I've seen those kitchens via an interior designer friend. And I do have one friend with an unused upscale kitchen like that.

My husband is V.P. at a cabinet manufacturing company with 37 years in the business with the same company, and he'll tell you - "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" - when it comes to "show" kitchens. It's a nation-wide phenomenon (for which I am personally very grateful ;-), but have little in common with or understanding of the concept. Especially with the cooking and baking marathon going on in my dinky little kitchen this week.

I can't fathom top-of-the-line refrigerators with little in them besides bottled water, a few condiments, and containers of last nights take-out. The only time many of these jaw-droppers are used is when there is a party catered.

-Grainlady

My MIL did the same thing. Spent well into 6 figures to redo her kitchen with top of the line everything, and brags that she hasn't cooked a meal in 15 years.

Whatever.

She just wants it to loook nice when her friends come over and she thought it would help resale.

Alexa

Contrasting with someone who has a very expensive car. He will find any excuse to go some place.

I was in NYC Subzero showroom. The manager showed me a porfolio of projects of up-scale kitchens. He commented that the most used appliance in those kitchens were the wine coolers.

dcarch

When I worked in a retail gourmet store, I once sold $400 plus worth of high end French copper cookware for the customer to hang on his pot rack.....he didn't cook....at all.

Teresa

dcarch - LOL
Teresa - that's called "Art"

Well, at least those types of kitchens/people are helping to stimulate the economy. It's what I tell myself about the outrageous amount of money spent on election campaigns, too.

What is even sadder is the thought that it's likely that the next person to buy the house will rip it all out to suit their decorating needs.

A friend of mine also does decorative painting (unless maybe you're my friend with a secret screen name?!) and did a French bakery inspired kitchen. The counter-tops were marble and the homeowner was screaming at her kid for spilling OJ on the counter since she was afraid it would acid would etch the counter-top. Oye, that sounds like it will be a happy kitchen to grow up in.

Contrasting to this is the wonderful food I got to eat at a party hosted by some refugees the church I was attending sponsored. The family lived in a tiny apartment with a very meager kitchen, and the matriarch put on a feast for us. Lots and lots of delicious food, all produced from one range, and maybe a couple of square feet of counter space,

But, if people want to spend money on a show kitchen, or anything else that suits their fancy, I don't begrudge them at all.

Sally

The young couple, across the street from me, bought the house and immediately added on all the way across the back of the house. They added a huge great room, office, a huge veranda, and one of the most beautiful kitchens I have ever seen, in real life.
Kitchen had all custom cabs, 2 dishwashers, sub zero frig and freezer, wine cooler, pot filler,two huge pantries, well you get the idea. They added a hearth room with fireplace and leather walls. GORGEOUS

The husband invited us in to see what they had done, my first comment (from she who has a butt ugly kitchen) was, your wife is a very lucky woman to have a beautiful kitchen like this to cook in. His answer after a laugh was, are you kidding my wife does not cook, this is all for show!

After that all I ever saw was food deliveries and for special occasions catering trucks! Ah, the inequity of it all.

All I can draw from this is, those of us that cook will do so in any kitchen, even if it is "BUTT UGLY" and some are just pretentious.

maid

Rarely buy lottery tickets... ONLY when jackpot is REALLY high and then only 2-3 tickets MAX. Always say, IF I win... will have a SMALLER house built, as open as possible, with a KILLER kitchen! I can dream!

That is so sad....When we bought our new house I was so excited that it had a good sized pantry and double ovens.
I love to cook, bake and can.
Love the large center counter space for rolling out doughs and cooling cookies and breads etc. I really enjoy my kitchen.

Linda

Sometimes people put in very high-end kitchens if it is a high-end house in an area where these kinds of kitchens are not uncommon. They are more or less required to do it, whether they cook or not. It would be hard to sell a million dollar house with a minimal kitchen.

I know of plenty of houses around here with kitchens that would knock your socks off and the owners rarely cook. In some cases they hire someone to cook for them. They also use caterers for entertaining, so maybe the kitchen is to accommodate the caterer.

There are also a lot of expensive cars around here that mostly sit in the garage and rarely see the road. Oh well.

Sligjtly OT but the current issue of Good Housekeeping had an article about them (GH) redoing/organizing Paula Deen's kitchen, she who has more money than God. My thought was, surely they could have found someone more needy (me for instance, lol) to spend all that time and money on.

jude

I m with you there, jude! Ridiculous!

