The actual kitchen thread

[mengwong]

assured G7 manufacture

Turns out the Moka Pot people were concerned enough to make one themselves, lol

https://www.bialetti.com/it_en/piat...Eu--VpDH4S2cKxPgGKCs2XEZD893oEBqZKkHU-sBSfJxA

I know gas has an evenness of heating that induction cannot match.

But “you’ll just have to steel yourself” isn’t a great answer.

Proposal: electrically powered air fryer but re-envisioned as an air impingement stovetop burner: induction or resistive elements heat forced air or even superheated steam to blow against the bottom of your cookware. It’s like a flame source, minus the flame, plus PID.

If the air intake is positioned to reuse the heated air we maximize efficiency.

 

[MarcelNL]

pans on induction after gas use may not be feasible unless you buy hig-end (quality) pans....forget the metal thingy as anything else than a rescue for a short while.

induction can crank out more heat than the usual home gas ranges (trust me I tried), it takes time to get used to it but at this point I would not want to go back.
As an aside , gas ranges are a major cause for fine particles in the house, but cooking inside is anyhow
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10962247.2020.1823525?src=recsys#d1e719

 

[Dan-]

When I boiled those lobsters, I put one pot on the control freak (not a high powered induction hob by any means) and one on the big burner on the propane stove. The induction still boiled the water faster.

And I too saw the switch to induction coming a decade ago, and when I chose between Falk and Demeyere, I went with the induction-compatible (also dishwasher-safe) option.

Without relitigating the whole gas vs induction thing, gas stoves are unhealthy. Full stop. They will eventually go away. The political **** wasn’t even political. It was an influence campaign by the appliance industry who make higher margins on gas appliances. They just targeted folks with a known anti-“being told what to do” lean.

 

[Jovidah]

When I boiled those lobsters, I put one pot on the control freak (not a high powered induction hob by any means) and one on the big burner on the propane stove. The induction still boiled the water faster.

And I too saw the switch to induction coming a decade ago, and when I chose between Falk and Demeyere, I went with the induction-compatible (also dishwasher-safe) option.

Without relitigating the whole gas vs induction thing, gas stoves are unhealthy. Full stop. They will eventually go away. The political **** wasn’t even political. It was an influence campaign by the appliance industry who make higher margins on gas appliances. They just targeted folks with a known anti-“being told what to do” lean.

But induction stoves also generate a lot of unhealthy crap in your pan (for example through fat decomposition). While electric stoves might be less polluting, both are polluting. So the root problem is really 'bad ventilation'. If your ventilation is insufficient both will have a negative health effect. If your ventialtion is sufficient, neither is a problem.

IMO the real 'dilemma' here is that increasing ventilation is at odds with all the 'increasing thermal insulation to reduce energy consumption of homes' we've been seeing, as ventilation is still insufficient in a lot of these homes, but it's no longer being compensated by essentially leaking everywhere.

I do agree that it becoming a political point is completely nonsenical.

 

[mengwong]

It was an influence campaign by the appliance industry who make higher margins on gas appliances.

1940: “Now you’re cooking with gas!”

2024: “Now you’re gassing the cook!”

 

[sanmateo]

Turns out the Moka Pot people were concerned enough to make one themselves, lol

even if the Moka pots were ferrous, they would still be too small diameter for many induction hobs, so their metal plate is solving two issues

 

[bsfsu]

I started using induction hobs in the mid 90's at my training institute. They now pop up in most commercial kitchens I visit. I think they are superior than gas but I still don't have induction in my 100 year old kitchen due to the expense.

 

[WildBoar]

Panelled appliances are still a novelty in the US... here they became pretty much the standard 20 years ago.

Panel faces were a 'designer look' 10-20 years ago, but preferences remained for stainless steel or powder-coated metal. Maybe it's because our kitchens are typically bigger then those in Europe, and we welcome the contrast. I personally find the look pretentious, and never gave it serious consideration when we had the addition built and expanded/ remodeled the kitchen. I really didn't want my fridge to be camouflaged -- I'm not ashamed of it.

