Thursday Thoughts # 37

Harry Dresden: "hope is a force of nature. Don't let anyone tell you different."


From "A Morning Cup of Murder" by Vanessa Gray:

**Tosh stayed for the rest of the day and helped Lacy put her house back together. When it was finally finished, they had a pizza delivered and sat on the couch, eating together in silence.
"Cleaning is exhausting," Tosh said. "I don't know how maids do it."
Lacy's eyebrows rose. "Don't you know this from cleaning your own place?"
He reached for another piece of pizza, avoiding her eyes. "Now is probably a good time to tell yu I'm filthy rich. Today marks the first time I've ever cleaned a room in my life. And, before you ask, I have a cleaning service for my home. It's not the same as a live-in maid, but they do a good job."
"You're rich?" she said. "But you're so normal."**



Today's thoughts focus on kitchens. 

We all know I like to read the real estate pages, but also, I like to read the pages that focus on house designs, those with the floorplan pictured. I love floorplans. It's a hobby of mine to play around with furniture placement, perimeter garden design, changing a near-perfect plan to suit myself. Add a window here, a door there, make this room bigger, or smaller, that sort of thing.
It's fun. 
Fun for me, I don't know about you.
Anyway, kitchens. Here's a couple of plans I saw in the paper here recently.

plan one:

ignore the rest of the house, look at the kitchen.

plan two:

again, just look at the kitchen.

Both are u-shaped, which is my preference, but the kitchen in plan one gets my vote (and my dollars if I was buying). Can you see why?
Look at the sink placement.

In plan one, the sink is under the window, leaving a long expanse of unbroken bench space adjacent to the family room. Great for prepping, serving, or entertaining purposes. Everybody can reach the buffet style platters without crowding into the actual kitchen space.

In plan two, the sink is placed into that bench space. It doesn't lessen the amount of available bench space, but it does alter it. The unbroken expanse is under the window. Still good for prepping and serving, but not for entertaining.To me that is unacceptable. 

Imagine I'm holding a Tupperware party, or any other type of afternoon gathering and the refreshments are laid out on the long bench space under the window. When the time comes for nibbles and coffee, everyone crowds into the kitchen where the hostess is possibly busy pouring cups of hot coffee, to fill their plates. 
Wouldn't it be better to have the hostess alone in that space to prevent accidental spillages? 

Another point in favour of plan one is children talking to mum (or doing homework) while she cooks or washes up (and learning by observation, until they are old enough/big enough to be helping). They are safely on the family room side of the bench, not under her feet within the kitchen space. And there's plenty of room for placing grocery bags to unpack them, although that is true of the other plan too.

I've noticed that many homes these days are designed with the sink out in the open like that and to me it's a disturbing trend.  There's talk of ' mum' not being isolated from any social action going on, with the sink in the new location, she can talk with guests while the dishes are done. 
Well, as far as I can see, with the bench being an open space instead of a wall, can't she still talk while washing up? And who washes up while guests are still there? Depends on the guests I suppose and the occasion. 

So which kitchen would you favour? Sink properly in the kitchen area? Or taking up half of your socialising bench space?