The Common Room is building their house and wanted to talk about kitchens.

My kitchen now is twice as large as my last. I’m grateful for that. But when R was cooking, which he does rarely these days, it was too small. He used every available piece of the counter and more.

I have a pantry. I’m glad for that. But the one we have, smaller than a closet but bigger than a broom pantry, holds the trash, peanut butter, bread, and canned goods. There’s not a lot of room in it. We added a pantry in our living room, which is next to the kitchen. We took out the wet bar and installed a pantry. Beautiful wood, several containers deep, with its own light, two doors wide.

We’d like our kitchen to open into the living room. Everyone wants to sit and talk when you’re in the kitchen, so that would facilitate it. We’ve turned the breakfast room into a seating area only so that we’d have some space for visiting.

We have wood floors in the kitchen. I love wood floors. I adore wood floors. And I don’t have any problems with the floor at the sink or the fridge. But at the door, sometime, there was a leak and we have the ugliest wood rot right there. So, though I love wood floors, I am not sure I would do it again in the kitchen.

We put in wallpaper. But we didn’t make sure it was water friendly. It’s not. I thought all paper was water friendly.

I wish we had backsplashes that go up to the cabinets instead of ending two inches after the countertop. There’s lots of colorful splashes on my paper.

Our back door opens into our kitchen. This is pretty much used to go outside for the boys to play or to feed and water the dog and nothing else. I would rather have had the wallspace. But the house was built 20+ years ago and they didn’t ask my opinion.

Our first house had a galley kitchen. Unless you have to have one, I don’t recommend it. I hated ours. It was big, but long. There were three rooms on the other side of the hallway in the space that the kitchen used. And all the appliances were on one side. Very strange.

My husband grew up with side by side refrigerators and I grew up with top/bottom. Or maybe it’s the other way around, but I don’t think so. We have a top/bottom now because someone gave it to us 10 years ago. It was 9 years old then, at least, and is still a blessing. Thank you, Karen. I wish the freezer were on the bottom instead of the top. Because I’m always stooping to get stuff out of the fridge. That’s the part we use the most.

We have white. We’ve always had white. Colors fade. I don’t recommend them. We thought about black at one point, but we didn’t have the money. White works. Right now stainless seems in. But then it would probably age quickly.