tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post8566598669539575208..comments2023-10-19T05:40:59.162-04:00Comments on Sippican Cottage: Kitchen StoriesSippicanCottagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14940797380578921776noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post-81349413578371542532012-05-26T13:48:37.183-04:002012-05-26T13:48:37.183-04:00My earliest memory involves a kitchen like this. Y...My earliest memory involves a kitchen like this. Yellow walls, a white ceiling, yellow-and-white gingham café curtains and a painted wooden table against one wall. There were white enamel appliances and two windows that faced east and north. In the morning,the room shimmered.<br /><br />The memory? I was eating breakfast at 8:15, still in my high chair. (I know the time only because I still can see the hands on the wall clock.) My mother was at the sink. When she opened one of the cabinet doors beneath, she discovered a mouse had been caught by its tail in a trap. She screamed, picked up her red-trimmed, white enamel dishpan and slammed it over the mouse.<br />"There," she said. "That'll keep him until your father comes home."<br /><br />I have no idea what happened to the mouse, but I've never forgotten the pleasure of that kitchen.shoreacreshttp://shoreacres.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post-80363634656448324692012-05-24T13:25:30.409-04:002012-05-24T13:25:30.409-04:00I thought Al Gore invented blogging.I thought Al Gore invented blogging.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post-47548037976590125522012-05-24T11:34:21.542-04:002012-05-24T11:34:21.542-04:00We added a kitchen and dining room to our older co...We added a kitchen and dining room to our older contemporary farmhouse when we did a complete renovation. Kitchen is on southeast corner, vaulted ceiling by necessity of the addition's design. Windows to the east and south, lots more light from the adjacent dining room.<br /><br />Farmhouse sink faces a three window array looking out at the meadow. Cooktop vents out the south wall, with windows on both sides. Lovely light colored cherry natural finish cabinets, with traditional doors, built by Mennonite craftsmen. Floors are hickory, laid by the sawyer who cut the trees from his own land. The island has a granite top, while the counters are the modern quartz composite, very wear resistant while looking quite pleasant.<br /><br />You can tell that we adore our kitchen and spend many happy hours there. Ceiling lights have hardly been used, just some low voltage under the cabinets, and a pair of bulbs in the pot rack. I think of it as a 2000's update of the idyllic kitchen pictured here.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post-29484511963535858012012-05-24T11:07:21.439-04:002012-05-24T11:07:21.439-04:00Many years ago when I was young and rich and fooli...Many years ago when I was young and rich and foolish all at the same time I decided to build a house and set about hiring an architect.<br /><br />I could not find one who could tell me how large any given room in the house should be, much less why. Not one of them could say "for a family of 2 adults and x children you will need a living room of y sq ft and minimum width of z feet, because ..." or anything remotely similar. 1 of 5 knew that different wood in different dimensions had different allowable spans. They were all vast windy compendia of hippy dippy generalities and buzz phrases without an ounce of real knowledge between them.<br /><br />I wound up building to slightly modified plans of an early 1900s 2 story on the theory, proved correct, that those early architects knew more than modern ones.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post-16109906329209429392012-05-24T07:06:36.835-04:002012-05-24T07:06:36.835-04:00That room probably only has two outlets. and I...That room probably only has two outlets. and I'm not completely convinced that the thing in the corner isn't an ice box. Kinda hard to tell but if that appliance dates with the rest, then to be a refrigerator it would need the electric stuff on top.<br />If this room even has electric lights, then there's probably only one round tubed florescent on the ceiling. Looks like plumbing was a recent addition too, as the stand alone sink demonstrates. Trendy New Yorkers pay big money for sinks like that now, after they were all torn out and beat to death by the plumber's flunky.<br />You can always tell who the homeschoolers are, they're the ones who can recognize the usefulness of they way things were done then, as apposed to the technically marvelous, but completely impractical way they are done now.dadofhomeschoolershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10164690638335065954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post-35724042543883376762012-05-23T18:53:55.970-04:002012-05-23T18:53:55.970-04:00What's the rerun # on this? You've done i...What's the rerun # on this? You've done it before this; I remember it, and wasn't smart enough to find you in '05.Sam L.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post-82253544766528128192012-05-23T14:32:01.525-04:002012-05-23T14:32:01.525-04:00"First of all, look at the light."
Inst..."First of all, look at the light."<br /><br />Instantly: "Of course. It's Christopher Alexander's <a href="http://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/aplsample/apl159/apl159.htm" rel="nofollow">pattern #159, "Light on two sides of every room."</a> (Well, OK, I had to look up the pattern number.)<br /><br />Almost every time I recognize a pleasant room or building, I turn out to be responding to the Pattern Language. I don't know that everything is in there; High white ceilings? Niche pantry? Inset cabinet doors? <br /><br />But building without even an intuitive understanding of what Alexander & co. were striving for is a recipe for ugliness. <br /><br />And I can't imagine a devotion to the language turning out something completely unliveable.djmooretxhttp://ricketyclick.com/blognoreply@blogger.com