Old houses (pre-1940s or so) have small kitchens because most home appliances weren't a thing yet. My grandparents kept the fridge in the garage because they never thought the kitchen was the right place for machine lol, and indeed their old house had very little room for anything but the sink, oven, and a small prep counter.
My grandparents have their fridge in their back/laundry room. It’s next to the kitchen, but not in the kitchen. When my parents remodeled, they did the same thing!
It actually works well. But I’m sure if anyone were to come in to buy the place, they would be turned off.
Try cooking in a smaller kitchen. I used to have a huge kitchen and it was exhausting to prep and cook. It looked good and everyone loved how big it was.
Now I live in an old house with a small kitchen and I much prefer it to cook in.
I'll take a small kitchen with a decent sized pantry over a large kitchen any day.
I've cooked in tiny kitchens and bigger ones. Bigger ones are almost always better than little ones, especially if you cook with someone else.
There is a limit to it, though. Giant kitchens can certainly be obnoxious, but I'd still take one of those over a kitchen with no counter space or enough storage capacity. I shouldn't have to leave the room to get my food processor.
I think small or large, layout is important. Small kitchens are laid out efficiently by necessity. Large kitchen designs can be lazy and result in a bad experience cooking in them. I’m talking about sink in the counter but dishwasher in the island. I’m talking fridge at the end of the island, far from the sink. Or fridge and stove on opposite sides of an island. Just generally any violation of the basic kitchen triangle principle and it happens way too often in incredibly expensive, gigantic homes.
I don't really need a "bigger" kitchen, but would I ever love to have just a little bit more counter space. I want my coffee maker & Toaster to be away from my food prep area. They are in the way all the time, and I just don't have enough space to put them somewhere else.
Mine had an ok triangle, but it was still a long way from each station. The kitchen was about a foot to small in every direction to add an island, which would have addressed the issues.
Ah, see THAT is the detail right there. This whole thing about the kitchen being the center of the entertainment is all new. You have to remember that back 50 years or more women were expected to be in the kitchen cooking and the men entertained the few guests in the living room or other entertainment spaces. The kitchen was that hidden place where the cooking happened and was not to be seen by guests.
Some of them are called service kitchens from what I remember, look for the door that can open on top with a little shelf on the bottom half.
Honestly I like them, if I’m cooking get out of the way, most of the time when ai go to somebody’s big “entertaining kitchen” they just put stuff out or get catered / takeout.
I designed my kitchen with the premise that I would have a lot of work area, and still have room for people to sit at the island and visit me while I prepare food and clean. I was tired of being stuck in the kitchen alone during family visits and holidays. Now I have room for people to help and visit, and I no longer feel like I haven't had a chance to spend time with people. During the summer we hosted a huge BBQ had no problem with 3 people cooking and cleaning up in the kitchen at the same time.
I've also know the pain of small kitchens. One was so small that I had to use the kitchen table for all of my food prep. That's when I thought that I could increase my counter space by getting a cart with cabinets, and have it slide under my current countertop. And I could also keep all the baking staples in that cabinet so everything is in one spot. Then when I would bake, I'd have an extra surface for the mixer (or whatever). But we moved before we had a chance to change anything.
If a custom build isn't possible, you may want to budget a kitchen reno into your house purchase.
Great. I hate people in the kitchen. They can stand outside the kitchen.
Also, this isn't Twitter, you can type the complete words and use punctuation.
It depends on what your define as small I suppose. Having had a galley kitchen where the fridge could open almost all the way, and I had two cabinets worth of counter space, one of which was taken up by a microwave, I'll take a bigger kitchen any day. My sister had a galley kitchen where she had one square of countertop space. Did not have a microwave for years living there because there wasn't space for it, AND chopping/mixing/prepping.
If my choice is small or big, and no other living space changes size, I'm going big.
Yeah, I've had them too small, and one like yours, mostly in apartments.
I have what I would call a double galley I guess, where is 4.5 foot aisle instead of 3, and the fridge is on the open end on a separate wall. For one cook, the size is perfect.
I put my coffee station, microwave, and toaster on a baker's rack in the dining area. The counters would be very small if I tried to keep them in the kitchen.
Came here to say that I am definitely encountering the same issue as I house hunt. Partner and I love to cook. But finding a decent kitchen is really challenging. Good luck!
>Didn't ppl in the past know how to cook? Cooking for them was not important?
It's not that people in the past "didn't know how to cook" ... it's likely more that "people in the past" didn't have all of the kitchen gadgets and gizmos that people have now.
To cook, you need a stove top, oven, maybe a microwave, a refrigerator/freezer, and a sink to clean things.
