Kitchen Essential

For art lovers who don’t go to every opening day but who still like to visit galleries and museums, it doesn’t take much effort to arrange something special — a spontaneous museum visit.

After visiting the exhibition you can meet friends and like-mindedpeople in the open air near the museum to talk about what you’ve seen. Over a glass of wine you exchange impressions and express your artistic points of view, whether original or not, before you have to part company.

The table decorations which suit such an occasion are especially effective if they clearly reflect the tone of the exhibition. Continue Reading »

Table decorations can tell a story - either to suit the occasion, or with reference to the guests, the host or the hostess. The example here is for the birthday of an architect, which is celebrated in a fitting setting.

The table here is not meant to be a work desk, but one for relaxation. The materials and equipment which surround the birthday boy or girl at work appear here and act as interesting conversation pieces.

What to do:

Of course, the basis of the table should be plans or blueprints spread across the table. Don’t be afraid to lay plans and drawings at angles across each other. Your guests will have more to discover and the individual plans won’t look like place mats. You can also position a few rolled-up blueprints decoratively on the table. Continue Reading »

The high point of a christening is the actual ceremony, not the meal afterwards. It is nice if the overall decorative theme reflects the occasion, and the little guest of honour.

The christening party is almost as traditional as the ceremony itself. The celebration often takes place in someone’s home, because it is more personal and often easier to organise in this way if there are small children present.

A christening is the first major celebration in many people’s lives and so the overall design, and particularly that of the table, should always place the spotlight on the most important person. Give your imagination free reign and let your thoughts stray to things which make the hearts of children beat a little faster. Ships and sailors, beach toys, toy cars, doll’s houses with “proper” furniture, daisy chains, furry toy animals; all these can be used as themes for a table decoration. Continue Reading »

It doesn’t matter whether you’ve led an eventful life or a quiet one — attaining 50 or 60 years of age is a perfect opportunity to remember countless little events. This is most enjoyable at home with your family or good friends of long standing who have been with you through the years.

It can be very interesting if you extract anecdotes and stories which you have never heard before from the older members of your family, using old photographs, letters or other souvenirs. Make the most of the next birthday or celebration to have a chat about the good old days, and use the decorations specifically to create a topic of conversation. Continue Reading »

A wedding celebration is truly something special. Nothing is left to chance. For you as the bride and groom, and for your guests it should be beautiful and exciting, a truly unforgettable celebration, and — together with the wedding ceremony — the wedding breakfast is the most important part of a weddding celebration.

The menu or buffet is planned in detail with the restaurant or catering service. There should be something special for old and young, it should be light, so people feel like dancing afterwards, and the wine list should tempt even the connoisseurs.

However, the table setting is far too often the “poor relation” when it comes to the preparations. If you leave the table setting to the caterers, you will get a nicely set table, but one which is also, unfortunately, rather impersonal. Continue Reading »

Planning — think first, then act

You start with a good idea.

If you only have a vague idea, turn to paper and pencil. A firm design concept can often develop from just a passing thought. There are three steps to achieving this. As a first stage, make a note of everything which you could do. The second stage is to mark what you would like to do on this occasion, and then outline how you intend to carry it out.

Write everything down, even the little trifling things which often get forgotten during preparations and then don’t get done at all. It is always worth writing out such tiny details.

If you are doing a complex table decoration it is worth writing out a timetable, counting down to the big day, with greeting your guests as the final item. Continue Reading »

Glimmer, glitter, glamour and gaudy colours — is this an American Christmas? You might think so if you were to visit a shopping mall in the run-up to Christmas, but Christmas is not as commercialised everywhere in America as that which you see in the shopping malls would lead you to believe. Americans do tend to go to town more on decorations, but it doesn’t have to be kitsch or tasteless.

If you’d like to try a different style of table decoration this Christmas, then why not American-style? Continue Reading »

The working kitchen divides into six sections:

1. Storage of food

2. Preparation

3. Cooking

4. Serving

5. Dishwashing

6. Storage of crockery.

For efficiency and comfort of operation, it is not only necessary to ensure the layout is right; utensils, gadgets, saucepans must be in the right places.

Storage of food

Just because the larder has always traditionally held all the food, condiments and spices, there is no reason why things should not be changed around to give greater convenience.

