So we see in pictures on Houzz these beautiful kitchens, but do we really COOK in them?

Even before the Houzz takeover, a number of the most lavish kitchens on GW were from people who freely admitted they never, ever cooked.

I don't feel particularly inhibited at the moment, but I'm in a rental these days and I went nearly two years without hot water in the kitchen or a DW, and yeah, that was inhibiting to an extent I didn't realize till I got the faucet replaced with one that allowed more than a dribble at full-on. It's rather tedious heating water in a teakettle every time you wash dishes.

I've never lived anywhere that the kitchen was one that didn't allow for a specific type of cooking. I'm a neat freak when it comes to the kitchen, though. If I take out a spice for a recipe, I measure, add it, and put it away. If I'm done using a bowl for part of a procedure, as soon as I no longer need it, I wash it and put it away. Most of the time, when the food goes in the oven, I'm done cleaning and ready for the next step.

I don't cook this way because the kitchen is small - it's not - or because I'm a germophobe - I'm not - it's the way I was taught to cook. Clean as go and you can relax as soon as the food starts cooking. I have more than enough counter space and, with the new house, a huge 3 foot by 4 foot island. Even cooking something as messy as lasagna is a snap with all that space. And the minute the lasagna goes in the oven, I can sit back and start drinking Chianti since everything I used has already been cleaned and put away.

Admittedly, it drives Suzi nuts. She'll put down a half-filled cup of water and before she can get another drink, I've dumped the water, washed the cup, and put it in the cabinet. Yeah, it's a bit OCD, but consider the opposite situation...

No, I make my mess and clean it up. I sear what is needed to sear or fry chicken or sausage. My kitchen is a workroom and it is used. And it gets cleaned up after each use. And I'm a clean freak as well.

No, not really! But I can't wait (except for the expense!!!) till I have a working vent hood... after I get a nice gas stove. At present, I am holding out till I have enough saved up to pay for it all, and I just shut all the doors in the house, and open the window in the kitchen when I cook smelly stuff.

Once we eat, we wash up (yes, hand wash, no dishwasher in this kitchen) and clean counters and the stove.

Goes hand in hand.. cook, eat, clean. ;)

Moni

I suppose that the need for cleaning up is part of the reason I grill outdoors a lot (less so now that I have an induction cooktop though). I usually try to have the kitchen mostly clean when we sit down for dinner. That way I can enjoy dinner without thinking about having a lot of cleanup waiting for me later.

I will cook, and clean after, or when possible, as I go. I designed my current kitchen so I could COOK. My old kitchen was bad enough I did most of my prep on top of the range!! That's no way to live. Nor is dining out more than the occasional treat a way to live. Another option I totally reject is the neat and tidy microwave life. I designed my kitchen so I can eat healthy, and as long as I can clean as I go, or clean within a couple hours of cooking.. it's good! And, yes, I will sear food that calls for it. Life's too short...

When I used to live in Ohio, we had a small kitchen. We had the kitchen table, which was in the kitchen so it was even more crowded. It had a small sink, two countertops (about two feet long each) and then a stove. I could barely cook. Now I live in Arizona, with a giant island, I LOVE to cook on.

I like grilling too when it's warm, to avoid kitchen clean up. Otherwise, I do what I want and figure in cleaning. I don't deep fry though, the grease in the air and the health detriments.

Nope...I am a kitchen clutter bug...I have been known to push aside the lunch mess and start on cookies of something...Kitchens are for cooking not for much else.
I have one friend...well actually 2....who never cook more than a cup of tea or coffee....they order in or pick up fast food...and frankly their kitchens are not all that.

I have a grill in the kitchen and used it a lot until I got the small gas one just outside the door....some people said..."you are GRILLING in your kitchen?" And sometimes it did smoke more than the fan could handle....but usually everything was fine....until I had to clean out the grease!
the only thing about my kitchen that inhibits the way I cook is if I am doing too much at once and I run out of space.

