it. I don't think I want the kitchen big enough to justify it.
--Second dishwasher. I was against this before, but I am getting a little seduced by the idea.

Extravagant ideas:

• gaggenau hood. Because removing smoke and odors is a priority. I love a great exhaust fan.
• 48-inch double oven range, with six burners and grill. http://www.us-appliance.com/vgcc5486gss.html
• Farmhouse sink. In stainless steel?  Probably prefer undermount.
• Sink without ring around the drain.

Kitchen I saw on T.V.

• http://www.bigcoatproductions.com/episodeDetails.php?showId=78&episodeId=700
• I related to it because the room was narrow.
• And the floor-to-ceiling cabinet pantry stuck with me, since I probably can't get a drywall pantry.
• It made me think maybe a big table in the kitchen (I'm always trying to move the dining OUT of the kitchen) might be fun.
• I liked the wall of pantry cabinets opposed to a wall that had lower but not upper cabinets. Though I'm usually against open dust-collecting shelves.
• Nice use of silestone counters.

Lots of Eichler pages

http://www.squidoo.com/eichlers

We need to see your proof of citizenship

from: http://tumblelog.s4xton.com/

Becoming Something Podcast, and a gratitude list.

http://www.becomingsomething.com/

I think I love her blog.

Also, her advocacy for gratitude has me wanting to start adding gratitude lists to the end of each post.


1. Found Kama Sutra Dark Drinking Chocolate in the cupboard, which my husband bought in New York. Made myself a lovely cup. Isn't it lovely to consume something I didn't buy and arrange for myself for a change?

2. Encouraging progress made on PTA paperwork, after weeks of stuckness.

3. Grateful for a friends' remark, that though younger children are hard work, they also are rewarding in the way they love and appreciate Mom--so start considering it normal that mothering a teenager may lack that warm fuzzy feedback and even feel draining.

4. My kids love each other. My neighbor even remarked on it today.

5. I love the color gray. So calming. Thank you God for gray.

Containment. Excellent SF Reading

by Christian Cantrell.

Most fun science fiction reading in two years.  Or more.  All the fun techie stuff, paranoid stuff, near-future predictions, space colony stuff.  And, iirc, no words or scenes to offend Mormons, which I didn't even notice until I wanted to tell everyone about it and realized I could.

Only costs $1 as ebook, or free in HTML.  Don't be fooled by the cheap price.

I hope his day job will leave enough time to write more novels.

And the beautiful Sabbath meal was

hot dogs with buns, vegetarian chili, cheese, pickles, salad.
no placemats, no china.

Sometimes being together is beautiful enough.

Beautiful Sabbath Meal

I used to be such a great mother.  I made hot breakfast every school morning, often whole-pancakes.  And, the meal included getting a serving a fruit into each child before they left the house.

Then, the advent of the second teenager.  I was told by all parties I was not leaving enough room for her independence.  So, now that teen, and all the others, serve themselves cold cereal, no fruit, and I stay out of it.

And now making a hot breakfast seems like unwanted extra work on a school morning.  Because it doesn't have the benefit of routine.

For 2010, we're on the afternoon church schedule.  The last time we were on it, I for the most part stopped making lovely sabbath meals.  So, my once-a-week china has been living in the cupboard for a long time.

The children don't even remember Sunday meals anymore.

So, Saturday I actually made preparations.  I thought of a meal that would please everyone (spaghetti with meat on the side, salad, rolls, grapes.)  Warned RoutineGirl that something different would happen and got her preapproval on the food.  Bought the food.

But, Forgot to either clean up the Saturday night kitchen, or make a kid do it.

So, where I needed to have the meal on the table at 11, I was instead trying to clean up the ubermess the kids made while I was out Saturday night.  And, KoolAidGirl wouldn't clean up her mess unless I left the kitchen, because she's "claustrophobic."  So the kitchen wasn't usable until nearly noon, and dinner didn't get on the table until 12:15.  When RoutineGirl said she couldn't stay to eat with us, because she would be walking to church with her friend.

But at least RoutineGirl noticed how pretty the table was and seemed to have some regret.  She said she's come back after church and eat grapes and salad.

So, we shoveled down our food, frantically changed into church clothes (which couldn't be worn near spaghetti sauce,) I had to take some time to box up and refrigerate the perishable leftovers.

We got to church ten minutes late.

And saw it was Fast Sunday.

y'know, it's okay.  i'm that much closer to having it work next time.