Kitchen design and construction

[Keith Thomas]

Kitchens are possibly the room in the house which has become most divorced from function. Kitchens are the celebrity room of the house.

I don't want a celebrity kitchen. I want what is, in effect, a workshop that will make it easy to prepare nourishing food.

I have set myself a few basic criteria:
1. No particle board
2. No plastic
3. A view over the kitchen garden from the main preparation area and the sink
4. Easy to keep clean
5. Ready access to all the tools I use
6. It should be reasonably priced to fit out
7. Its construction should be within the scope of a home handyman without special knowledge or trade-level skills (me).

As I eat only fresh food, I don't need much storage space beyond a small refrigerator/freezer.

I am dismayed by the celebrity kitchens I see on display. And the people who make them are dismayed by me when I mention 1 and 2 above. They tell me it would cost three times their quoted price to build without particle board/MDF and they wouldn't do it anyway. Basically, I'm dismissed as a nut and told to get with the program: kitchen refits every 7-10 years.

Does anyone here have a kitchen they love which meets some or all of my criteria? Would they be willing to share their ideas and maybe send me a digital photo of their kitchen? Any other ideas?

Keith

[Cornonthecob]

I'm curious...when you say you don't need much storage space as you only eat fresh food are you saying you don't preserved etc? Silly question..am just curious.

[Keith Thomas]

Sure, fresh from the garden. I don't eat grains, bread, rice, flour, sugar, anything in packets; but I do eat some tinned fish. Lotsa salads. This arrangement gives me the incentive to take my garden care seriously :-)

Keith

[Richard on Maui]

Keith you are so right. A kitchen is the nexus between the house and the garden. I definitely like your idea of the kitchen overlooking the garden.
One of the coolest kitchen design features that I have seen so far was at the Commonground community in central Victoria. Just a really common sense design that they had was that all the plates and utensils and most of the other pots and so on were stored in the place that they dried. The benches underneath the racks all drained towards the sink I guess, so it was easy to clean up. No need for unhygenic tea towels to wash or whatever and everything in view so that the many different people that came through as wwoofers or guests or whatever could easily find what they needed to contribute to the process of food prep.
Sounds like for you a cool cupboard (with passive solar air circulation)would be an essential part of your Permaculture kitchen. You might even find you can eschew the use of a fridge altogether...

[rhancock]

Good on ya, Keith. I'm aware this thread is getting a bit old, but if you haven't yet found your kitchen, have a look at this forum: http://www.woodworkforums.com There are plenty of people there with the expertise to help/ design/ build what you want.

[Keith Thomas]

Thanks, Richard. Still looking for a solution that is affordable and doable. Thanks for the link.

[rhancock]

Hi Keith, sorry to hear you're still looking!

I have set myself a few basic criteria:
1. No particle board
This means solid wood, possibly some stainless steel
2. No plastic
See above
3. A view over the kitchen garden from the main preparation area and the sink
I think theres a federal law that mandates this... Or maybe that was to be my fist act as prime minister...
4. Easy to keep clean
Solid wood has been clinically proven to be more hygenic than plastic or steel
5. Ready access to all the tools I use
Again, should already be mandated by law...
6. It should be reasonably priced to fit out
Now it starts to get hard....
7. Its construction should be within the scope of a home handyman without special knowledge or trade-level skills (me).
... And even harder.....
As I eat only fresh food, I don't need much storage space beyond a small refrigerator/freezer.

I am dismayed by the celebrity kitchens I see on display. And the people who make them are dismayed by me when I mention 1 and 2 above. They tell me it would cost three times their quoted price to build without particle board/MDF and they wouldn't do it anyway. Basically, I'm dismissed as a nut and told to get with the program: kitchen refits every 7-10 years.
Maybe you can take advantage of this and find a recycled kitchen being thrown out. Solid wood kitchens were in fashion as late as the early 90s so you might find one, which would mean the hard work has been done for you.
Does anyone here have a kitchen they love which meets some or all of my criteria? Would they be willing to share their ideas and maybe send me a digital photo of their kitchen? Any other ideas?

Your criteria are (rightly) fairly specific, so it will take a while, but I think realistically a second hand kitchen is likely to be the way to go, but you'll probably need to make your own worktops- not impossibly difficult, but easy to get wrong, so get lots of advice first! woodwork forums is a good place to ask, but also find a local timber merchant and get help from him.

Remember, kitchens were well designed for hundreds of years before particle board or plastic, your challenge is in finding something in your price range to match your skill level.

A word on skill level, too, Kitchens are not fine furniture, they're mainly basic boxes, witha worktop on top to hold them together, so don't get caught up with worrying about your skills. Of course, electrics and plumbing should be done by professionals.

Good luck!

Cheers, Richard

[/b]

[ali_celt]

I would think that it would be quite easy to purchase the majority of your kitchen as second-hand old free-standing units. THere's a salvage yard near me that has a whole heap of ancient kitchen units - really old ones that look like solid timber, with very bad paintwork, occasionally broken glass in the upper cupboards, and probably some sort of ancient laminate that I imagine would be easily removable. They go for around $90-200 depending on the condition of the unit.
You could just put a couple of those along the walls to be cupboards, and build a basic box to house your sink (also available at this place for about $70 second hand - big, double sink, double draining board jobs!)

Ali

[christopher]

Hi Keith,

I love our kitchen. We have an open air kitchen with large overhanging eaves. The centre of the kitchen is built of stones in a dry stack look, but has a lot or rebar and cement to hold it.

The roof is supported by rosewood posts we salvaged from the bush or bought from our neighbors.

The roof is designed to allow lthe breeze to pass though.

We cook on a wood burning stove, and our water is pumped by solar panels to a tank, and then gravity fed to the kitchen. Our grey water flows through a 5 gallon bucket of charcoal, and then on to a 40 gallon plastic barrel, filled with gravel.

We have lots of under counter storage (we make lots of jams, vinegars, chutneys, etc), and store our grains and beans in 5 gallon buckets uneder the counters. We also use 5 gallon buckets for the vinegars we make.

We have a patio between our house, which has a partially open first floor, and the kitchen, which is trellised with recycled tower cable. Raised beds on either side of the patio have loofa, choko and cow pea growing on them, which shaded the area, making the space a green roofed outdoor "room".

The table for eating is downstairs from our house, a hefty picnic table style table buuilt from salvaged timber.

I have some pictures on our website at http://mmrfbz.org/sitefacilities.html at the bottom of the page. These are old pictures, before the raised beds were made. We also added another stone paved area to push the mud back.

Our kitchen has a lot working for it, breezes to move heat and smoke, a good floor plan, with lots of working space, a counter for presenting the food (useful when we have groups).

We have raised beds on the Maya ruin next to our courtyard, lots of alluvial soil from down the hill.

Anyway, our kitchen is appropriate to our location. If we lived elsewhere, we would have done it differently.

Best wishes,

Christopher

[Keith Thomas]

Thanks, Richard, ali-celt and Christopher. This is very encouraging. I had not thought of looking for secondhand materials and this opens up all sort of options that were previously closed. Chistopher, there are ideas I can use from you, too, but the frosts, occasional snow and driving cold rain rule out a direct transplant :-)