 

[Jovidah]

Panel faces were a 'designer look' 10-20 years ago, but preferences remained for stainless steel or powder-coated metal. Maybe it's because our kitchens are typically bigger then those in Europe, and we welcome the contrast. I personally find the look pretentious, and never gave it serious consideration when we had the addition built and expanded/ remodeled the kitchen. I really didn't want my fridge to be camouflaged -- I'm not ashamed of it.

Honestly aesthethically I don't really see a scenario where built-in appliances don't win; you retain complete flexibility over the look (if you want to make it stand out or stainless you can), and it always results in sleeker lines and a more cohesive look.

The only real - not insignificant - disadvantage is that you lose depth. Which is why I'm still one of the holdouts opting for a stand-alone fridge, because fitting in a lot of larger items like whole oven trays becomes problematic, and you have noticably less volume for a given height.

I don't know if house sizes make much of a difference, but it feels like in general US kitchen design is a lot more conservative, but I don't really know the root cause of it. When you go into German language content regarding kitchens it always felt light years ahead... I think part of the explanation is that apparently in the German market its a lot more common to provide your own kitchens even in a rental place so their market is disproportionally large, and they have a lot of big players in the market. In the Netherlands we just tag along with what they do.

 

[Jovidah]

So... flu has been kicking my ass. But I figured I'd do a show and tell of my own (current) kitchen. Maybe in future posts I'll also offer my future plans for review, but for now this dirty mess will have to do. I'd love to say it looks better when I'm not sick but that'd be twisting the truth. In reality maintenance is not my strong suit, and it's something I'll definitly keep firmly in mind for when designing my kitchen because:
"Design for who you are, not for who you wished you were".

So basically it's cheap rental stuff... but I'm rather blessed because this is really exceptional for social housing. The original kitchen was rather small (it's the small white block around the sink) but the room was rather generous (it's an open kitchen, so you can just turn half your living room into a kitchen), so it allowed me to really expand. Everything beyond that little white original kitchen has been ghettoed together over the years on a nickle and dime budget.

For reference. The back wall is 5,15m wide (16 feet and 10,75 inches for you heathens). Whole living room is 40 m2 (430 square feet), with some weird angling on the outside wall, but it's large enough that you can basically do whatever you want kitchenwise and still have a decent living area left over.

Zoning:
Just to give a general idea of the current zoning:
-countertop left of the sink is my dirty side of the sink (mostly parking of dishes)
-countertop right of the sink is my clean side of the sink
-countertop right of the stove is my main prep area. It's small but I found prepping next to the stove far more ideal than having to do 180 turns all the time when cutting (I prefer to cut while I cook instead of doing a mise en place where I cut everything ahead of time).
-island is largely a bonus space, but it does come into place for more complicated dinners that require more space, baking and that sort of thing. It also gets used a lot for non-cooking stuff.

 

[Jovidah]

Likes:
-The floorspace allows you to draw up almost every setup you could want. You can actually fit in a generous island in either direction... and still have proper walkspace all around. It's also the nr 1 reason why I'm going to invest in putting a proper kitchen in here; I'm under no illusion that I'll find a rental place that's really a step up from this.

-The general layout of the utilities (water / gas connections) is fairly sensible. This is great because if you're doing a renovation, moving these more than a meter quickly becomes either very complicated or very expensive.

-It has all the zones you want, even if not necessarily in the right proportions. Proper space on both sides of the sink, proper room on both sidese of the stove, seperate areas for dirty dishes, clean dishes and prep. Even though the layout isnt traditional 'kitchen triangle' and there's some room for improvement with where certain things are stored it's generally a fairly effective setup.

-Everything you see here was incredibly cheap. The open cabinets on the left were just some hand-me-down Ikea bookcases. The island was made with some cheap bargain corner cabinets from ikea + ikea countertops that altogether cost less than 200 euros. This also allowed me to play with layouts and prototype a lot.