What is the point of crossing to the other side of the kitchen to find the stock cubes or sugar when they are required at the cooker or the table? The larder can then be used for longer-term storage of cans, packets and bottles. Continue Reading »

Washing machines have certainly removed the drudgery from washday, but one should have no delusions that even the most sophisticated machines have removed all the work.

The fully-automatic, electronic or computerised job certainly washes better. It copes with delicate and sensitive fabrics and, in many cases, removes stains.

What the machine cannot do is sort the washing into compatible types. It cannot read care labels or washing instructions. It still has to be loaded and unloaded. If a tumble dryer is incorporated into the one machine, some of the load may still have to be put on one side for the dryer to do its job most economically.

After drying, either in the integral tumble dryer, separate dryer or out in the garden, the ironing has to be done and the finished laundry sorted for storing in airing cupboard, drawers or wardrobes sorted for storing in airing cupboard, drawers or wardrobes. Continue Reading »

Lighting a kitchen is not easy. Most people get it wrong because they don’t really understand what the different types of lighting will do for them and how to use lighting to achieve maximum benefit. Subtle yet effective illumination is a skill that few have mastered, yet its importance cannot be underestimated. Too many and too bright lights can cause tension, just as dim lighting causes accidents around the house.

This is an attempt to simplify the complexities and try to illustrate the best lighting for each area.

Simple, direct and bright illumination is required for food preparation, cooking and washing up. This can be provided by a number of different fittings depending on your kitchen layout. Continue Reading »

Everyone has their own pet ideas on storing items that no standard kitchen unit could accommodate. For example, units don’t provide little hooks for all those rubber bands we can’t bear to throw away! So full marks to those British kitchen unit manufacturers who do look beyond merely what their Continental rivals provide, and actually try to see what the housewife really needs.

Recipes and recipe books are never provided for. Recipe cards or small notes are not easy to handle whilst making a new cake for the first time. A bulldog clip and a cup-hook attached to the underside of the wall unit solves this problem. Attach the recipe to the bulldog clip and simply hang it on the hook! Winchmore Kitchens have produced a recipe book holder which looks, when closed, like part of the pelmet concealing the strip light under the wall cupboard. When it is pulled out it holds the book — just like a mini-lectern. Continue Reading »

When someone is busy cooking in the kitchen, the instinctive urge for visitors or bystanders is to want to have a taste. Eating food where it is prepared is a traditional, and very comforting thing to do. In prehistoric times it was the norm. There was no special room for eating, nor was there co-ordinated linens, crockery and cutlery! Raw materials were simply hunted, harvested or gathered, then roughly skinned, chopped or ground with simple implements. Cooking, where applicable, was over an open fire and eating was a communal process vital to survival.

Historically, cooking and eating habits have refined and continually changed over generations and according to the structure of the social system. Formal dining rooms were associated with privileged sectors of the community — those who had servants to scrub, clean and polish their homes and possessions. Continue Reading »

This young couple have one child and the possibility of more to come. In this first home, with a limited budget, they wished to spend it as wisely as possible. First priority is the working kitchen, which must be efficient, safe and as timeless as possible. They could not afford it to look old fashioned within a few years.

Sensibly, the washing machine and a sink were plumbed in the garage where the central-heating boiler had already been installed to allow more space in the kitchen. The fridge/freezer, fronted by decor panels to match the units, was placed next to the garden door. Adjoining this is the gas double oven. Base and wall units link up to the double-bowl, round red enamel sinks under the window. Continuing round the kitchen, units link up to the matching red gas hob with an extractor fan above. Base units continue fromthe hob up to the peninsular breakfast bar — also a useful extra work surface. To make use of the end of the wall unit (see picture left) a midway unit, normally wall mounted between worktop and cupboard above, was fitted to hold cruet, jam, sugar and so on in handy reach of those using the breakfast bar. Continue Reading »

There were no children in this household and the owner enjoys entertaining a constant stream of visitors.

Laundry equipment and the central-heating boiler were moved to a nearby utility room. The boiler left a chimney breast and recess which had been used for a flue and the question was whether to demolish it or leave it as a focal point. It was allowed to remain and the built-under oven and hob unit were inset here in an alcove of rustic tiles. The chimney breast surround was faced off with bricks and the whole cooker area was reminiscent of an old kitchen range.

