I always say life happens in the kitchen. It’s where all the important stuff happens. It’s where big announcements are made, where we’ve laughed and cried. It’s where the dog crates live and where kids do their homework. Besides a place to prepare and eat food, in most homes, the kitchen is the true gathering spot. Like the story about our family circus and a stray cat I’ll tell you about in just a minute…
We’re empty nesters now and live in a home half the size of our last house, but the kitchen is still the heart of our home. Our current house has a darling window nook with a built-in bench; it’s where we meet for morning coffee. It’s the kitchen we return to at the end of our work day; we hang out, we unwind and drink wine with our dinner that we eat in the kitchen at our bar-height counter. We’ve got tv in the kitchen and it’s where we watch the news and also “The Bachelorette,” — our guilty pleasure — while I prepare dinner. And just like life, the kitchen can get messy and crowded.
I remember the kitchen in our first home as a married couple. It was a tiny galley kitchen with only one way in and out; there was no window and hence no natural light; it was so narrow, there was room for only one person to work in it. Quite frankly, it was grim and isolating. I was stung when my in-laws visited to coo over our new baby and my mother-in-law blithely said she wasn’t offering to help me with lunch because there was no room for her.
Yes, big open kitchens can be good for family relations (including in-laws!). The most popular design our team gets requests for continues to be Open Concept. White and grey kitchens remain the popular color choice. Subway tile backsplashes are attractive, hardworking, and functional, as are pendant lights for task areas and LED recessed lighting. The exotic feature clients are asking for right now is a dramatic stainless steel chimney-style exhaust fan over a show-stopper stove.
My dream stove of the moment is a La Cornue range. My son accuses me of name dropping, but Brad Pitt has one, as does George Clooney. Julia Child is said to have whipped up her classic cheese souffle on a La Cornue range.
If you’re re-thinking your kitchen, may I recommend the biggest island you can do? I’m a fan of oversized deep sinks, the bigger and deeper the better. I actually love stainless steel.
Get as much refrigeration as possible. I’m loving those nifty refrigerated drawers that blend into the cabinetry. They’re perfect for often-grabbed items like, um, beer, or butter. Have a big family or do a lot of entertaining? Two ovens are better than one, ditto a second sink. Flooring, I think, should be a combination of functional and friendly. Stone floors are stunning but unforgiving whereas if you drop something on a pine floor or cork floor, it won’t break, necessarily.
I am totally loving kitchen rugs and runners by a company called Ruggable. They’re super stylish and when they get soiled, and kitchen rugs inevitably will get soiled, these go right in the washer.
For a splash of color and practicality, I have a Spicher and Co. vinyl floor cloth in a vintage design in front of my kitchen sink. It’s bright and cleans up with a damp sponge. And because it’s vinyl, even when a guest puppy peed on it, I didn’t blink.
Here’s a true story about a family circus that happened in the kitchen of our old Westchester home. It was a holiday and I’d invited my aunt who took the train out from NYC. Without giving me any warning, she turned up with another guest, a young foreign woman interviewing at a med school. We’d also invited an old pal of my husband’s, a confirmed bachelor. Literally the day before the gathering, I came home with a cat who ran towards me in the parking lot of my health club after being flung from a moving car. Some teenagers tossed him out a window as they sped through the parking lot. I swore to my husband I would deliver the cat to the shelter right after the holiday. Meanwhile my son, in first grade at the time, had already christened the cat “Duke.”
It was an orange cat, the color of marmalade. It planted itself on the top tier of the kitchen cabinets as close as it could get to the ceiling to get away from our three dogs, one who wouldn’t quit barking at it.
As the dinner hour loomed, I was crazy busy in the kitchen. My husband and aunt kept coming in and out to refresh drinks and grab more appetizers. The doctor-to-be eyeballed the bachelor hungrily. The oven had been running for hours and the kitchen was hot as Hades. The dogs, excited by the aroma of roasting meat, chased each other around and around while the cat hissed from its perch angrily.
The doctor-to-be had no knowledge or experience with American traditions and inquired if the cat was in the kitchen because it was to be our dinner. She offered to help me catch it and kill it which caused me to howl with laughter. I hustled her out of the kitchen to chat up the bachelor who was terrified by her attention and snuck into the kitchen to escape her. I told him he could hide for as long as it took him to unload the dishwasher which I’d already run twice what with all the glassware. We had a wonderful dinner (it was leg of lamb, not cat) and I have to say the bachelor craftily arranged to avoid making plans for later in the weekend with the doctor-to-be, even though I told him I thought she was a catch.
As you’ve probably guessed, we kept the cat.
Life happens in the kitchen. Enjoy yours, because it’s where the heart is.
Eve Marx
Eve Marx is a national journalist and book author. Follow her reflections on home design and interior style on Instagram at the hashtag #funkybeachhouseseasideror.