Lighthearted Stuff

Haiku is Calming

2005-08-08T14:18:00.000-07:00

Written by Fiesta in replying to the 5 Haiku for a Tiny Kitchen:

Haiku is calming
When kitchens cause frustration
Anger leaves me - yes
I will not cry now.

Five Haiku for a Tiny Kitchen

2005-08-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

From Minikit
Products of a remodeling obsession... shared with folks who understand:

Five Haiku for a Tiny Kitchen

Measure once again.
I find a half-inch extra...
Yes! I weep with joy.

Seek a skinny fridge?
Come join our expedition
through the scrubby plain.

Wolfs and Vikings blocked...
No stoves on steroids enter.
Safe, my checkbook rests.

Fridge and sink and stove,
washers for plates and clothes... Wait,
where's my counterspace?

Spring and Summer pass,
Autumn's chill impends... and still
I have no kitchen.

Advantages to a Tiny Kitchen

2005-07-20T14:53:00.000-07:00

Let's not forget, though, that there are advantages to a Tiny Kitchen:

1) TTKOs don't dither about which six-burner range or double ovens to get, so we save a lot on cooking appliances.

2) What the TTKO does have is within easy reach: it takes only a swivel to prepare dinner. While getting dinner on the table involves a few steps to another room, it's probably no farther away than the eating area in a big kitchen.

3) The TTKO who prefers to have the kitchen to himself always gets his way. No one stacks the dishwasher incorrectly (if there is one) because no one else can get to it.

4) The TTKO can rationalize splurging on the countertop and backsplash since there's so little of both.

5) The TTKO can save on labor: for example, refinishing the oak floor will cost this TTKO very little because I can do it myself--almost without moving from one spot.

Finally, a confession: for all the aggravation of plotting every miserable half-inch, it's a relief NOT to be designing a big kitchen from scratch. At the (excruciatingly slow) rate I'm going with only 70 square feet, by the time I finished a dream kitchen I'd be ready for assisted living....

Anyone else determined to view the cup as half full?

Minikit

How do you know that you have a "tiny" kitchen?

2005-07-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

How do you know that you have a "tiny" kitchen?

1) The Tiny Kitchen (TK) is under 100 square feet in an apartment condo smaller than 1,000 square feet. "Skinny appliance" threads have attracted TTKOs on the West Coast, and a few have popped up in the Midwest and Canada, but most of us seem to be in the Boston-NYC-DC corridor, where the dinkiest dwelling is ridiculously expensive and a spacious kitchen is harder to find than a parking space.

2) This, I think, is the key identifier: the TK has no room for the "standard" appliances in the "standard" sizes--the 24" dishwasher, 30" refrigerator, 30" stove. In fact, the typical TK has NOTHING that's 30" wide. So TTKOs, routinely ignored by U.S. appliance makers, search the globe for an 18" dishwasher, 24" refrigerator, and 24" something-to-cook-with.

3) Expanding the kitchen is impossible (no back yard to steal from, no indoor space to attach) or impractical (on Kitchen Trends a Manhattan couple bought the apartment next door!).

4) Condo doors and windows can't be moved to gain flexibility. (No problem for those who don't even have windows.)

5) There's no basement for that extra freezer or lobster pot. Overflow kitchen stuff has to be stashed in an adjoining room or hallway--where TTKOs are already stashing their OTHER overflow stuff.

6) Eating at a "kitchen table" is not an option. The determined (and slender) TTKO can eke out some extra inches of countertop, with a stool below, and put an adult-size table in the biggest room on the premises. Sometimes that's the bedroom, which can be a convenient dining area--or not, depending on one's dinner partner. (The only place I've never seen a table is the bathroom, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear of it.)

7) Since the entire TK could fit inside the island in some other kitchens, it goes without saying that islands and peninsulas (plus reefs and atolls) are out of the question.

8) Major plumbing or electrical changes may be impossible because of building structure or condo/coop restrictions. The same goes for venting out of doors.

9) Many TKs don't have a gas line and can't get one. An alternative--if you've got as much cash as that Manhattan couple--is two induction burners. A few 24" electric wall ovens are out there, and the ones considered most reliable are European and very expensive. As for a 24" electric range, only two smoothtops are available in the U.S., and neither one gets good reviews. Europeans, we're reminded, do fine with tiny kitchens, but for them European manufacturers build a multitude of compact (beautiful, efficient, reliable) appliances. While change is coming, there are still very few skinny (beautiful, efficient, reliable) appliances in the U.S. Of course, if you forego "beautiful, efficient, reliable," you can find a fridge or stove designed mainly for students living on beer and warmed-up pizza.

10) The TK often doubles as the laundry room. The "standard" washer and dryer won't fit, so we look for undercounter versions with non-vented dryers. The TTKO who lives above another condo worries less about what a water break would do to her own floor than what it would do to the newly renovated kitchen of the VERY nice people downstairs. The answer: a washer, and dishwasher, with the very best flood protection; they are (surprise!) European and very expensive.

Minikit