-Countertop space for days is really a nice luxury. I really like the island. It's not necessarily something you 'need' for day to day basic cooking but it really comes into its own if you're doing more complicated stuff, bigger mealpreps (for example for christmas dinner) and with baking. It's also just incredibly useful to have a 'tall' ergonomical height worktop for other stuff like building computers or whatever you want.

-Though I'm not necessarily a big fan of the huge oven that comes with it (hard to find properly sized baking trays for a 90 cm oven, it takes forever to heat up), I really like having a big stove. Though I rarely have 5 pans on it, the main perks are that it was the cheapest way to get 2 big burners (something you only see on the more higher end 4 burner stoves), and it's just a lot less cramped if you work with 3-4 pans or with multiple fry pans. If you have the space for it I'd definitly consider it. If it dies I'll replace it with at least a cooktop of similar size).

-I actually like the open shelving. At least the ones in the left corner that are further away from the stove, and the top half of the open bookcases. Stuff next to the stove gets dirty fairly fast (and I also gave up on hanging utensils there, even the ones in the corner get dirty over time), and so does stuff in the open cabinet under countertop height, but everything that's high enough and far enough away from the stove actually works really well for me. It's just incredibly practical and convenient. Would never design a kitchen that only has open shelving though.

-As cheap as the original kitchen is, it does have a sink that's flush with the countertop. Something that makes wiping fluids off the countertop a lot easier. You see a lot of DYI and cheap kitchen projects that use a top-mount sink. For me that is a hard NO in a functional kitchen that is actually meant to be a workhorse.

-There's enough storage space. Even if I calculate some extra space for potential future 'wants' I know that if I retain a similar level of storage space this will suffice no matter what for the next 20 years.

Dislikes
-Well it's all cheap crap and it shows. The main problem is that it's all cobbled together so nothing matches and it's all rather uncohesive and disruptive. In general none of it looks great. However if only the aesthethics bothered me I could just paint all the cabinetry instead of doing a full reno.

-LACK OF DRAWERS. My bandaid is to basically have everything filled with baskets but only having 2 drawers is a massive pain in the behind. Using low storage without drawers efficiently is problematic, and especially for smaller things baskets are a poor solution (storing knife collections or spice collectors in baskets just doesn't promote easy access).
Unfortunately none of the existing cabinets are really suitable for easily (and cheaply) retrofitting drawers... so it's actually the cheaper and more practical choice to just replace everything altogether.

-Countertop height! The original kitchen (and honestly the added on stuff too) is old school standard height which is designed for midgets. 90 cm counters (35 inches) in practise mean I get back pains in 5 minutes trying to work around the sink. For prep it's improved a bit by having a 6 cm thick cutting board (2,5 inch) but it's still not ideal.
It also means it's impossible to keep the sink area tidy at all because I'm effectively cleaning above the sink instead of in it, so stuff splashes everywhere.

-Tiny sink. This is the kind of sink they put in play-kitchens for children. It's a pain in the behind cleaning larger items like big cutting boards, and if I want to soak anything I'm doing it on the countertop. Horrible. These 3 combined are on their own already enough to make it worth replacing the entire kitchen.

-Ventilation is crap. It's basically centrally regulated mechanical ventilation that does **** all. But you can't mount a motorized hood on it either. Putting an unmotorized hood on it doesn't really work either as it only blocks the limited output even further. But...doing nothing leads to everything around the stove becoming a fatty mess. My plan for the reno is to just put a recirculation vood there...it's a suboptimal solution but better than nothing.

-I lack a proper pantry pantry cabinet / solution. Right now I'm using some old cabinet on the left but it doesn't work much better as the 'baskets in lower cabinets' I used to have, and as a result it's easy to forget about stuff and hard to do proper inventory management.