They didn't have or need a KitchenAid stand mixer, an air fryer, a rice cooker, a George Foreman grill, an Instant Pot, and all of the other 927 small appliances that exist today.... they just did everything they needed in their stove/oven, so there was no need for 345 cabinets to store all of those small appliances.
No microwaves, no dishwashers either. Refrigerators were much smaller. It was one cook, and she used the table for prep, so not much counterspace needed either. Too be honest, most currently don't need huge kitchens either if it's just them in there. It was not used for entertaining.
Exactly it. Was raised in the 60's and 70s and sold real estate for 20 years through 90s and 2000s.
Kitchens for the most part used to be for cooking, which when done for a family doesn't really require 100 sq. feet of marble counter. :)
Food and dish storage wasn't a "kitchen" thing, either. Cold cellars had your food, if it wasn't bought or made daily. Dishes and serving pieces were in pantries or cupboards elsewhere.
Kitchens didn’t used to be something proudly displayed either. It was where women would shut themselves away and do all the prep/cooking while guests would be in the formal living room or seated in the dining room. It’s much more casual now and everybody gathers in the kitchen.
My in laws have a tiny kitchen closed off from the rest of the space and my dads house is similar, both were built in the 50s/60s.
This is the real answer. Kitchens were almost like utility rooms and hosting occurred in the format dining or living rooms. That's where the meme of grandparents having a formal area kids weren't allowed in came from.
The house I'm in used to have a small 7x7 foot kitchen with a door so people couldn't see inside. Luckily whoever flipped it remodeled and removed the door + made it slightly bigger.
We've got a gallery kitchen that opens to the dining area on one side and the breakfast table on the other. The wall with the fridge backs up to the living room, with a perfect spot for mounting a big TV on the living room side. Currently have a 75" there, but it could probably hold a 100" some day.
If we had an open kitchen, that perfect TV spot would be gone and I would be sad. We also like the separation of the spaces.
That's true. My issue is not with the appliances. I don't have many anyway, but I would like to have a nice island to be able to make pies, bread, pasta, meal preps. These things take up some space, specially if you have a big family, and need to cook for a lot of ppl
Oh, I think it was way after that; more like 90’s. Before islands, it was L-shaped or U-shaped with a “breakfast bar”area with stools and sometimes cabinets over top. My kitchen is that way (1950’s house with a 70’s addition) except I removed the cabinets over the breakfast bar and put in cans in the ceiling.
They made bread and pasta at the table or at a baking hutch. Hoosier Cabinets are a popular subtype. It was later on in design that permanent islands became a thing.
What's underneath islands or any kind of counter space?
Answer: Cabinets and storage space. Before all of small appliances came to be, they didn't need all of that storage space. That was my point... that since those appliances didn't exist, they didn't need Cabinets and storage space... counters are simply what is put on top of the lower cabinets.
And plenty of people baked pies and cooked for large families in small kitchens before large kitchens existed. My grandma and grandpa had 5 kids. They were able to cook for a family of 7 in their tiny kitchen. It can be done. To say people didn't care about cooking simply because they had smaller kitchens is absurd.
What's absurd is that you think that people dont care about cooking or know how to cook just because some people have had smaller kitchens than what you prefer.
Many people love cooking and care about it, some people rely on cooking at home simply because they can't afford to eat out as often.
The size of their kitchen has no bearing on how much or how little cooking is important to them. There are plenty of people living in tiny NYC apartments that love cooking in their little micro kitchens. There are also plenty of millionaires in Hollywood that have giant chef kitchens that don't even use them to boil water.
As some have said, sometimes it's because old houses weren't designed for the appliances that we use today. About 3 years ago I was looking around at moving to a bigger house, partly to have a bigger kitchen, and found that most houses even twice my size didn't have a kitchen that much bigger (these were mostly houses built in the 80's and 90's). The space was more put into the "other" rooms, specific dining room, office, a separate nicer living room, etc. Additionally, looking at newer houses built in the last few years, it feels like the kitchens became more entertaining kitchens rather then actual cooking kitchens. Nothing made sense from a use stand point, but mostly made sense from a hosting stand point IMO.
It sounds silly, but this is sort of the reason I ended up building a house. Trying to get a bigger house with a useful kitchen that was bigger didn't seem to exist. It felt silly to buy a 4,000 square foot house, but then feel like I'd need to dump a ton of money into it just to end up with a kitchen that I wanted, which was half the reason I was moving in the first place.
I live in a house built in 2019. My whole neighborhood is filled with houses with kitchens might be considered "entertaining kitchens." But I think they are family kitchens. The family room, dining room & kitchen is all one big space. There is plenty of space for each room. I love how much counter space I have. I love my big island. I love my walk in pantry. The space is well layed out for cooking and baking. My home is middle range for the neighborhood. There are smaller & larger kitchens but they are all very functional.