I do wash up as I go because I don't want a big mess to clean after a meal, but I'm not afraid to spatter some grease while I'm using the stove.

I'm WAY against a cooktop in an island! I don't want to splatter my future grand children who might be sitting at the island while I'm cooking!

I'm a bit of a slob (but a NICE slob (family motto!)), but usually put dishes in the DW and hold off til the next day for hand washing. Nancy

P.S. LOVE those HGTV couples who HAVE to have the perfect kitchen, then start thinking about learning how to cook! Also, they need 2800 SF because they have a dog and are THINKING about one day having a child!

I do have my cooktop in my island, but people don't sit at the island, I have seating at the counter which separates my kitchen from my dining room. Elery and I built the kitchen so I have my island with the 5 burner Bosch cooktop which is gas and my double wall ovens are electric, the best of both worlds. I have a dishwasher and a husband who will clean as I cook. If he cooks, then I clean, that's the deal. My countertops are a laminate because I'm clumsy and I just knew I'd drop one of those heavy cast iron pans onto the expensive granite or whatever countertops. This way if I mess it up, it's not as expensive to replace.

My island is built out of the same type cabinets as my wall cabinets. One is standard height and holds my cooktop, but it's just a little bit tall so if I'm canning in the big canner I have a step that I use to put me up a little more but one end is my "baking station", which we cut down to just my size for rolling dough and kneading bread. The grandkids love that because it's their size. (grin) I chose butcherblock tops for that, so if I scorch something by sitting a hot pan on it or it gets nicked by a knife while chopping just off the edge of the board or my pickled beet juice spills and stains, then I sand it down with a palm sander, give it several coats of oil and it's good to go. The more I work with it, the better it looks, I love it.

So, I cook, I bake, I deep fry, I saute, roast and braise. Then I clean and start over again! It's funny, though, in my tiny kitchen in my prior house, I cooked the same way, it just wasn't as convenient.

Annie

I'm a lot like lindac92. My kitchen is always a bit cluttered and I clean up when I get around to it. May not be immediately. May not even be right after the meal. Depends on what I'm cooking, what else I am doing and if I am entertaining or not.

And I have NEVER had a large, spacious or even a very modern kitchen. All my kitchens have been tiny and with limited counter space. But I am a good cook (the best in my family) and I cook just about anything. If I had a bigger kitchen, I'd just make a bigger mess :-))

To me, a kitchen is primarily a functional space. That it looks good is a bonus but not a requirement. If it functions adequately for my needs, that's all I ask of it. A good cook can really make do well with whatever is at hand. Some of my best meals have been made over a campfire!!

The priority is cooking a good meal and enjoying it. Unless you invite someone in to look at the mess, no-one will know!

Yes, my kitchen greatly inhibits my cooking. I honestly HATE to cook in this kitchen. Though this is a great house, the kitchen in it is useless! So small that it's ridiculous and of the houses that we looked at when we bought this one, its kitchen was the biggest of them all! I don't know what they were thinking back in the 50's because back then, people stayed home and cooked three meals a day pretty much. I've added a portable island that's helped some but there's only so much I can do. I have to start with a totally cleaned up kitchen. Once I start cooking, it takes no time before all of my usable counter space (about 5 feet) is used up. Extremely frustrating!

I'm a bit inhibited by the lack of a real exhaust fan. The one over the stove just recirculates. We'd have had to give up a lot of cabinet space to put in venting to the outside. So I don't cook things that are really going to smoke, or vaporize a lot of oil. The small size of the kitchen doesn't influence me, though. It just makes it less convenient, as I run around with a hot cookie sheet trying to find a space that's not already taken.

Nothing to do with spotlessness, though. That's a dream that will never happen here.

I have a tiny kitchen, but then again there are only two of us. I cook anything, but have to admit that anything that has a lot of ingredients are prepped first. When there is a lot going on, you might find dough rising on the dining room table. The upside is that it only takes me about five minutes to put a microfiber cloth on a swiffer and do a fast cleaning of walls, ceiling, and cabinet fronts.