-It's awkward to find a good place to store knives. There's not really any good suitable wallspace for magnets, and I found having the stands on the island rather obstructive. Right now they're on a table to the right, but that's too far from the kitchen. Will probably end up making a drawer solution with cork in the new kitchen.

-There's very little natural light. The room is big but the kitchen is quite far away from the windows. Sadly this is unchangeable so the only solution is to provide better lighting.

The worth mentioning and other weird stuff
-This is not exactly version 1.0 of my kitchen anymore (even tho I mostly just moved stuff around a bit). Stuff has been moved around quite a bit. At this point it's like version 5.0, all without really spending much of anything because I've mostly played with layout. I highly recommend doing this kind of prototyping before you splurge on a kitchen renovation. See if you can 'test out' your plans for a new layout. For example the crappy trolly in the right corner is just there as a stand-in for a proper cabinet there and to 'fill the gap' while I've been testing the removal of the fridge that used to be there.
The layout of what goes where in my cabinets has also been swapped out and minmaxed a lot over the years.

-One of my biggest surprises was...you might have noticed there's no refrigerator in the picture. Over the years it has been in every visible corner. But right now it's on on the hallway right on the other side of the wall in the right side of the picture. Putting it there was an experiment where I totally expected to hate the outcome. I didn't. It proved a total non-issue in practise because the prep area to the right of the stove fucntions really well as a landing area.

-Although I don't like the looks I have to give credit to cheap laminate / HPL / formica countertop: they hold up well under conditions of extreme neglect. Looks like crap, but it takes it on the chin even when you treat it like a red-headed stepchild every day.

-I'm actually not bothered at all by having ovens below countertop height. I know the trend is to put them higher, and while I agree that this is morge ergonomical, it's not necessarily worth major compromises in the design for me to achieve it.

-The lighting is all cheap, crappy and mismatched... but at least on the backwall it's functionally quite okay. I have undercabinet lighting and extra lighting on the right... the only place where it's really bad is on the island where you really have to know where to stand because in a lot of places you block your own light by standing in front of it.

 

[sumis]

-This is not exactly version 1.0 of my kitchen anymore (even tho I mostly just moved stuff around a bit). Stuff has been moved around quite a bit. At this point it's like version 5.0, all without really spending much of anything because I've mostly played with layout. I highly recommend doing this kind of prototyping before you splurge on a kitchen renovation. See if you can 'test out' your plans for a new layout.

i like your kitchen. it's a place for doing business. to me, looking like business is looking good.

i don't like laminate though. in any shape or form.

pretty kitchens are not pretty.

.

 

[Jovidah]

i like your kitchen. it's a place for doing business. to me, looking like business is looking good.

i don't like laminate though. in any shape or form.

pretty kitchens are not pretty.

.

Honestly, like I said before; in a modular kitchen looks and function are completely seperate subjects. The problem is that most normies think a lot more about the looks and tend to forget about the function... or worse: prioritize looks over function.
Good examples of this are impractical materials, prioritizing larger fronts with inner drawers for a sleeker look over easy accessibility, push to open cabinets, complete lack of upper cabinetry, and impractical layouts that just don't cook well.

I'm far from a laminate lover either; I don't like the look and choosing laminate is generally a budget-motivated choice. However I was making the point rather to stress that from a functional perspective, it's entirely sufficient. Basically only going full stainless is an actual upgrade, and pretty much any other material is at best a functional sidegrade (even if they may look better).

The challenge with kitchen design is to make it both pretty and functional. It's entirely possible, but I've also seen plenty of really expensive kitchens look good while failing horribly on the functional aspect.

If you're starting from scratch (instead of cobbled together), the extra cost of making it look good is actually not necessarily that big if you're a bit creative and able to DIY. There's some challenges, like countertops, but if you look at cabinetry, most of the money goes into the drawer slides, not in the fronts or boxes.

