Archives for July 2018
making a floorplan for the colloquium: the kitchen (part two)
I had made a list of must-haves for our new kitchen to help me with the planning phase.
My list, really, was not exhaustive. I maybe should have edited it for these posts. But it was my gut-reaction, first-impulse list; the things that came to my mind first and immediately. So, in the interest of honesty, I’ve left it as-is.
What I neglected to add to the must-haves was for the workspace to be navigable by more than one or even two people simultaneously. We have five children (and counting) and the older ones do like to help in the kitchen. Plus I will never turn down the offer of help cooking or cleaning up from whomever happens to be visiting (it is my personal belief that accepting help is an essential part of being in a community, but that is another post for another day) and it is very difficult to manage help in a space where you can’t quite even pass another person without bumping into them into the stove where they’re cooking. (This is especially precarious if the stove is gas and you’re bumping them into an open flame.)
I could talk about all the steps and processes and incarnations of the layout, but to be honest, I don’t recall all of them and it was a frustrating process, so I will skip all of that and go straight to the end result, hm?
colloquium floorplan: the kitchen (part one)
Because we plan to turn the current kitchen into a second bathroom, the new, blended space we call The Colloquium would have to be part kitchen in addition to a living, dining, and music room.
I’ve saved this process for its own post to make sure I have ample space to ramble about all of my neuroses surrounding this new kitchen. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Most of the day, really. Three meals to make, three meals to clean up after, plus whatever extra time I may spend for baking or whatnot. Because I’m in there a lot, I think about kitchen stuff a lot.
remember (anselm, age four)
These are bad photos–blurry, poorly lit. They are memories.
One day Anselm happened on Jeremy and I in the Colloquium, discussing renovation things.
His eyes were still puffy from sleep. He is frequently the first of the children to come out and find us when they wake.
He is four.
He still speaks with a lisp.
He is irrepressibly cheerful.
His hair is untamable. I ought to cut it; I can’t bring myself to.
He prefaces most statements with “HEY GUYS, I HAVE (insert relevant adjective) NEWS.”
He is part mischief, part irrepressible good humor, part cuddle bug.
He just wants to be BIG like his big brothers.
He just wants to tell me I’m pretty.
He just wants a hug.
“Hey Mom, I fell down and hurt myself and I DIDN’T CRY!” This is a big deal.
This is to remember Anselm, age four.