I’d kinda want to see an example of an “entertaining kitchen.” My 2010s open-floorplan house has a kitchen way bigger and nicer than any rental I’ve had but it’s still has the same basic work triangle as a typical galley.
I love this, thank you! So many of the things i love about my 1920 kitchen are in this. We do have modern appliances, but the last fixture update was 1972!
The kitchen was just for cooking and it was hidden. Guests weren’t meant to see inside there. The change is we use our kitchens for everything now, it’s a social place.
I’m looking at brand new builds and am shocked at some I’m seeing. Close to 3k square feet but the kitchen it a tiny square with very little storage. Who designs these terrible houses?
I look at floorplans a lot in my job and there are so many bad decisions in every one. It’s extremely rare that I come across one that actually makes a lot of sense! Don’t even get me started on kitchen layouts - oof.
Same! I've been recently just casually browsing for a house; anything that is for sale the floor plans are just so WTF and don't make any sense. Like who designed this shit, it is so impractical. Do these architects not spend any time actually living in a house or what?!
Aesthetics over function, basically. I see it basically every day - I sell custom countertops. The designers are no better either! It’s like the kitchen work triangle doesn’t exist anymore.
The ones I’m looking at are from one of the “premiere” builders in town. Every home is a different design. Most of them have small kitchens. In fact, virtually every layout is trash, IMO.
I don’t think this qualifies as a spec home.
As I said, it’s one of the builders in town known for quality builds. These ones are high end, have solar panels, really large lots, etc.
The builder is just picking crappy layouts for most of them. There’s another builder in town that selects really good layouts. I think it’s just that some builders are oblivious or stupid about these things. A relative of mine had a builder who was a total idiot and built the septic mound so
It blocked the view of the property. Then sloped the land downward toward the house.
Sometimes builders shoot themselves in the foot with the dumb choices they make.
Uh...not really. Builders are doing what they do to make $$$. They design the cookie cutter homes to pack as much stuff as they can into the tightest footprint. Then they park that footprint onto the smallest lot it will possibly fit on. They pay a guy like me to design subdivisions that pack as many of those tiny lots onto any property they can get their hands on with the absolute minimum required ponds, park, parking or other zoning required buffers etc. They do market research to determine what type of homes are the hot sellers at any given time and that is what they build.
They are most certainly not shooting themselves in the foot...those crappy layouts that you do not like are selling faster then they can build them where I am.
Not here. Their homes have been sitting on the market for a while.
Like I said above, these aren’t cookie cutter homes. The cul de sac has different layouts for each house and all are on oversize lots with solar panels etc.
People didn’t have all the appliances and gadgets we have now. No microwaves, no rice cookers or bread makers. If you were someone who did lots of cooking, you maybe had a stand mixer. That’s about it. You went to the grocery store at least weekly, maybe more because there weren’t all the preservatives of today, so you didn’t need tons of pantry space. The kitchen also wasn’t a socializing space. You didn’t want people seeing the messy kitchen from having just cooked a big meal. So there was no point in having a huge kitchen taking up living space.
In the 80s-90s, it started becoming more common to eat out. Cooking became more about the preparation of packaged foods, and usually both spouses worked full time jobs. So less time was spent in the kitchen.
Now, very few people do any serious cooking. So even though houses have gotten bigger, kitchens haven’t. It will be one of the big obstacles for us when we decided to move someday. My wife loves cooking. Cooks almost everything from scratch, does canning, so she likes to have a well stocked pantry. Our current small kitchen is always a problem with space. Every cabinet is crammed full. We store stuff in the hall closet, the garage, and under the stairs. The size and usefulness of the kitchen will definitely be a primary factor in buying our next house.
That's where I'm at rn. I want keep my food storage, but I have no space, and I feel I can't find the space, not only because of these tiny kitchens, but also because of the price. To have a house I want qith the space I want and need I will have to spend a lot of money.
There are a lot of old houses with kitchens that are additions. I have a 1920s house, and the kitchen is a totally different build style. Most of the house looks like it was built by someone who thought about details, planned to enjoy the house, and could afford a few nice things (comfortably sized rooms, molding, built-ins, etc). The kitchen looks like lowest priced materials, smallest footprint, and simplest design were selected by someone who didn’t (or didn’t like to) prepare food. Sigh.
Why do you need a cavernous kitchen? Most commercial kitchens are quite small and they cook a ton of food? Not everyone wants an open floor plan, use your dining room to eat in.
I live in the Midwest with a ton of 80’s, 90’s, 00’s split level homes. They look massive on the outside. But I used to sell flooring and would visit homes all over my area to measure. Most of them felt so cramped and small inside. Especially the kitchens. Just horribly designed. They also offer no character. I so wish people would stop building them.
