Why do people want large kitchens?

I say the same thing when I watch those house hunters shows or house renovations. My comments are usually about people wanting huge bathrooms. Why? Are you having a party in there? Why do you need a shower big enough for eight people? Am I the only person not having shower parties?

@chyna-Once social distancing falls by the wayside, you can have parties in there!
As for big bathrooms?They often seem cold, even if the floors are heated.
I feel the same about vaulted ceilings but if they didn’t exit, there would be so many homeless ceiling fans out there. I don’t know if I could live with that…

So they can pretend to be better cooks than they have any right to claim they are.

@ragingloli -Hahaha What about large bathrooms?

Me, because I would love to have friends almost every weekend for a cook-out in my big kitchen with a long wooden table good for 12 people. Or more!

Also my kitchen would have an installed indoor BBQ Grill. For snowy winters.

@mazingerz88 -That event would be known as “The Last Supper” after I have to clean up the aftermath. :D

No clean up for friends of mine. Especially women. I was taught to wash dishes at age 5.

I think too often in modern houses the kitchen receives short shrift in regard to space. Instead, you see these faux mansions with sumptuous living rooms while the kitchens have the space of a tugboat galley. I think the kitchen should be the largest room in the house, and designed that you could spend most of your waking hours in it comfortably. Because on other than formal occasions (at least for us), that’s what happens anyway. You need a big kitchen just to store the gadgets and machines. Plus loads of counter space and horizontal surfaces as well as ample cabinet and pantry facilities and drawers. And given all of that, there should still be sufficient room for a table that will seat 4 and space to walk around it

Well, rumor has it that it’s the bathroom and the kitchen that sells the house. My 100 year old house was re-remodled in the 90s. It has a huge kitchen, a huge bathroom and a small living room and a tiny dining room. Go figure.

My family has a few very affluent people in it, and one of them has a huge mansion in an American Southwest city known for casinos, gambling and nightlife. She has a huge kitchen with an island that has a second sink in it, lots of counter space, and pantry. Kitchen opens to a table and living space, which is separate from the dining area and living room which are all open but closed off from the kitchen, so when you come in the front door, and see the dining room table off to the side and the living room in front of you, the kitchen can be closed off from view.

She has great spaces, such as huge cabinets that hold trays and serving platters vertically and multilevel counter space so when there is some clutter on the counter, you can’t see it from the seating area.

I can tell you, having a small kitchen where my food storage is spilling over and I’m stepping on plates of cat food when I’m trying to cook, having a small kitchen can be very annoying. There is very limited storage space and when people talk about appliances like air fryers and InstaPots and bread makers and blenders and other things, my first thought is that it sounds great but I have no place to store it. My kitchen is not really small, and to some, like a relative who lives in NYC, my kitchen is twice what hers is, but for me, it’s not big enough.

@stanleybmanly -You make a good argument for a bigger kitchen but I have found that the new homes often have a large kitchen.
I remember this back in the 80’s too when one of my brothers was a builder.
All beige, all large all the time…
Now I am noticing Craftsman details on newer homes and I like that.I don’t know if the interiors follow suit though.
It would be pretty expensive to duplicate that kind of workmanship.
My husband & I did a lot of entertaining on our boat which had a galley. Perfect, I say!
Then again, I like to spend the least amount of time in the kitchen out of any room in my house.
I have been thanked for this.:)

That is one thing I really appreciate about my large kitchen…a lot of storage space. But it still wasn’t enough. I converted this broom closet into a pantry a few years ago. Two. Three. Ta da!.
We had an appraisal done on the house at one point. It was the same guy who appraised in before I bought the house. He asked what had changed, and I showed him my new and improved pantry. I told him I’d built it out.
He said, ”You built it out? You mean your husband built it out.”
“No,” I said, ”I built it out. By myself.”
He said “So you used power tools and everything?” Totally saying I was full of shit.
My wonderful husband stepped right in and said, “She’s a pro at any thing she puts her mind to, including every power tool known to man. And yes. She built those shelves. By herself.”