Like arkansas girl, my house was built in the fifties and I just don't understand why the kitchens were so small. It's a trade-off for having a larger yard is how I'm looking at it. :)

We cook outdoors a lot all year because of our mild climate, but I find that prep work for the BBQ make just as much mess as cooking indoors. Perhaps even more, since certain items have to be used to transport the food back. Sometimes we eat outside when we cook outdoors, but more often we bring the food indoors, just because it is easier to get drinks, etc. when indoors. I like to eat lunch outdoors, however.

I am far from a neat freak, and so I often let clutter collect on my counters, but I clear them off before I start a major project. Fortunately, my kitchen is pretty much a separate room, and so you can't really see much of it when you open the front door or are in the living room. I would never want a completely open kitchen - that would really cramp my style, and so I am glad I do not have one. I also hate white cabinets, as they are the most difficult to keep clean. I had them in my house in Venice back in 1994-2009 and I do not want them again. There are no barstools in my kitchen, and I do not want people lingering in my kitchen either. I don't want to look at a kitchen when I am at a restaurant, and I do not want to look at a kitchen when I am eating at home - I prefer the separation of dining and cooking spaces.

I'm a clean-up as you go, girl. Splatters clean right off with a paper towel wet with hot water - takes no time. The one food I don't cook anymore due to mess is fried chicken - it is messy and may even pop up on the ceiling! Besides, one doesn't fry one piece of chicken and I don't want to eat it for a week! I really don't need fried food anyway.

I would never have a cooktop on an island. I need a good hood and I want a range. My 70 year old O'Keefe & Merritt is just the thing for me! And it's VERY easy to clean!

I hated my old kitchen also because when I had pot lucks, there were always one or two people who INSISTED on prepping at my house. Not heating a meal back up, downright PREPPING. they were well aware of my kitchen size, being repeat guests, too. (My spiritual group, so I could not not invite them.) They'd have to sprawl over the dining table (which I learned not to pre-set) or the living room coffee table.

In my new home, I have room for multiple chefs!

Anglophilia, I do "fried" chicken in the oven. Same ingredients except the oil, and healthier.

I confess, my cooktop is the one thing that does not get cleaned often enough. One of the downsides of the gas cooktop is that it takes some time to cool down enough to clean. It probably also has something to do with the fact the teenagers clean the kitchen and that I do not push the issue as I am grateful to put my dishes in the dishwasher after dinner and let someone else get the room clean. Any inhibitions on cooking in my kitchen generally relate to my stamina for the day, not the kitchen itself. Although, if I ever remodel, I sure hope to put in a triple sink instead of the double I have now. Honestly though, that is a luxury wish. I am grateful that when designing our house, we had it partially closed off with a nice pass through for functionality, but the wall is high enough that any mess is not visible from the dining room table.

As far as the lavish kitchens on Houzz and gardenweb, my perspective is that all kitchens serve a purpose. For me, a kitchen is the place I often like to spend time and where I work hard to feed my family. I need it to be functional so I can work and I need the materials to stand up to my housekeeping style. I was a bit perturbed when the tile guy (DH) decided on thicker grout lines for our Mexican tile to hide the irregularities of the tile. I would prefer to have less stainable surface. For many of those homes with the lavish kitchens, they are putting in what is expected at their price point. From the financial sphere I inhabit, it seems rather wasteful and a shame that such wonderful appliances and materials do not see more use, but there is much in that financial sphere that is foreign to me anyway.

Julia Child had a quote that always resonated with me (which of course I can't find right now) but it was something to the effect of "cooking is enjoyable from getting an idea of what you want to cook to cleaning up." That's how I look at it. Cleaning is just part of cooking.

My kitchen isn't large at all, and currently with all that I cook I've way too much on my counter tops for any real prep room, and no vent over my cooktop for searing, but that doesn't stop me. And I am messy. I clean up partly as I go for room, and after the meal or cooking. My fridge is too small and packed so tight I lose track of things, my mixer is in another room (for lack of space) - it's all inconvenient.