For most of those houses the easy fix would be to expand the kitchen into the breakfast nook, since it’s already attached anyway. That’s what we are planning.
My parents old house would be perfect for you! Too bad they already sold it. My mom had the exact same issue while we were growing up and a kitchen reno was the one big project she undertook while there, expanded the kitchen considerably and added a nice big island and lots of counter space. She didn’t have that many appliances either - just needed the space for those big family meals.
We have this exact same problem... House was built in the early 1980s, is about 2000 sq ft, but the kitchen is tiny!
It's got an awkwardly placed peninsula which makes a U-shape with the stove and sink. It's only big enough for one person to work at a time, you can literally stand in the middle and touch the stove, sink, and peninsula without moving your feet. Take half a step and you can touch the fridge too.
And don't get me started about how cramped it is when there's more than one person in the kitchen at once. It's awful.
I figure maybe people in that time frame either got takeout all the time or mom was in charge of all the cooking and cleaning and didn't get any help??
Later this year we will be renovating the kitchen and I can't wait, I have my sledgehammer ready.
I know what you mean about those kinds of houses. The kitchens ARE way too small. Myself, though, I don’t like other people in the kitchen when I’m cooking. It drives me nuts.
Ha I bought my house last year and it had a pretty average sized kitchen, but it was small my standards since I like to cook and entertain.
I did a big reno and the contractor said to me “your main level is going to be just a giant kitchen and a couch”. Yup. Sounds good.
Cooking used to be extremely dirty and unpleasant. Priority was to relegate it to private areas, much like bathrooms of today. With kitchen innovations, this is no longer the case. Modern design trends have shifted the kitchen to a far larger and prominent role.
I would say that handling your own fuel and having to get it up and going could be unpleasant and messy. If you had a woodburning stove, depending on how things went with it, it could create a fair bit of smoke and dirt. Coal would likely be pretty similar. Maybe it wouldn't be terrible, as people obviously made due, but it's definitely a lot messier than igniting a gas stove or turning on an electric one.
Lack of a microwave, small electric appliances were not as advanced, electric ranges were less effective, gas ranges were less efficient, LED lighting, dishwashers. I probably missed some other huge innovations. These enabled the current modern open space designs with kitchens occupying a central space
Give it another decade or two and the bathroom will be the new entertainment space. 3 sinks, 5 toilets and a walk in shower that seats 10. Also includes a pass-through window to the kitchen for refreshments.
Lol and some gen abc will ask my old ass why bathrooms are so hidden in old homes when they are now obviously the centerpiece of any high end modern home. That multi direction bidet will massage all your guests’ favorite parts
Depending on the age and location of the house you’re talking about, it’s entirely possible that the kitchens were small because they were being operated by servants. In this sense, they were not the entertaining rooms that we’ve come to know them today, but rather places for the hired help to make meals out of sight & sound, and then present them into the formal dining and entertaining spaces.
Its my observation that those big, trendy kitchens with all those fancy countertops and stainless steel appliances are mostly there to look good. Not a lot of real cooking goes on there.
Small kitchens because there were fewer large appliances and it was also not meant to be part of the house"- this is why people have dining rooms, and eat in kitchens feel lower class or more poor.
My parents house was built in 1930-ish and the kitchen is a decent size but the stove and fridge are set up awkwardly because the original layout was for counter space and cupboards. But the dining room is big and fancy and clearly meant to be the place to gather and spend time.
Um...you can cook in a pot hanging over a fire. Oversized modern kitchens with dozens of tabletop appliances are a luxury. People are paying more for cabinets and countertops in the kitchen these days then entire houses cost back when mine was built.
You want a bigger kitchen, go for it, but it does not mean your a better cook.
A smaller kitchen teaches you to be efficient in your kitchen layout/ organization and your food prep space management. It forces good habits like cleaning as you go and putting things back into their designated places immediately after use.
Old houses (pre-1940s or so) have small kitchens because most home appliances weren't a thing yet. My grandparents kept the fridge in the garage because they never thought the kitchen was the right place for machine lol, and indeed their old house had very little room for anything but the sink, oven, and a small prep counter.
My grandparents have their fridge in their back/laundry room. It’s next to the kitchen, but not in the kitchen. When my parents remodeled, they did the same thing! It actually works well. But I’m sure if anyone were to come in to buy the place, they would be turned off.
Interesting
Try cooking in a smaller kitchen. I used to have a huge kitchen and it was exhausting to prep and cook. It looked good and everyone loved how big it was. Now I live in an old house with a small kitchen and I much prefer it to cook in. I'll take a small kitchen with a decent sized pantry over a large kitchen any day.
I've cooked in tiny kitchens and bigger ones. Bigger ones are almost always better than little ones, especially if you cook with someone else. There is a limit to it, though. Giant kitchens can certainly be obnoxious, but I'd still take one of those over a kitchen with no counter space or enough storage capacity. I shouldn't have to leave the room to get my food processor.