 

[sumis]

Honestly, like I said before; in a modular kitchen looks and function are completely seperate subjects. The problem is that most normies think a lot more about the looks and tend to forget about the function... or worse: prioritize looks over function.
Good examples of this are impractical materials, prioritizing larger fronts with inner drawers for a sleeker look over easy accessibility, push to open cabinets, complete lack of upper cabinetry, and impractical layouts that just don't cook well.

I'm far from a laminate lover either; I don't like the look and choosing laminate is generally a budget-motivated choice. However I was making the point rather to stress that from a functional perspective, it's entirely sufficient. Basically only going full stainless is an actual upgrade, and pretty much any other material is at best a functional sidegrade (even if they may look better).

The challenge with kitchen design is to make it both pretty and functional. It's entirely possible, but I've also seen plenty of really expensive kitchens look good while failing horribly on the functional aspect.

If you're starting from scratch (instead of cobbled together), the extra cost of making it look good is actually not necessarily that big if you're a bit creative and able to DIY. There's some challenges, like countertops, but if you look at cabinetry, most of the money goes into the drawer slides, not in the fronts or boxes.

yeah, i hear you. it's just that to me, all the 'normie' prettyness and neatness is usually just not attractive from an aesthetic point of view.

materials that will look better with use/patina … that's an aesthetic and functional choice.
well taken care of solid wood for instance.
and 18/10 is a million times more attractive to my aesthetic sensibilities than most laminate (which will never look good or better with use, just deteriorate).

built in appliances are of course in some ways/cases a space/volume saver, but really locks you into a format and a specific placement. i'm not against practical solutions, only the idea i see in many kitchens that it is a key to a better life to have a built in ice machine in your wall. if something breaks or if i want to change it out, i'd like to be able to just throw it out and put something else there, without having to stick to standard measurements or a certain modular system (which is actually un-modular id you think about it). and don't get me started on 'standard' height – i.e. midget height.

personally i think that the big table/island you have is worth a million. and an extra million with a surface that you can scratch and grind, or at least will be there for a long time doing its thing looking and feeling great.

with this said, my own current kitchen is a travesty. but working with and around what you have is not necessarily a bad thing.

.

 

[Jovidah]

yeah, i hear you. it's just that to me, all the 'normie' prettyness and neatness is usually just not attractive from an aesthetic point of view.

materials that will look better with use/patina … that's an aesthetic and functional choice.
well taken care of solid wood for instance.
and 18/10 is a million times more attractive to my aesthetic sensibilities than most laminate (which will never look good or better with use, just deteriorate).

built in appliances are of course in some ways/cases a space/volume saver, but really locks you into a format and a specific placement. i'm not against practical solutions, only the idea i see in many kitchens that it is a key to a better life to have a built in ice machine in your wall. if something breaks or if i want to change it out, i'd like to be able to just throw it out and put something else there, without having to stick to standard measurements or a certain modular system (which is actually un-modular id you think about it). and don't get me started on 'standard' height – i.e. midget height.

personally i think that the big table/island you have is worth a million. and an extra million with a surface that you can scratch and grind, or at least will be there for a long time doing its thing looking and feeling great.

with this said, my own current kitchen is a travesty. but working with and around what you have is not necessarily a bad thing.

.

I'm actually with you on most of that. My positive mentioning of laminate wasn't to say that it's the be all and end all of materials...but rather that I was positively surprised at how the 'low-budget crap option' was at least durable to significant abuse (something that's often not the case with this stuff).

I do agree that the general appeal of wood is much better... and there's a good chance I'll replace my island countertop with it eventually...but I'd never put it around my sink. Pretty much everyone I know who had solid wood around their sink area eventually had issues with it and said 'never again. It's fine in most other places though - the sink area is really the only area that sees significant abuse.