@Dutchess_III -That rumor is true.
What I wonder is why people need so much room.
The appraiser you met must not get out much! LOL

It’s the older generation @lucillelucillelucille. You can’t begin to imagine the flack I got when I owned the mower shop. That industry is very male testosterone driven. I had one customer who would literally pull me out of the shop section of the shop, where I was working on a mower, and tell me “This is no place for a women.” Yes, physically pull me out.

@Dutchess_III – I used to date a guy that owned a small engine repair shop.
It was just him and another guy. He did a good business.
I can’t even say that attitude is limited to an older generation as I would get watched like a hawk every time I launched my boat or pulled a trailer to art fairs.lol They must not get out much either
I never had problems with doing these things but people wait for one to happen.
Next time I have to pull something, I will randomly scream when I am backing up. XD

You can have a table and chairs to eat at in there, and when you’re serving, you don’t have to pack the dishes to far, to and from.

@kritiper -Just when I thought I liked my table-free kitchen!

I want an out-of-proportion large kitchen probably because I have never had a large-enough kitchen. For many years I enjoyed hosting large holiday dinners, but the prep is a pain without enough surface (counter) space, my pantry is always shelves in the basement, where I also store the not-used-everyday pots and pans and stuff, and for the larger, more complex cooking projects which require small appliances I have to bring in power strips.

But that’s just me.

Preparing a meal in a large kitchen is totally different and more enjoyable than in a small kitchen. My kitchen is not small but it’s hardly large. If it were just 3 feet bigger in two directions it would make a ton of difference.

Cooked if I know!
Maybe to distance from the smell of burning.

It is my wife’s dream to have a big, professional kitchen. While not a chef, she was taught to cook and bake by two chefs in Italy (her uncles), so you could say it’s her hobby/passion.

Showers, OTOH, only need to be big enough for two people – ::wink::

I just went into the kitchen to do something and was reminded of one of the issues. I put fruit and yogurt in the cup part of the Nutri Bullet and I needed the blade/cap so I could blend it up. I couldn’t find the blade. I knew I used it just days ago. I opened drawers, looked here, looked there. Not that many places to look and the kitchen is clean but I knew it had to be somewhere. I was also open to the possibility that it was right in front of my eyes and I’m turning senile and so not really seeing it haha. I then was ready to give up but was determined. It turned out it had been on top of the stove and several things did an avalanche and fell on the floor in the corner, and there it was. Annoying.

If the kitchen was bigger, everything would have a permanent storage spot and there would be no hunting for fifteen minutes for something.

@canidmajor My sister also loves hosting the parties and I am glad for that. :)

Kitchens are often used for more than just cooking. I fold laundry, work on projects, wrap gifts, assemble things that need assembling, etc. having a nice, large workspace is very useful, and the proximity to a sink makes it easy to wipe down before/after.

It’s also where friends/family tend to congregate when we have people over.

@ucme -LOL! I get that!
My dog runs upstairs every time he hears the click of the stove being turned on.Not kidding.
You think he’d get over a few small fires.
Not only that, but I live next to a fireman.So I have that security…

@gorillapaws – I can’t fit a table in mine (galley) but I can see the usefulness of a good sized work area.

@jca2 -The problem for me would be the remembering part. ;P

@lucillelucillelucille: Burning rice is my specialty. I now use a timer so that I don’t set off the smoke alarm. Burnt rice is very smoky, plus the pot may never be the same.

I just bought a rice cooker, which is not big and I don’t know if there’s room for it but I figure if it saves me aggravation from burning the pot, it may be worth the space. Someone I know who uses a rice cooker told me not to buy an expensive one, because the cheap one does the same thing the expensive one does. The one I bought was less than $20.

I have two firemen right in the area but I try not to draw attention to myself haha.

@cookieman -Italian chef? That’s heavenly!

@jca2 -If you ever want to meet them, I’ll send you a few recipes! XD

Because they like to cook for and with people?? Just guessing here.

@janbb -Thanks for your reply.
So bigger is better then?