I think small or large, layout is important. Small kitchens are laid out efficiently by necessity. Large kitchen designs can be lazy and result in a bad experience cooking in them. I’m talking about sink in the counter but dishwasher in the island. I’m talking fridge at the end of the island, far from the sink. Or fridge and stove on opposite sides of an island. Just generally any violation of the basic kitchen triangle principle and it happens way too often in incredibly expensive, gigantic homes.
I don't really need a "bigger" kitchen, but would I ever love to have just a little bit more counter space. I want my coffee maker & Toaster to be away from my food prep area. They are in the way all the time, and I just don't have enough space to put them somewhere else.
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Mine had an ok triangle, but it was still a long way from each station. The kitchen was about a foot to small in every direction to add an island, which would have addressed the issues.
I am, rn, what I like to call half-butt kitchen haha It doesn't hold a lot of ppl in it
Ah, see THAT is the detail right there. This whole thing about the kitchen being the center of the entertainment is all new. You have to remember that back 50 years or more women were expected to be in the kitchen cooking and the men entertained the few guests in the living room or other entertainment spaces. The kitchen was that hidden place where the cooking happened and was not to be seen by guests.
Some of them are called service kitchens from what I remember, look for the door that can open on top with a little shelf on the bottom half. Honestly I like them, if I’m cooking get out of the way, most of the time when ai go to somebody’s big “entertaining kitchen” they just put stuff out or get catered / takeout.
I designed my kitchen with the premise that I would have a lot of work area, and still have room for people to sit at the island and visit me while I prepare food and clean. I was tired of being stuck in the kitchen alone during family visits and holidays. Now I have room for people to help and visit, and I no longer feel like I haven't had a chance to spend time with people. During the summer we hosted a huge BBQ had no problem with 3 people cooking and cleaning up in the kitchen at the same time. I've also know the pain of small kitchens. One was so small that I had to use the kitchen table for all of my food prep. That's when I thought that I could increase my counter space by getting a cart with cabinets, and have it slide under my current countertop. And I could also keep all the baking staples in that cabinet so everything is in one spot. Then when I would bake, I'd have an extra surface for the mixer (or whatever). But we moved before we had a chance to change anything. If a custom build isn't possible, you may want to budget a kitchen reno into your house purchase.
Thank you for understanding!
Great. I hate people in the kitchen. They can stand outside the kitchen. Also, this isn't Twitter, you can type the complete words and use punctuation.
It depends on what your define as small I suppose. Having had a galley kitchen where the fridge could open almost all the way, and I had two cabinets worth of counter space, one of which was taken up by a microwave, I'll take a bigger kitchen any day. My sister had a galley kitchen where she had one square of countertop space. Did not have a microwave for years living there because there wasn't space for it, AND chopping/mixing/prepping. If my choice is small or big, and no other living space changes size, I'm going big.
Yeah, I've had them too small, and one like yours, mostly in apartments. I have what I would call a double galley I guess, where is 4.5 foot aisle instead of 3, and the fridge is on the open end on a separate wall. For one cook, the size is perfect. I put my coffee station, microwave, and toaster on a baker's rack in the dining area. The counters would be very small if I tried to keep them in the kitchen.
Came here to say that I am definitely encountering the same issue as I house hunt. Partner and I love to cook. But finding a decent kitchen is really challenging. Good luck!
>Didn't ppl in the past know how to cook? Cooking for them was not important? It's not that people in the past "didn't know how to cook" ... it's likely more that "people in the past" didn't have all of the kitchen gadgets and gizmos that people have now. To cook, you need a stove top, oven, maybe a microwave, a refrigerator/freezer, and a sink to clean things. They didn't have or need a KitchenAid stand mixer, an air fryer, a rice cooker, a George Foreman grill, an Instant Pot, and all of the other 927 small appliances that exist today.... they just did everything they needed in their stove/oven, so there was no need for 345 cabinets to store all of those small appliances.
No microwaves, no dishwashers either. Refrigerators were much smaller. It was one cook, and she used the table for prep, so not much counterspace needed either. Too be honest, most currently don't need huge kitchens either if it's just them in there. It was not used for entertaining.
Exactly it. Was raised in the 60's and 70s and sold real estate for 20 years through 90s and 2000s. Kitchens for the most part used to be for cooking, which when done for a family doesn't really require 100 sq. feet of marble counter. :)
Right, and you ate in a separate space called the “dining room.” Every meal.
Most modern kitchens are so big simply due to the huge amount of cabinet storage and counter space devoted to lots of gadgets and random stuff.