We are close to demoing our kitchen for a new and only slightly larger one... I've designed it (with tons of help) as function first, and hope it will also be beautiful to me. I will have more counter space, a working butcher block set into the prep island with sink, and a vent over the cooktop. I wanted a gas cooktop, but as this is my forever home, have decided on induction for a variety of reasons.

I wouldn't put down anyone for wanting an elaborate kitchen and not cooking in it. I know there are people who don't really cook much, and though this is alien to me, to each his/her own. However, any kitchen I have will be used, enjoyed, and definitely made a mess on a daily basis... and then will be cleaned. Whatever gets marred or 'ruined' will be living patina : )

I do not have a vent of any kind in my current kitchen, nor did I have one in my last house (where I lived for 30+ years). Elery didn't have one in his last house either Somehow it didn't stop me from cooking anything I felt inclined to cook and eat. (shrug) I did paint the kitchen ceiling in the White Cloud house more than once. (grin)

I do love my island cooktop, with lots of room for prep work and utensils, the pans are right under it and the ovens are directly behind me.

To each their own. When we remodeled this house Elery told me I could have whatever I wanted in the kitchen, however I wanted it. Because I do like to use my kitchen, I wanted convenient spaces and easily cleanable surfaces. However, we are limited because we do not have a basement or an attic, we're on a slab, not even a crawlspace due to the high water level (you know, that pond 20 feet outside my front door kind of high water level). So, if I wanted the ice maker to work in the new refrigerator, I had to have it placed where the waterlines were. And, because there is a heating vent that runs directly over my cooktop, we can't put a vent there. So, we've been discussing a "ventless" vent, but somehow I just don't see it happening. We've always got other "priorities", like fixing the pond walls or replacing the pump. Now Elery would like a metal roof and I want to fix the barn. He'd like to tear out the stupid and unused jacuzzi tub in the master bath and put a walk in shower now that we are both in our 60s. So, the vent is definitely not on the "priority" list, LOL. Heck, I just got Elery to put up light fixtures in the pantry, there were still bare bulbs in there!

Annie

I do not have a vent to the outside either - I just have a recirculating vent, which is one of the reasons we cook a lot of stuff outdoors. In Venice, the vent above the stove went up an open chimney (of sorts), and so that vented nicely to the outside, and in Culver City (just before) I had the same situation. In CC I used to hear the sounds of mourning doves in my kitchen, and I could not figure out where the sound was coming from until I discovered that they sat on top of my stove vent. In my house in Austin before that, I had a vent that went out the wall in the kitchen instead of through the roof. That worked well also, and in all of these cases I had a constant supply of fresh air in the kitchen, which I liked. If it had been cold air, I might not have liked it.

My mother had a bare bulb in her pantry, but it was fairly small. Mine is even smaller - more like a floor to ceiling cabinet, and so it has no lighting, but the bottom part has pull-out shelves.

I clean as I go when cooking, but not fastidiously. My sister is fanatic about it, and she will take one's drinks and plates away before one is finished, which irritates me no end. I think it is rude to rush someone through a meal - I think meals should be enjoyed leisurely and without being rushed. I am talking about week-end, holiday, and evening meals - I can understand lunch being rushed, but that irritates me also.

Most of the time, my kitchen is not photo-ready, but that is not my goal.

Speaking of vents, or not having one (I really need to get back to work!), I've not had one for my entire life, but my cooking has changed... We have to pull 3 smoke detectors off walls and remove batteries, and shut the circuit breaker off our alarm/smoke system (redundancy, but ridiculous, I know) when I sear meat, or DH roasts coffee beans, otherwise we hear high pitched squeals and an ear-splitting male voice saying "fire, fire, get out!" repeatedly. So do our neighbors. I want a vent because it's driving me nuts! I actually love the scent of food having been cooked, lingering in the house. I'll miss that.