Between the kitchen and the front of the house was a small breakfast room/study. Although the kitchen was an ample sized room, the wall between the two rooms was demolished and an archway formed in its place. Continue Reading »

Shape solutions

Small, awkward-shaped kitchens can present special problems. These examples show how these virtually unworkable kitchens were transformed into labour saving dreams.

Five walls

A tiny kitchen in an old end-of-terrace house in a garden suburb presented a challenge with three windows and five walls, none of which was of equal length.

The new owner was a busy professional woman who lived with her teenage daughter. Breakfast and evening meals were to be eaten in the kitchen. Maximising on the microwave and the freezer, they entertained friends about once a month. The budget for this kitchen was moderate.

The previous occupants had fitted some units which had suffered from misuse. The double- drainer sink unit was against an inside wall which complicated the plumbing to the drains. A free-standing cooker stood in one corner near the door which led to the tiny utility room and toilet. Continue Reading »

Complete kitchens should never come ‘off the peg’. Every kitchen is different because every household is different — small or large families, a single person, a group of adults and children — almost any combination, in fact, with almost any lifestyle. Added to this, the family or household group will have different needs in, say, ten years’ time, and different budgets available for the work to be done.

Of the hundreds of kitchens that Roma Jay has planned, we have taken eighteen examples to illustrate the variety of family sizes and needs, and the range of budgets available.

The size of the kitchen is not necessarily the crucial factor. A spacious kitchen can be just as inconvenient as a very small kitchen if the layout is bad and if it does not meet the needs of the people who use it. All the case histories described here are actual living, working kitchens, but you should not assume that any of them will perfectly match your unique requirements. The intention is to help you to analyse your own requirements and see the tremendous range of possibilities open to you. Continue Reading »

More ambitious ideas and budgets to match are illustrated by these four kitchens where extensions were constructed and living rooms incorporated.

Family planning

Two adults, two teenagers and two young children made up this family who planned an extension to their home to contain a completely new kitchen. There was a separate utility room for the washing machine, but the existing floor-standing gas central-heating boiler had to stay where it was. They wanted to eat in the kitchen at a breakfast bar to seat up to eight people; they liked a rustic look, and were able to spend a reasonable amount to get the kitchen the way they wanted.

Three meals a day were eaten, plus home baking at least once a week, batch cooking for the freezer once a month; dinner party and other entertaining from time to time. This family had thought deeply about what their real needs were. Continue Reading »

Probably one of the greatest needs when improving kitchens is to create more space by repositioning walls, doors, windows and demolishing cupboards. The objective is to achieve more usable space without going to the expense of building an extension. These examples illustrate ways of achieving this end.

Window into doors

When this young couple wrote to Ideal Home magazine for advice on their kitchen, their first child was expected. The house, built in the 1920s, had a very large kitchen with windows overlooking the garden; a large walk-in larder and a big utility room. In fact the house was featured in the magazine during the 1930s.

An interior designer herself, the owner only needed a kitchen planning expert to provide the key to spark off her own creative ideas to revamp the kitchen. In this case, the key was to convert an existing window overlooking the garden into French doors, in order to give easy and safe access into the garden for the future family. Continue Reading »

Two large walk-in store cupboards dominated one end of this kitchen. The wife of the family is a sculptor and spends very little time cooking. But after many years of making-do she felt a complete change was necessary.

The family consisted of parents and two grown up children and a cat. Their dining room was used as a study, so they wanted to eat and entertain in the kitchen. With good natural light from the window overlooking a garden full of sculptures, the potential was great.

At the opposite end of the kitchen to the walk- in store cupboards, another two cupboards housed the washing machine and central-heating boiler. Continue Reading »

When this family of four moved into their new house in a fashionable part of London, they had no idea of how difficult it would be to fit the kitchen.

The room had a window, a deep recess and five doors which left no walls for fixing base and wall units. One of the doors led to a pantry, broom store, box room and WC. It was decided that the only way they could have an efficient kitchen and informal dining area was to demolish this cluster of small rooms, revealing a long narrow area — ideal for an efficient workflow. The family consisted of parents, two children, an au pair and a dog. The cellar housed their laundry equipment and boiler.

Space is put to far better use when the run of units is unbroken by doors and windows. Efficiency and a good workflow are easier to achieve: this new kitchen is a perfect example of a U-shaped arrangement . Continue Reading »