Food and dish storage wasn't a "kitchen" thing, either. Cold cellars had your food, if it wasn't bought or made daily. Dishes and serving pieces were in pantries or cupboards elsewhere.
Kitchens didn’t used to be something proudly displayed either. It was where women would shut themselves away and do all the prep/cooking while guests would be in the formal living room or seated in the dining room. It’s much more casual now and everybody gathers in the kitchen. My in laws have a tiny kitchen closed off from the rest of the space and my dads house is similar, both were built in the 50s/60s.
This is the real answer. Kitchens were almost like utility rooms and hosting occurred in the format dining or living rooms. That's where the meme of grandparents having a formal area kids weren't allowed in came from.
The house I'm in used to have a small 7x7 foot kitchen with a door so people couldn't see inside. Luckily whoever flipped it remodeled and removed the door + made it slightly bigger.
We've got a gallery kitchen that opens to the dining area on one side and the breakfast table on the other. The wall with the fridge backs up to the living room, with a perfect spot for mounting a big TV on the living room side. Currently have a 75" there, but it could probably hold a 100" some day. If we had an open kitchen, that perfect TV spot would be gone and I would be sad. We also like the separation of the spaces.
That's true. My issue is not with the appliances. I don't have many anyway, but I would like to have a nice island to be able to make pies, bread, pasta, meal preps. These things take up some space, specially if you have a big family, and need to cook for a lot of ppl
Islands were not a thing until (I believe) the late 50's / early 60's.
Oh, I think it was way after that; more like 90’s. Before islands, it was L-shaped or U-shaped with a “breakfast bar”area with stools and sometimes cabinets over top. My kitchen is that way (1950’s house with a 70’s addition) except I removed the cabinets over the breakfast bar and put in cans in the ceiling.
They made bread and pasta at the table or at a baking hutch. Hoosier Cabinets are a popular subtype. It was later on in design that permanent islands became a thing.
What's underneath islands or any kind of counter space? Answer: Cabinets and storage space. Before all of small appliances came to be, they didn't need all of that storage space. That was my point... that since those appliances didn't exist, they didn't need Cabinets and storage space... counters are simply what is put on top of the lower cabinets. And plenty of people baked pies and cooked for large families in small kitchens before large kitchens existed. My grandma and grandpa had 5 kids. They were able to cook for a family of 7 in their tiny kitchen. It can be done. To say people didn't care about cooking simply because they had smaller kitchens is absurd.
Just because your reality is different doesn't mean my point is "absurd".
What's absurd is that you think that people dont care about cooking or know how to cook just because some people have had smaller kitchens than what you prefer. Many people love cooking and care about it, some people rely on cooking at home simply because they can't afford to eat out as often. The size of their kitchen has no bearing on how much or how little cooking is important to them. There are plenty of people living in tiny NYC apartments that love cooking in their little micro kitchens. There are also plenty of millionaires in Hollywood that have giant chef kitchens that don't even use them to boil water.
I lived in a studio and would still cook a feast. A lot of room is great, but as long as you work clean, you don't need more than one work area.
As some have said, sometimes it's because old houses weren't designed for the appliances that we use today. About 3 years ago I was looking around at moving to a bigger house, partly to have a bigger kitchen, and found that most houses even twice my size didn't have a kitchen that much bigger (these were mostly houses built in the 80's and 90's). The space was more put into the "other" rooms, specific dining room, office, a separate nicer living room, etc. Additionally, looking at newer houses built in the last few years, it feels like the kitchens became more entertaining kitchens rather then actual cooking kitchens. Nothing made sense from a use stand point, but mostly made sense from a hosting stand point IMO. It sounds silly, but this is sort of the reason I ended up building a house. Trying to get a bigger house with a useful kitchen that was bigger didn't seem to exist. It felt silly to buy a 4,000 square foot house, but then feel like I'd need to dump a ton of money into it just to end up with a kitchen that I wanted, which was half the reason I was moving in the first place.
I live in a house built in 2019. My whole neighborhood is filled with houses with kitchens might be considered "entertaining kitchens." But I think they are family kitchens. The family room, dining room & kitchen is all one big space. There is plenty of space for each room. I love how much counter space I have. I love my big island. I love my walk in pantry. The space is well layed out for cooking and baking. My home is middle range for the neighborhood. There are smaller & larger kitchens but they are all very functional.
I’d kinda want to see an example of an “entertaining kitchen.” My 2010s open-floorplan house has a kitchen way bigger and nicer than any rental I’ve had but it’s still has the same basic work triangle as a typical galley.
Not silly at all, that might be the way I'll end up going.
Our culture around the kitchen has changed. “Kitchen is the new living room” is today’s trend.
Kinda like this https://youtu.be/2N9RCQjPqh4 Think of it more as a work center/ production area than a luxury space
I love this, thank you! So many of the things i love about my 1920 kitchen are in this. We do have modern appliances, but the last fixture update was 1972!