I wish I had something good to say about show kitchens. On second thought, maybe I don't.

I hate this android kkeyboard!!!

LOL Good Housekeeping cares about selling magazines. Redoing Paula's kitchen most likely does just that. Whereas, redoing yours or my kitchen...maybe, not so many magazines sold? (grin)

My DBIL/DSIL have one of those show houses/kitchens...5,500s.f. worth in a gated golf-course community. I tease them constantly since neither cook nor have any intention of learning. They have a private chef that comes in 3x week to keep them from starving. :) They are receiving one of the food gifts I made as Christmas presents this year. (shrug)

/tricia

Kinda hijacking my own post... but also how about people who have high(er) end kitchen appliances/gadgets that they don't use very often. Niece (30-something) got married a few years ago and had items on her gift registry. She has a messa "good china & crystal" that just sits in those cute protective, zippered cases on shelves in basement... don't think they've EVERY been used?? Also has a HUGE knife block full of GOOD pieces & really nice set of pots/pans... than don't get used that often.

I think a kitchen that is too large is inefficient. I've done kitchen designs myself and try to keep the work triangle (It might be a rectangle by now) as small as possible so that one does not have to do excessive walking to get from one part of the kitchen to another. Unless done very carefully, islands can get in the way more than help, although I've seen a few that I liked. I would like the kitchen I have now to be a bit larger, but not by much. I think I could use a few more upper cabinets, but I really do not need any more counter space. If I had a large family or entertained more, it might be a different story. I like my friend Maartje's kitchen, which she redid about 8 years ago, and it is only slightly larger than mine. Her fridge is in a very awkward place, however, as it blocks the doorway to the dining room when the refrigerator freezer door is open. She did not ask me for my help when she redid her kitchen, and Jimmy told me that I would NOT have wanted to have her as a client.

At some point I will redo the kitchen I have, but that will be at least 4-5 years down the road. I will not want to overimprove for my modest neighborhood, and I might want to move to Palm Springs at some point.

I do not personally know anyone who has a huge elaborate kitchen and does not use it, but then I am pretty far away from any new housing construction. The house that was built exactly across the street from my house in Venice sold for more than $2 million and had a relatively small (but very open) kitchen, but then the lots in Venice are pretty small, which is one of the reasons I had to move to a different neighborhood.

BTW, I had a friend in San Francisco who was originally from South African and had lived in France, where he had painted murals in French chateaux. He told me that he painted a scene of a cat stalking a mouse in one kitchen, but I do not think that I could have lived with that.

Lars

I have recently changed my kitchen to have a lot more counter top and storage, but the two things that have made the most difference to me are a larger oven and a nice pantry. The pantry is just slightly wider than the width of it's double doors, but has racks on the doors for the lighter things. Most of the food is in the pantry except for the oils, and herbs and spices normally used at the stove, and one cabinet above a small prep area that has baking powder, soda, corn starch and that sort of thing. A fully stocked and organized pantry just makes life easier.

When I was remodeling my 36 year old kitchen 6 years ago I read lots of stories like that on the "Kitchen" forum. I remember someone telling a story about an acquaintance she knew who had just remodeled her kitchen 6 months previously. It sounded like the one you described. She was having a big party and this person was nosy and went around looking at all the appliances. The big expensive oven still had the packing material in it, after 6 months! BTW, my kitchen is nothing like that. It is a very modest affair. We redid it because it was falling apart - literally.
Clare

I usually have a hand-painted "broken egg" on my kitchen floor. On matte finish, brownish tiles. Eventually it wears away after cleaning a few time... just do another one.

Homeowner was chatting at another web site bulletin board... about how much a spray of veggies might cost. Someone posted a PRICE and I chimed in that I could do it for $xyz. She sent a picture from a magazine and mentioned it was a bit 3-D. Had NEVER done anything like that in someone elses home before, tho I KNEW I could do a great job. Spent 2 days on step ladder and standing in her famublous soap stone sink. Made very basic stencils of tomatoes, pepper, eggplants, onions, etc. and used joint compound to build up images before painting. Was almost shaking with first brush strokes!! Made a NICE chunka change doing what I really like to do... but probably seriously under-charged?!?

I have a very dear friend with one of those "show" kitchens. It's drop dead gorgeous with two of everything and all high end. Her cottage kitchen is "to die" for as well. All done with top end modern appliances that look retro, glass subway tiles.....just fabulous.

