The Laughing Wolf

Of Kitchens and Kings

I have long dreamed of building a house, heck, of even buying an existing house and redoing it to my desires. In either case, the house always revolves around the kitchen.

That is the way it has always been in my family, on both my mother’s side and my father’s. At my Aunt Blanche’s, we almost never used the massive living and dining rooms, instead we all congregate into the large kitchen to visit. At my parent’s home it was the same way, and my Aunt Joan’s even had a place where we could all sit and talk with the person cooking.

My plans for the perfect kitchen have undergone many changes. I ripped up everything last fall after taking a class at Viking in Franklin, Tennessee. The ergonomics of some of their layout just made good sense, so I wanted to incorporate that into the design. My plans just took another change after a conversation with Matt.

For a long time, I had been looking at high-end consumer goods, such as Viking, because I thought that real commercial would be even more expensive. I’ve just found out I was wrong, way wrong. With Matt’s guidance, I just found out that I can do the guts of my kitchen for about one quarter of what I had anticipated going consumer. That means a commercial stove, a commercial convection oven unit, and some other goodies can now be factored into the grand design. I still don’t think I can afford the walk-in cooler I would love to have, but I can get the commercial dishwashing system and sinks.

This bears much thinking upon, as it opens up a range of opportunities to do some truly creative kitchen design. Design(s) that can work in an existing house if done right. The chance to have the counters of my dreams, and to use them so that people can sit around part of them, and visit when they come over. So that the kitchen will truly be the heart of the house. That is important to me, as king of my castle. It will let a family tradition continue on into the future, and I will have a kingdom well worth ruling.

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