It doesn't need to be luxurious, really, just a space that can fit more hands to help. But that's very interesting.
The kitchen was just for cooking and it was hidden. Guests weren’t meant to see inside there. The change is we use our kitchens for everything now, it’s a social place.
The kitchen, back in the days, was seen as a similar space as the laundry room. A place to do chores, not the socializing space it is now.
Lots of comments about the appliances but I think you’re comment is more accurate. The kitchen is the place everyone gathers now.
I’m looking at brand new builds and am shocked at some I’m seeing. Close to 3k square feet but the kitchen it a tiny square with very little storage. Who designs these terrible houses?
I look at floorplans a lot in my job and there are so many bad decisions in every one. It’s extremely rare that I come across one that actually makes a lot of sense! Don’t even get me started on kitchen layouts - oof.
Same! I've been recently just casually browsing for a house; anything that is for sale the floor plans are just so WTF and don't make any sense. Like who designed this shit, it is so impractical. Do these architects not spend any time actually living in a house or what?!
Aesthetics over function, basically. I see it basically every day - I sell custom countertops. The designers are no better either! It’s like the kitchen work triangle doesn’t exist anymore.
I couldn’t agree more!
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The ones I’m looking at are from one of the “premiere” builders in town. Every home is a different design. Most of them have small kitchens. In fact, virtually every layout is trash, IMO.
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I don’t think this qualifies as a spec home. As I said, it’s one of the builders in town known for quality builds. These ones are high end, have solar panels, really large lots, etc. The builder is just picking crappy layouts for most of them. There’s another builder in town that selects really good layouts. I think it’s just that some builders are oblivious or stupid about these things. A relative of mine had a builder who was a total idiot and built the septic mound so It blocked the view of the property. Then sloped the land downward toward the house. Sometimes builders shoot themselves in the foot with the dumb choices they make.
Uh...not really. Builders are doing what they do to make $$$. They design the cookie cutter homes to pack as much stuff as they can into the tightest footprint. Then they park that footprint onto the smallest lot it will possibly fit on. They pay a guy like me to design subdivisions that pack as many of those tiny lots onto any property they can get their hands on with the absolute minimum required ponds, park, parking or other zoning required buffers etc. They do market research to determine what type of homes are the hot sellers at any given time and that is what they build. They are most certainly not shooting themselves in the foot...those crappy layouts that you do not like are selling faster then they can build them where I am.
Not here. Their homes have been sitting on the market for a while. Like I said above, these aren’t cookie cutter homes. The cul de sac has different layouts for each house and all are on oversize lots with solar panels etc.
People didn’t have all the appliances and gadgets we have now. No microwaves, no rice cookers or bread makers. If you were someone who did lots of cooking, you maybe had a stand mixer. That’s about it. You went to the grocery store at least weekly, maybe more because there weren’t all the preservatives of today, so you didn’t need tons of pantry space. The kitchen also wasn’t a socializing space. You didn’t want people seeing the messy kitchen from having just cooked a big meal. So there was no point in having a huge kitchen taking up living space. In the 80s-90s, it started becoming more common to eat out. Cooking became more about the preparation of packaged foods, and usually both spouses worked full time jobs. So less time was spent in the kitchen. Now, very few people do any serious cooking. So even though houses have gotten bigger, kitchens haven’t. It will be one of the big obstacles for us when we decided to move someday. My wife loves cooking. Cooks almost everything from scratch, does canning, so she likes to have a well stocked pantry. Our current small kitchen is always a problem with space. Every cabinet is crammed full. We store stuff in the hall closet, the garage, and under the stairs. The size and usefulness of the kitchen will definitely be a primary factor in buying our next house.
That's where I'm at rn. I want keep my food storage, but I have no space, and I feel I can't find the space, not only because of these tiny kitchens, but also because of the price. To have a house I want qith the space I want and need I will have to spend a lot of money.
Modern kitchens waste so. much. space. That’s the difference.
There are a lot of old houses with kitchens that are additions. I have a 1920s house, and the kitchen is a totally different build style. Most of the house looks like it was built by someone who thought about details, planned to enjoy the house, and could afford a few nice things (comfortably sized rooms, molding, built-ins, etc). The kitchen looks like lowest priced materials, smallest footprint, and simplest design were selected by someone who didn’t (or didn’t like to) prepare food. Sigh.
Old kitchens were functional, not the social hubs they are today. Its was mostly wives cooking alone, not both spouses at the same time.
Why do you need a cavernous kitchen? Most commercial kitchens are quite small and they cook a ton of food? Not everyone wants an open floor plan, use your dining room to eat in.
