The scope of information and choices at your fingertips are overwhelming. Counters, faucets, cabinet choices and appliance options are infinite. How do you avoid making a costly error? How do you get what you want? What really works and what is merely great marketing? More fundamentally, how do you translate your dream into reality when the construction industry has not automated? The way we build houses has not changed much in 150 years. Imagine buying a new car with all the bells and whistles and assembling it in your driveway. In the rain. Without an instruction manual. Where would you begin?

If you are a builder, architect or a homeowner we are here to help sort out all the advertising, all the noise, all the urban legends, the social and cultural turmoil and make you a kitchen you or your client will love.

This New Renaissance we are living through is affecting the way we live in our houses. The majority of jobs we design and build have one thing in common; Everyone wants to combine food preparation, eating and family activity in one area. This is very similar to the pattern of the Old Farmhouse Kitchen where family activity centered around a big table in the middle with work being done on the counters at the perimeter. 

In traditional societies, where there were no servants and the members of a family took care of their own food, the isolated kitchen was unknown.  Even when cooking was entirely in the hands of women, as it often was, the work of cooking was still thought of as a primal, communal function and the hearth, the place where food was made and eaten, was the heart of family life.

In the Nineteenth century, when the use of servants became widespread in the middle class, the isolated kitchen became an accepted part of any house. But, when the servants disappeared, the kitchen was left separate because it was thought genteel and nice to eat in dining rooms away from any sight or smell of food. The isolated kitchen was still associated with the houses of the wealthy where dining rooms were taken for granted. 

But this separation, in the context of the family, put the woman in a very difficult position. Very simply, the woman who accepted responsibility for making food agreed to isolate herself in the kitchen and subtly agreed to become a servant.

There is still a hidden supposition that cooking is a chore and eating is a pleasure. 

The solution lies in the pattern of the Old Farmhouse Kitchen where kitchen work and modern family activity were integrated in one room. It is not the farm that people want to return to but the feeling of family. In modern times we have lost sight of the fact that even the most ordinary actions of everyday life are invested with deep spiritual meaning. The table is the center of family life. Here the children gather with their parents to eat the food that their parents have provided.

Without communal eating, no human group can hold together. The importance of communal eating is clear in all human societies. Almost all important human events  are bound by the power of sharing food and drink. The Romans used the word “convivium” to describe a feast or banquet.  To call a feast a “convivium” was to call it a “mystery of the sharing of life.” We find that people want a room where they can eat leisurely and spend time together; not eat quickly and go somewhere else to relax.

Whether you have multiple conviviums a week or you reheat last night’s take-out, we are here to create a kitchen just for you!