The Importance of a Kitchen, and What It Means for a Renovation

The kitchen is the one room everybody in a home uses every day. The day starts there with coffee or breakfast, the meals that keep a family fed are made there, and when people come over they end up standing in it. That is why it is the room most worth getting right, and why a kitchen renovation should begin with how the room is used and not with a picture of someone else’s.

What a kitchen does

• It feeds the household. Storage, a sink, a cooking surface and counter between them are the working core, and everything else serves those.
• It gathers people. At any party in a home, guests drift to the kitchen. Family and friends cook, eat and talk there.
• It teaches. Children who spend time in the kitchen see how a meal is made and how people behave at a table.
• It often does a second job as a homework desk, a bar or an office. In a city apartment it may be the only table in the home.

Cooking at home and health

There is research behind the idea that a kitchen you use is good for you. A study of elderly people in Taiwan, published in the journal Public Health Nutrition in 2012, followed them for ten years and found that those who cooked more than five times a week were more likely to survive the period than those who never cooked. It is one study of one population, and it shows a link, not a cause. Still, it fits common sense: a kitchen that is pleasant and easy to work in gets cooked in more often.

Why it matters more in an apartment

A New York City kitchen carries the same load as a suburban one in a fraction of the space. There is rarely a pantry down the hall or a second table in another room. Every decision is therefore tighter: an appliance two inches too wide costs a drawer, and a door that swings the wrong way blocks the aisle. The smaller the kitchen, the more the planning matters.

Questions that turn importance into a plan

We ask these at the start of a kitchen design, and they are worth answering before you meet any contractor:

• What feeling do you want in the room: the traditional warmth of hearth and home, or clean, uncluttered lines?
• Is preparing meals the main job of the kitchen, or do you want to be in and out quickly? A serious cook needs a different room.
• Who uses the kitchen, and how will that change over the next ten years?
• Which appliances must be included, and which do you own but never use?
• What do you need to store? If you own a lot, or the room is small, have an inventory taken so the cabinets can be fitted to it.
• Does the kitchen also have to work as a desk or a place to eat?

Let the answers set the budget

Once you know what the kitchen is for, the spending follows. A household that cooks every night puts money into the range, the ventilation and the counter beside them. One that entertains puts it into seating, lighting and a layout that keeps guests out of the cook’s way. One that mostly reheats can spend less on appliances and more on storage and finishes. A renovation shaped this way lasts, because it fits the people and not a fashion.

Our page on kitchen renovation in NYC describes how we design and build kitchens, the design and build page explains why one firm doing both keeps the plan and the construction in step, and the kitchen gallery shows our finished kitchens. When you are ready to plan, our guide to planning a kitchen renovation in NYC sets out the order of decisions.

Questions people ask