I don’t need a kitchen from a McMansion but enough room for me to move around in, have counter space for prep work and room at a kitchen table for three or four friends (back in the pre-pandemic days) to sit around and kibbitz. Back when I was married, the two of us would often be working on a meal together. So yeah.

You sounded kind of judgmental in your OP, I must say.

@janbb So what?
I judge a large kitchen to be unnecessary. For me, especially.
What someone else likes is not going to make me angry.
I am trying to gain understanding of the preference as someone who doesn’t love to cook.

When I stay in the timeshare resort with it’s open, uncluttered kitchen, I tend to enjoy cooking more. I’m not stepping on cat food plates, or cats’ water bowl, or having to lift something to get to something else.

@lucillelucillelucille Haha!
Your creative juices don’t flow in the kitchen, your dog knows this…I know this lol

@jca2 -The only thing I want to lift is a fork. XD

@ucme -No. Hell, no they don’t.
Creativity isn’t even required IMO.
“Read & follow the direction of the recipe.”- Aunt Bitchy
She never addressed the issue of boredom.

@lucillelucillelucille I know right!
My mum would tell me “a watched pot never boils” if I ever grew impatient over things.
Ahh, I said, but that’s how you blew a sunroof in the kitchen ceiling :D

@ucme -I haven’t done this in awhile but I used to put an egg in a pan, then go up and take a shower.
When I’d come down, breakfast was so done.

@ lucillelucillelucille When I was a teenager back in the late 60’s, and I had 7 brothers and sisters, Dad nailed a 4’X8’ piece of plywood to an old wooden table and that was our table in the kitchen that we ate at.
Picture a table like that in YOUR kitchen!!!

@kritiper-That wouldn’t fit in my kitchen.
As for a family of 10, a large kitchen would only make sense.
On the show that I am watching this on, I do not see people with a lot of kids looking for large kitchens to accommodate them all.

@jca2: The problem may be the cat.

Sometimes its nice to have a big enough kitchen so your boyfriend could cook with you too.

@Inspired_2write -My hub and I have cooked together in our little kitchen. Sometimes we get something done. XD

I have celiac disease and food allergies. With 5 people “quarantining” and eating 3 home cooked meals a day, a larger kitchen would be great. I also have a thing for kitchen appliances and gadgets, most of which I actually use. We definitely use an air fryer, instant pot, microwave, stove and oven all daily. In addition, I have a little one who wants to be a baker (since he was 2) and we bake together a lot. So we require a lot of storage, both for kitchen items and specialty allergen-free foods.

I would like to have a large kitchen to store my food and pots and pans and dishes. Also to have room to cook larger more complex meals.

@Cupcake -Makes sense.

My large kitchen is more of a meeting place for family.
I rarely cook. If I do, it’s more like throwing a corn dog in the oven on a pie plate, like I did last night. Or toasting up a piece of garlic bread, or a bowl of cereal, stuff like that.
I could “cook” in a closet.

@Dutchess_III -I asked my sister that question last night as she has a large kitchen.
She said that is where most people end up when she entertains.I’d have to say that’s true when I’ve been there.
I asked her if love of cooking has anything to do with it.She just laughed :)

For me, because I love to cook, and having a large kitchen just makes everything easier, from storage, to prep, to photography, to serving, to cleanup.

Right now I have a very small kitchen and it is a hassle to cook or prep almost anything, due to the lack of counter space. If you add another person into the mix, it is almost impossible to do anything.

Many times, I have multiple dishes being prepped, and cooked, and baked at the same time. I have to plan everything out in advance, and often end up using the kitchen table, and other areas that are not the kitchen, which I hate. We only have a single oven, so on holidays, the turkey (which my Mom makes) has to be done in an electric roasting pan in the laundry room, while pies and other things are being made in the single oven, in shifts.

Trying to prep a bunch of vegetables and fruits (for freezing, snacking, or other dishes that will be made later in the week) is a pain in a small kitchen, because there is nowhere to lay out everything at the same time, so it takes much longer. Baking is also a chore. Plating is a chore, cleanup is a chore.

I like efficiency, and a large, well set up kitchen is conducive to efficiency.