Regarding freestanding vs built-in... I have mixed feelings. If you're still 'prototyping' your room it's very useful, but the reality is that once you 'figured it out' you'll usually just leave it in place. With a refrigerator there's still other advantages to having an external one (more depth, more internal volume), and I hate built-in cooktops because they always feel cramped, but for something like an oven I just don't really see the point. I actually could move it if I wanted to because the cabinet isn't attached but I never felt the urge.

Modular cabinetry also offers so much freedom and variety in sizes that it's not the really very limiting, and if you really wanted to it actually wouldn't be all that hard to convert most built-in cabinetry to freestanding or even movable on wheels. In fact I'd always encourage using modular cabinets as a base and build around that simply becasue it brings the cost down so much and makes it so easy to create drawers and such. There's a lot you can tweak around it to make them non-standard and fit your uses while still retaining affordability.

I do agree that learning how to make the most of what you have is a very educative experience... and for figuring out for example what layout works best you don't need fancy cabinetry or finishes; can just use cheap stand-ins.

 

[nhb22]

If I renovate my kitchen, I want 2 dishwashers and a dedicated knife storage space. I hate unloading my dishwasher more than loading my dishwasher. Not sure if this is just me, but it would be awesome if I can just take clean dishes from one dishwasher when I need and put dirty dishes in the other dishwasher.

 

[Jovidah]

If I renovate my kitchen, I want 2 dishwashers and a dedicated knife storage space. I hate unloading my dishwasher more than loading my dishwasher. Not sure if this is just me, but it would be awesome if I can just take clean dishes from one dishwasher when I need and put dirty dishes in the other dishwasher.

I'm not necessarily opposed to 2 dishwashers but...
-It's not necessarily ergonomical to pick everything out of a dishwasher
-You have to be very organized to actually make it work
-Making a functional kitchen layout with 2 dishwashers isn't impossible but it is more complicated
-Energy efficiency goes completely out of the window because to make the system work you'll probably be running plenty of half-empty cycles

That being said... it's definitly an option worth exploring; it's not necessarily all that expensive if you factor in that it replaces a drawer cabinet. But to make it work you need a pretty big kitchen, and you have to do your homework to make sure it works with water and electrical connections.

IMO the biggest gain from having 2 dishwashers isn't necessarily 'no unloading', but 'almost no clutter on the countertop' because after you fill up one you can just keep stackign in the 2nd one instead of piling onto your countertop. But it's definitly a luxury thing I wouldn't want to do major concessions for.

My sci-fi dream of a future 100 years ahead is a kitchen where simply all the cabinetry has integrated dishwasher functionality.
Right now the closest thing to that is to work with smaller drawer dishwashers, but then it quickly gets really expensive since that's really a niche product.

 

[nhb22]

I'm not necessarily opposed to 2 dishwashers but...
-It's not necessarily ergonomical to pick everything out of a dishwasher
-You have to be very organized to actually make it work
-Making a functional kitchen layout with 2 dishwashers isn't impossible but it is more complicated
-Energy efficiency goes completely out of the window because to make the system work you'll probably be running plenty of half-empty cycles

That being said... it's definitly an option worth exploring; it's not necessarily all that expensive if you factor in that it replaces a drawer cabinet. But to make it work you need a pretty big kitchen, and you have to do your homework to make sure it works with water and electrical connections.

IMO the biggest gain from having 2 dishwashers isn't necessarily 'no unloading', but 'almost no clutter on the countertop' because after you fill up one you can just keep stackign in the 2nd one instead of piling onto your countertop. But it's definitly a luxury thing I wouldn't want to do major concessions for.

My sci-fi dream of a future 100 years ahead is a kitchen where simply all the cabinetry has integrated dishwasher functionality.
Right now the closest thing to that is to work with smaller drawer dishwashers, but then it quickly gets really expensive since that's really a niche product.

Yea, I think a lot of things can be interconnected. I said unloading, but the reason why unloading everything in a timely manner is important is because I need an empty dishwasher so that I can place my dirty dishes. If not, dirty dishes start to take up my countertop space or sink.