I don't understand not having a vent. I clean the filters in my vent every couple weeks, don't deep fry, although do saute often, and there is always drippy oil in the vent hood, which vents outside. I am not fastidious at all but doesn't grease go in the the air and onto things?

@2ManyDiversions, You need the "photoelectric" type of smoke detectors near your kitchen. It's best to have a mix of them throughout your house actually as the detect smoke and fires differently. I had a similar scenario of it going off when I cooked anything that produced even the tiniest bit of smoke at the top of the stairs off the kitchen. Once I switched it to a photoelectric about 3-4 years ago, it's never gone off once from cooking despite a few time i was sure it would. We, and especially my dog is much happier with it.

More info on smoke detector types

Steve J, thank you for your thoughtfulness! I think, and I must stress think, the detector installed in the kitchen is different from the others in the vicinity (the one in the garage is also different as well, exhaust fumes won't cause it to go off). Our kitchen is open to the living room, and those are the culprits! They are all part of the same system. Kind of you to make the suggestion!

Hmmm. I roast coffee beans, fry bacon, have fruit pies that boil over into the oven, none of those things has set off my smoke/fire alarms. The pellet stove that Elery just installed did, however, so I know it works. Mine, however, has a female voice telling me to get out of the house.

Bumblebeez, things spatter and I clean it up. I try to not keep a lot of things sitting around, but I do have to clean cabinet fronts and counter tops regularly. However, I'd do that anyway because things get dusty, cabinet pulls get grimy, refrigerator handles get sticky. And, I think the ceiling will require painting before it probably would otherwise. I do have a pendant light just to the left of the cooktop and although I clean it regularly it doesn't seem to collect any more grease and grime than anything else does.

Annie

>>Most of the time, my kitchen is not photo-ready, but that is not my goal.<<

Words to live by, Lars!

When I cook at the unit where DH lives on weekdays, I have to turn on the vent and open the nearby kitchen window, because it seems like the least amount of sear smoke or steam will set off the smoke alarms that came with the unit. It's a real PITA because I've set off the darned alarms many times and I can't reach them to turn them off. And it's not like clouds of smoke or even particularly detectable (to the human nose) smoke. At home I mostly turn on the vent if I'm generating a lot of heat on a hot day.

i (and most of my friends) cook smelly messy foods (as in frying) outdoors. i even deep fry bacon on my screened in back porch. Also use my crockpot there. I do have a lovely kitchen and also want it tidy, but i clean up as i go and everything works out. My ventahood works well but rarely do you find one that removes fish odors or bacon odors as throughly as i'd like.

My kitchen at the cottage is part of a great room so I try and keep it relatively tidy as I cook and serve.......' cause looking at a mess while we eat is not very appealing.

The kitchen in the city is small , a one woman show , but is not visible from the dining room soooooooo.....let's just say I' m less tidy while cooking.

In both cases the kitchen doesn't hold me back from cooking as I please....cooking is a joy to me ....the kitchen is just part of the apparatus required to do that.

No cooktop on my island , I want every inch of my 8 X 4 island for prep work, rolling pastry etc and most importantly a place to set out food and people to gather around when entertaining.

My kitchen is a working kitchen, not a showcase at all. It doesn't have a lot of counter space, but I tend to make a bit of a mess. Hubby does the washing up and cleaning. I cook, he cleans. The layout of the kitchen is a bit of a peeve. The only usable counter top is away from the stove, my back is to the stove. So any cutting and prepping I have to be quick and watchful of what's on the stove. Someday I'll really have to do the mis-en-place. It would certainly help.

I don't care for lingering smells for days. Bacon gets cooked on the balcony in our cast iron skillet on the induction burner.

Spatters and spills get wiped up right away as it happens or as soon as the food is served out of the pot. It doesn't get left to cool.

