apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

i don't want to dissect the closed kitchen article too much, but there's something interesting about the way he mentions the closed kitchen and servant's quarters being hidden away from the life of the pre-war home, and then later in the piece he refers to the 'nanny-baby wing' as being the closed off area of his own home. i mean i guess it was a freudian slip or something, but weird. a very telling comment on Manhattan baby-as-trendy-handbag childrearing culture.

the opponax, I share your sentiments exactly. I didn't want to dissect the article either, but the author's 'nanny-baby wing' comment left a bad taste in my mouth.

what a pretty vaccuum! and soon to be available in pink and purple! is it actually any good at vaccuuming?

oh let the pink be a pretty shade, not too creamy or pastel.

I enjoyed the H&H section on Kitchens . . . but I just tore my kitchen open and now closed kitchens are the trend. I just installed stainles steel appliances and now they are on their way out. The section left me feeling a little like a fashion victim with avacado appliances.

Chris, you like what you like, and in my opinion, that's all that matters. Enjoy your new kitchen - my bet is that is looks great!
I think there are some situations where a closed kitchen works better and some situations where an open kitchen works better. It depends on the type of space you are in and also on your lifestyle. For the author to make a blanket statement that open kitchens are "out" makes no sense to me.

I was about to sing the Happy Closed Kitchen Song, until I got to the part about architects only wanting a closed kitchen if the apt is more than 2,000 sq ft.

Interesting that the Sanders source sees the tiny galley kitchen as a "prison for the wife." Efficiency kitchens were supposed to make the wife's cooking chores easier -- they were part of the time-and-motion-study boom of the early 20th century. I love my little galley kitchen: I can cook dinner without moving my feet.

especially since A) unless you have tons of space and the right structural situation wrt load bearing walls and such or B) you are building new outside the city, i don't really see how an open or closed kitchen could be 'in style' or not. just about every new york apartment i've lived in has had a closed kitchen. this is not because i'm ahead of the trend, but because this is what most budget new york apartments come with.

also, i have no idea whether the kitchen pictured is 'open' or 'closed'. to me it just looks 'huge'. which is always in style.

I have to laugh at the photos of those kitchens. They are about the size of my entire apartment. As for open or closed, I can see that having the option of closing a sliding wall or such could be nice when you don't want to view or cleanup the clutter. Having been raised in a home with an eat-in kitchen and no separate dining area I have fond memories of everyone gravitating to the kitchen regardless of dirty dishes or cooking smells.

Friends of ours who have young children just opened up their kitchen and it has made a big difference to their quality of life. Previously, their Victorian row house was a long, narrow corridor composed of a front sitting room (too small to accommodate much furniture or people, and thus seldom used), dining room (only really used at parties/special occasions) and kitchen at the rear.

As often happens, during parties and family gatherings, everyone crammed into the kitchen, making it hard to pull meals together. Once the children came along, it didn't seem like a good idea to have unsteady toddlers moving around unsupervised in an empty formal dining room with glass-fronted cabinets.

Now the kitchen is all opened up to the dining room, and although they have technically not gained any more room, the space is much more livable now and seems to accommodate many more people with ease. The kids move around within plain sight.

I personally love the idea of having a separate formal dining room, but I must concede that in our current home it's the room that often sits unused.

Re: the shift towards closed kitchens. Interesting point in the article about Eichler homes being the first major tract developments to open up the kitchen. Growing up in and around Eichler homes has fueled my early love for this open plan--more so than subsequent loft-living trends.

Re: Katsuya. The Starck interiors are a knockout. But, unfortunately, I don't have many high hopes for the restaurant itself--mostly because of Sam Nazarian and SBE's involvement. I've grown a little weary of LA's fascination with over-the-top themed dining establishments as nightclubs (i.e. Geisha House, Dolce, Falcon, etc). All to often, "the scene" overshadows the food, service and the design of the place. And it becomes the kind of place where bottle service and "a hot girl" takes precedence over fine dining... I give 'til the end of the current season before the space is used for an Entourage location shoot. (But the interiors do look really beautiful!)

Holy COW why is the news about the DWR Annex/Outlet not creating a frenzy (or its own entry) here?!??

I was reading a book called "Cycles" today, which is not about decorating, but rather about how lifestyles (and lifecycles are changing). What struck me was a passage about widows, and how they all tend to choose smaller houses with open kitchens, so they aren't "cut off" (or words to that effect) from company when preparing dinner. It just stuck in my mind after this discussion. I wonder if the fact that they are (usually) older women who remember more traditional roles has anything to do with that?

I also found the tone of the closed kitchen article to be rather smug, although I didn't notice the nanny/baby divide. There was just some sort of undertone that was very self-congratulatory.

I prefer closed kitches. Also, this business of having a window-less kitchen exposed to the living area is icky to me: I've been to houses and apartments laid out in this fashion and the cooking smells can be overpowering.

Thank goodness sense is prevailing.

Re Eichler houses with open kitchens:

Yes, they were open, or rather, generally semi-open. BUT they had windows.

i grew up with open kitchens and never noticed an issue with cooking smells. honestly, if the food stinks that bad, why would you want to eat it? i can't think of any food i like that i would have a problem smelling as someone else prepared it. fish that smells 'fishy' isn't fresh, so the solution is to buy better fish, not renovate the kitchen. also i have to say that cooking smells have escaped the closed (and, yes, windowed) kitchens in all my tiny new york apartments with ease. hell, half the time i can tell what the neighbors are having for dinner while standing out in the hall. food is a part of life, and yeah, just like other parts of life, it has an odor to it. luckily an extremely pleasant one, in my opinion.

Food smells have no trouble escaping my closed kitchen. But yeah, in our building, I know what the neighbors are having for dinner, too. A well-trained nose could probably sniff out the daily specials in the restaurants across the street.

I just see the kitchen as my laboratory rather than as the heart of the home. Mwah-ha-ha! Let's make MUFFINS!

The press in general and the New York Times in particular is oh-so-very fond of showing how inured they are to trends (while constantly trying to co-op them) with an eyebrow-raising one-eighty piece. The reason open kitchens are so popular is because people who have them love them, and usually never want to go back. I know I don't. Those who pine for bygone eras of class distinction and dis-integration of domestic life can have their walls and doors -- within which all their contemporary guests are likely to congregate anyway.

"honestly, if the food stinks that bad, why would you want to eat it?"

Haha! The more you post, the more I like you (or at least your posts).