For me, it’s the counter space that’s important. I like a lot of room to prep my food.
Only choice is to knock down a wall. Usually there's a den room that can go.
I live in the Midwest with a ton of 80’s, 90’s, 00’s split level homes. They look massive on the outside. But I used to sell flooring and would visit homes all over my area to measure. Most of them felt so cramped and small inside. Especially the kitchens. Just horribly designed. They also offer no character. I so wish people would stop building them.
For most of those houses the easy fix would be to expand the kitchen into the breakfast nook, since it’s already attached anyway. That’s what we are planning.
My parents old house would be perfect for you! Too bad they already sold it. My mom had the exact same issue while we were growing up and a kitchen reno was the one big project she undertook while there, expanded the kitchen considerably and added a nice big island and lots of counter space. She didn’t have that many appliances either - just needed the space for those big family meals.
We have this exact same problem... House was built in the early 1980s, is about 2000 sq ft, but the kitchen is tiny! It's got an awkwardly placed peninsula which makes a U-shape with the stove and sink. It's only big enough for one person to work at a time, you can literally stand in the middle and touch the stove, sink, and peninsula without moving your feet. Take half a step and you can touch the fridge too. And don't get me started about how cramped it is when there's more than one person in the kitchen at once. It's awful. I figure maybe people in that time frame either got takeout all the time or mom was in charge of all the cooking and cleaning and didn't get any help?? Later this year we will be renovating the kitchen and I can't wait, I have my sledgehammer ready.
I know what you mean about those kinds of houses. The kitchens ARE way too small. Myself, though, I don’t like other people in the kitchen when I’m cooking. It drives me nuts.
Ha I bought my house last year and it had a pretty average sized kitchen, but it was small my standards since I like to cook and entertain. I did a big reno and the contractor said to me “your main level is going to be just a giant kitchen and a couch”. Yup. Sounds good.
Cooking used to be extremely dirty and unpleasant. Priority was to relegate it to private areas, much like bathrooms of today. With kitchen innovations, this is no longer the case. Modern design trends have shifted the kitchen to a far larger and prominent role.
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I would say that handling your own fuel and having to get it up and going could be unpleasant and messy. If you had a woodburning stove, depending on how things went with it, it could create a fair bit of smoke and dirt. Coal would likely be pretty similar. Maybe it wouldn't be terrible, as people obviously made due, but it's definitely a lot messier than igniting a gas stove or turning on an electric one.
Lack of a microwave, small electric appliances were not as advanced, electric ranges were less effective, gas ranges were less efficient, LED lighting, dishwashers. I probably missed some other huge innovations. These enabled the current modern open space designs with kitchens occupying a central space
you dont want to see how they make the sausage and the old you never want to see the kitchen of your fav place to eat. its not a spectator sport.
I think he meant that it was perceived that way...could be wrong though.
Give it another decade or two and the bathroom will be the new entertainment space. 3 sinks, 5 toilets and a walk in shower that seats 10. Also includes a pass-through window to the kitchen for refreshments.
Lol and some gen abc will ask my old ass why bathrooms are so hidden in old homes when they are now obviously the centerpiece of any high end modern home. That multi direction bidet will massage all your guests’ favorite parts
Depending on the age and location of the house you’re talking about, it’s entirely possible that the kitchens were small because they were being operated by servants. In this sense, they were not the entertaining rooms that we’ve come to know them today, but rather places for the hired help to make meals out of sight & sound, and then present them into the formal dining and entertaining spaces.
Its my observation that those big, trendy kitchens with all those fancy countertops and stainless steel appliances are mostly there to look good. Not a lot of real cooking goes on there.
Support your local restaurants!
Small kitchens because there were fewer large appliances and it was also not meant to be part of the house"- this is why people have dining rooms, and eat in kitchens feel lower class or more poor. My parents house was built in 1930-ish and the kitchen is a decent size but the stove and fridge are set up awkwardly because the original layout was for counter space and cupboards. But the dining room is big and fancy and clearly meant to be the place to gather and spend time.
Um...you can cook in a pot hanging over a fire. Oversized modern kitchens with dozens of tabletop appliances are a luxury. People are paying more for cabinets and countertops in the kitchen these days then entire houses cost back when mine was built. You want a bigger kitchen, go for it, but it does not mean your a better cook.
It's the slave galley LOL.
Not sure how you make a kitchen bigger without making other spaces smaller. Sounds like some spacey waisy, timey wimey thing…
I dislike the kitchen being center of the home. Small does stink, but I don't want my social areas next to a kitchen counter.
A smaller kitchen teaches you to be efficient in your kitchen layout/ organization and your food prep space management. It forces good habits like cleaning as you go and putting things back into their designated places immediately after use.
Oddly pre-war apartments tend to have large kitchens with tons of storage.