Our stove is sort of in a corner, hemmed in by a perpendicular counter. This means 2 people can't work at the stove or oven without really getting in each other's way. If it's a holiday where we have all 4 burners and the stove going, one person has to handle all stove work. My husband and I end up doing a sort of dance where we are trading positions all the time. Very annoying. We didn't have that in our prior house, so had no idea what a pain it would be.

And for every day dinners, we have to decide which person will be in front of the stove.

I'm late to this party, but I have to say, such easily cleaned surfaces as granite and stainless steel would not prevent me from cooking, though if I were tired, I might just wipe up visible residue with a sponge and do a proper cleaning the next day (or have a helper do it). The exception is eggplants. One of my reasons for getting a small gas top to go with my induction was for charring eggplants, but stainless is not as easy to clean as enamel, and the grate is really heavy, so I have a tendency to stick eggplants in the broiler on a pyroceram pie plate that goes in the dishwasher, instead. But if the oven were otherwise engaged, I'd use the gas flames.

The kitchen that came with the house was horrible to cook in. The stove and fridge were a hike apart. The dishwasher was a few steps away from the sink. The kitchen was a G shape within a room, trapping the cook, or forcing a '60's spy movie leap over the peninsula. I spent a long time designing and implementing my current kitchen, which is a U with umlaut, and has cabinetry instead of blank walls. Things are spaced right and there's good work flow. The main single cook working zone ("triangle" +) is compact and efficient, but I've also had six cooks and various schmoozers in there comfortably.

If your kitchen is bugging you so much, you might seriously consider a remodel. If the cabinets are in good shape, you might be able to reuse them, and might even be able to recut the granite. Get induction! You could put paper (newspaper, paper towels, parchment, butcher paper) all over your spatter area and just roll up the mess and put it away.

If that's not in the cards, get a high powered portable induction unit that will put out enough power for your sears, and put that on the paper, or perhaps a piece of Formica (i.e., plastic) skin that's easy to wash and store with the baking boards. Even as it stands now, you can make an apron for your gas cooktop out of something like Masonite covered with stainless steel. Make a flat piece to cover the counter all around it for the space the spatter reaches, and hide it in the garage or something unless you're searing. You can even get fancy and make a backsplash of sorts to stand up, or perhaps even adapt a wind protector from an outdoor grill. Having a protector that you can just dump in the sink to wash or hose off the next day is far superior to avoiding the cooking!!

Embrace your kitchen! Allow it to serve you. Do whatever you need to to keep it from bugging you.

Absolutely. I've lived in dozens of places, so I've been able to compare. Honestly, the best kitchens were galley-style kitchens and a huge farmhouse kitchen in a place I lived in for two summers. Acres of storage and counter space. My current small square kitchen with scant free counter space is horrible. Every possible expanse of counter is broken up with something, either fridge, cooktop, sink or doorway. My last kitchen was a "one butt kitchen" which impeded how much help I got in it.

Does your kitchen inhibit the way you cook?

Not usually. The old kitchen was difficult, but the new kitchen is a dream to work in, even with extra butts in the kitchen.

I am a tidier, which can test a saint's patience. I'm guilty of popping a glass or cup into the dishwasher just to have someone ask where their glass went a few minutes later. Oops! I usually clean as I go to some degree, but I cook from scratch including our ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, BBQ sauce. I shredded my own cheese - you get the drift. And usually at some point in the process I can't keep up with the speed of cooking (induction) and the need for components. I try to mise en place, but I often jump into something before everything is prepped. If the dish requires baking, then I usually have the kitchen sorted before it's ready.

I can think of one instance recently when I held off baking bacon, because we were going to be entertaining, and I didn't want the house smelling strongly of bacon. We have a Vent-a-hood, but the ovens are a number of feet away, so it's not possible to vent all of the odors.

I love that we have two pocket doors that can be closed to shut the kitchen off from the rest of the house, however, that never works when entertaining because our guests love being in the kitchen. Our last party had approximately 40 people. I started prepping things days ahead of time, so the day-of was relatively easy and things could be neat and tidy before guests started arriving.