I think it can also impact how many dishes we stock in the kitchen. I probably have enough dishes to fill up 3 dishwashers in my kitchen because the dishes are not washed in time and I need a big buffer. You may not have my issue if you are not a busy parent with young children and no nanny…

If I can manage my dishes better with 2 dishwashers, I can free up countertop space, cabinet space and I won’t need 2 sinks. A lot of knock on effect.

That said, the simple solution is just to run my single dishwasher quicker, but that’s not very realistic for me…

 

[Jovidah]

Yea, I think a lot of things can be interconnected. I said unloading, but the reason why unloading everything in a timely manner is important is because I need an empty dishwasher so that I can place my dirty dishes. If not, dirty dishes start to take up my countertop space or sink.

I think it can also impact how many dishes we stock in the kitchen. I probably have enough dishes to fill up 3 dishwashers in my kitchen because the dishes are not washed in time and I need a big buffer. You may not have my issue if you are not a busy parent with young children and no nanny…

If I can manage my dishes better with 2 dishwashers, I can free up countertop space, cabinet space and I won’t need 2 sinks. A lot of knock on effect.

That said, the simple solution is just to run my single dishwasher quicker, but that’s not very realistic for me…

2 things I'd keep in mind:
-If ergonomics of loading / unloading are an issue, consider an elevated dishwasher / dishwasher in a tall cabinet. There's some tradeoffs (it narrows down your options, limits your options in both kitchen stores and dishwashers, and importantly you lose countertop) but it can make things a lot more ergonomical.
-Really consider what you store where so the whole act of unloading becomes as efficient and ergonomical as possible. You want to be able to store the things you dishwash a lot near your dishwasher so that taking stuff out is a 1 minute job instead of a job that significantly adds to your daily stepcount.

This is also why I'm so strongly opposed to the removal of upper cabinetry altogether. You not only remove your most ergonomical storage but it also automatically means that you increase walking distances.

But yeah I totally understand the 'want' of a 2nd dishwasher... I'm not saying to not get it. I actually gave it serious consideration myself, but for me it just didn't make sense in a 1-2 person household.

 

[nhb22]

2 things I'd keep in mind:
-If ergonomics of loading / unloading are an issue, consider an elevated dishwasher / dishwasher in a tall cabinet. There's some tradeoffs (it narrows down your options, limits your options in both kitchen stores and dishwashers, and importantly you lose countertop) but it can make things a lot more ergonomical.
-Really consider what you store where so the whole act of unloading becomes as efficient and ergonomical as possible. You want to be able to store the things you dishwash a lot near your dishwasher so that taking stuff out is a 1 minute job instead of a job that significantly adds to your daily stepcount.

This is also why I'm so strongly opposed to the removal of upper cabinetry altogether. You not only remove your most ergonomical storage but it also automatically means that you increase walking distances.

But yeah I totally understand the 'want' of a 2nd dishwasher... I'm not saying to not get it. I actually gave it serious consideration myself, but for me it just didn't make sense in a 1-2 person household.

Yea we definitely have different needs. Re ergonomics, I treat the unloading of dishwasher a functional workout. My cabinet is directly above the countertop where the dishwasher is under. I do a proper air squat to lower myself to reach the dishwasher without bending over. I then stand up and lift my arm to place the dish in the cabinet. It takes about 20-30 reps to complete the unloading!

 

[Dan-]

The countertops in this house I bought a few years ago are of the cheapest granite you can get, the black mottled one. It’s nothing you’d ever pick to impress someone. BUT it’s really hard to see dirt and coffee grounds and it doesn’t seem to care what I clean it with, including vinegar. I set 450 degree pans on it. It seems to be every thing soapstone is supposed to be without the price tag or maintenance.

Because the island inexplicably has a sink in it, I added a commercial 5x2 Boos baking station to the other side of it. Since my wife and I bake a lot, it really comes in handy in a way a cutting board or other surface could not. We do not cut directly on it, however.