Her idea of gourmet cooking is buying a frozen lasagna from Whole Foods instead of the local supermarket. Mind you she does make a great salad.

She just loves a beautiful home and is lucky enough to be able to have what she wants.

She doesn't use her kitchen like I use my much humbler one, but it makes her smile just like mine makes me smile...just a different reason to smile.

I first came to GW via the Kitchens Forum many moons ago when we bought this house and needed to put in a kitchen. Period. The "kitchen" was a big square room, originally the garage, but it had been made into a family room with a "kitchen" along one wall. I know the two previous owners. The one who owned it in the 60s-80s is the fanciest decorator in town. The cabinets on that one wall were gorgeous, presumably very expensive, black Poggenpohl, but hardly any of them, and no drawers. Zero. Not even for silverware -- just one tiny pull-out in one of the base cabinets. There was a matching bar in the middle of the room. The sink was very tiny, the stove barely worked. There was a Sub-Zero fridge (the only thing we kept), but that may have been added by the next owner, who didn't cook, either, and had gone so far as to cover two of the 4 little stove burners with a wooden tray to keep liquor bottles on. The most surprising: the room had wall to wall white carpet -- yes, WHITE CARPET in the kitchen. The decorator's son told me that we were going to do the first cooking at that house in 40 years -- his mother used to joke about installing vending machines.

What was really astonishing was that when we bought the house, a few people said things like, "And I know you must LOVE that kitchen!" -- you can sure tell who cooks and who just looks at a kitchen. They weren't even joking; they thought it was dramatic and gorgeous, and I suppose it was. But we figured the cost of a complete remodel into our overall price for the house, and we replaced everything from the ceiling to the floor (and 4 inches below that), added a wall and a pantry and an island and a door and a gas line and .... Only the refrigerator (with new doors) and one window are the same.

I mean ... white carpet?!

I have a friend who rented a house that was the occasional home of a very wealthy older bachelor. He had multiple homes. It was built and decorated for parties. The kitchen was ancient and badly organized but I am sure he NEVER cooked. And it also had white wall to wall carpet everywhere, including the kitchen. Over the carpet in the kitchen was a cowhide rug.

My friend has three daughter, two at home, and a recused dog with separation issues. The carpet was completely trashed in a few months- the cowhide rug, too.

If you have seen kitchens in historic estates, i.e. Vanderbilt, Hearst, Jefferson, etc, you will see how small the kitchens are and obvious completely lacking of any modern appliances, yet, heads of state, and Kings and Queens were served with grand feasts prepared in them.
You can also look up the setup of the old White House kitchen.

I seem to remember, most European kitchens are very small.

BTW, here in NYC, if you pretend to be a buyer and go visit the Wolf-Subzero showroom, they have a full time chef there to demonstrate their stoves. You may get a free meal there.

dcarch

A beautiful kitchen is aesthetically pleasing to everyone, cook or non cook. I have no problem with non cooks having state of the art kitchens. Who cares? I also have no problem with people having beautiful pools but don't use them, or gorgeous gardens and gardeners to keep them that way. All three can be eye candy.

Life is short. To each his own.
jo

I have a general theory, that the best meals come out of modest (or even tiny!)kitchens. Now I know there are some here that are exceptions to the rule, but what brought you here is that you actually cook!
Sometimes I remind myself of all the fabulous things that came out of my Grandma's not-so-big kitchen whenever I find myself wanting this that or the other in my kitchen. It's true, love is the best ingredient.

You never know when that couple might break out the china. I inherited all my grandma's china when my folks moved, and now I've started becoming the one who does a lot of the family holiday meals. That china hasn't seen the light of day in about 20 years but it's coming out now! My mom is one of those people who has all the show stuff but doesn't use it. She buys it with the best of intentions of using it someday, but usually never does. That's just my luck though, since I have gotten a lot of nice stuff from her over the years, once I convince her to let it go. Thank goodness some people have enough money to redo their kitchens every so often, since that's how we get great buys on Craigslist and E-Bay! And if you're into flea markets, same deal.

Some of you might remember my whining about the McMansion being built in the pasture adjoining my backyard. While it was being built, occasionally I would drop and roll under the cow fence and tour the house (the owners lived in the next county). My last visit was after the appliances were delivered. I thought the same thing "what a waste!!" only I was thinking the opposite--a waste of an opportunity as the kitchen is relatively small and plain.