There was a time when the best room in the house was not the kitchen. Guests entered through a formal front door, coats were taken, and conversation unfolded in a parlor or drawing room. Somewhere beyond the polished rooms, often behind a swinging door, another world was at work. Fires burned, pots clattered, water was hauled or heated, and meals were prepared in a room that respectable visitors rarely saw.
For much of history, the kitchen was first and foremost a workroom. In larger Victorian and Edwardian houses, it belonged to a network of service spaces that might include a pantry, scullery, larder, servants’ hall, and back stairs. The separation was practical as well as social. Cooking produced smoke, heat, smells, grease, noise, and an impressive amount of washing up. Families with servants could enjoy dinner without watching the labor that produced it.
Of course, that was never the whole story. In farmhouses, cottages, and modest homes, the kitchen often served as a place of warmth and daily gathering long before anyone coined the phrase “heart of the home.” A large kitchen table might be used for kneading bread in the morning, mending clothes in the afternoon, and eating supper at night. The grand house hid its kitchen, while the working household often lived in it.
“The kitchen has joined the rest of the house; now it also needs to feel like the rest of the house.”
Then domestic life began to change. The additions of running water, gas and electric ranges, refrigeration, and other labor-saving appliances altered the way food was prepared. At the same time, domestic service declined sharply, and increasingly the homeowner was the one peeling the potatoes. This dramatic shift in lifestyle brought the isolation and inconvenient distance of a separate kitchen into sharp focus.
The postwar fitted kitchen became the answer, with an overriding focus on efficiency. Cabinets were standardized, appliances were arranged for efficiency, counters became continuous, and the room was arranged like a small factory. Not only was this a tremendous improvement, but it also meant the kitchen was becoming a more visible, integral part of the house.
Walls came down. Breakfast bars turned into islands, which then became freestanding worktables. Eventually, the kitchen moved into the center of the floor plan. Today, as in our previous home, guests may walk straight into our kitchen when they arrive. Children do homework at the island. Friends drink coffee beside the sink. Holidays unfold around the island or in the eat-in kitchen instead of in a secluded parlor. This cultural swing has brought a hidden room to the front of the line where it has aptly earned the name “heart of the home.”
The story continues.
Through the decades, the kitchen has become larger, sleeker, and more integrated; often feeling clinical and, as Rita Konig says, “One of the things I like in kitchens is to try and keep them, as much like rooms as possible, and by that I mean, don’t let your kitchen be a sort of pod that’s landed from outer space…” Many people are beginning to want something that doesn’t feel quite so new and has more personality. The endless banks of uniform cabinets, the oversized island, and the expectation that a kitchen should resemble a showroom are coming into question. The kitchen has joined the rest of the house; now it also needs to feel like the rest of the house.
English kitchens with freestanding furniture, old dressers, worktables, and enduring natural materials are rooms with that lovely “heartbeat of the home” feeling while still being incredibly useful.
This brings us to an idea that may be new to some of you, even though it is centuries old: the unfitted kitchen. In the next post, we will explore what an unfitted kitchen actually is and why it feels so refreshingly different from the standard kitchen most of us know. I hope you’ve enjoyed this first post in the series. I look forward to sharing the next chapter next Tuesday!
Read Part 2 ~ What Is an Unfitted Kitchen?
Warmly,
Rachel