 

[bermuda_chub]

Two words: hanging potrack.

And, generally, vertical space.

 

[Jovidah]

Two words: hanging potrack.

And, generally, vertical space.

I was never a huge fan of hanging pans... never found trying to fiddle the pans on and off the hooks particularly enjoyable.
That being said, I'll take it over nested pans. Those are really the bane of my existence. Hence why I simply have bookshelves where I have individual places for all my pans, without having to nest any of it. It's a bit of a luxury since you require quite a bit of space for it, but IMO totally worth it when you don't have to untangle pans anymore.

Vertical space is for some reason really getting thrown by the wayside in a lot of aesthethics focused design where they basically do away with upper cabinets entirely. As I always say it, the most ergonomical storage goes from nut to nipple. Sadly that means that it also directly competes with countertop space. But ergonomically I'll still take head-height over anything that forces me to bend down, even if it's in drawers.

At the same time I'm not the biggest fan of overly bulky upper cabinets. It's practical when they go to the ceiling from a cleaning perspective, but they always make a space feel a lot more claustrophobic. The added benefit of the extra storage space is debatable; I'm pretty tall but even I would need a step stool for anything over 2,20m.

 

[mengwong]

2 dishwashers

The double dishwasher product category seems to be dominated by Fisher & Paykel

https://megadiscountstore.com.sg/products/dd60dcx9-dishdrawer-double-dishwasher

 

[Dan-]

I was thinking more like 2 of these for 4x the capacity of that one. Ignore the color.

https://www.mieleusa.com/e/fully-in...s-clean-touch-steel-obsidian-black-12055110-p

 

[Jovidah]

Yeah I was also talking about 2 of the big ones. Which is still cheaper than a set of those F&P ones if you go with something like Bosch.

The small drawer models are actuslly quite interesting vut the pricing makes them utterly unattractive.

 

[Dan-]

Is it really workable to run 2 control freaks and say a 240v Hatco or Vollrath in lieu of a cooktop? It’d certainly have better temp control. Way more flexibility. What if you added an Iwatani for ?

 

[ptolemy]

Is it really workable to run 2 control freaks and say a 240v Hatco or Vollrath in lieu of a cooktop? It’d certainly have better temp control. Way more flexibility. What if you added an Iwatani for ?

I think it's def workable, but then you'd need a wall oven, for example. It all comes down to $ and space since you' need decent chunk of counterspace for all of that

 

[Jovidah]

Is it really workable to run 2 control freaks and say a 240v Hatco or Vollrath in lieu of a cooktop? It’d certainly have better temp control. Way more flexibility. What if you added an Iwatani for ?

The main challenge to figure out is electrics. It's not rocket surgery but definitly something to address if you want to go down this road.
You just rarely see it in regular kitchens because at the end of the road you're unlikely to actually save money, the aesthethics will be a lot less pleasing, and it just makes the whole kitchen design more complex.
Where seperate standalone burners make most sense is in a really small space where you have very little countertop, because you can just 'remove the stove'. Even there its benefits are limited though; you still have to plan for a 'stove spot' where your hood is, and generally speaking induction cooktops are barely obstruction your workspace as it is. It's also a lot easier to clean...

 

[HolyDiverScallop]

Is it really workable to run 2 control freaks and say a 240v Hatco or Vollrath in lieu of a cooktop? It’d certainly have better temp control. Way more flexibility. What if you added an Iwatani for ?

Apart from electrical, as Jovidah said, the real issue is that it'll take up a lot of space while certainly being very flexible.

The big problem comes when you leave. That's a very specific setup for very specific tastes, and you'd have to put in a stove to be able to sell.

I actually put a dedicated 220v outlet in my kitchen specifically for a countertop induction burner, and like it. It's in a corner, so out of the way, and allows me to simmer something while leaving the rest of the kitchen free. The cord is long enough that the induction burner will reach to the stove so I can take advantage of the exhaust fan when needed.