A Chef’s Kitchen

Why is it a big deal to have a chef’s kitchen?  Because the right tools make all the difference.  Have you ever tried to remove a Phillips head screw with a flat-bladed screwdriver?  While you might be able to do it, it won’t be as easy as if you’d had the right tool.  And cooking in a well-designed and well-equipped kitchen is like having the perfect tool for the job.

Before:  a Dark and Dated Kitchen

Our 4-bedroom house in northern Virginia is a nice, modest, 1970’s-era split level.  It’s got a lot to offer.  It’s located in a quiet, suburban neighborhood with well-kept homes and friendly families.  The community includes spacious meadows and forested trails for walking our dogs.  And my husband has a long history with this house.  He bought it from his parents when they moved to Arizona.

Over the years, my husband and/or his parents had remodeled various parts of the house.   But until a few months ago we were using the original kitchen.  Sure, some of the kitchen appliances had been replaced with newer models. Still, the “bones” of the kitchen had remained the same.  The kitchen felt dark and dated.  And the process of cooking meals in the old kitchen was less than efficient.  So when I began to spend more time in the kitchen as a culinary student, I started to wish that we could remodel the space to better suit our needs.  Thank goodness, my husband agreed.  I think he had also grown weary of the de-laminating countertops, cluttered pantry, dark cabinets, and scuffed linoleum floor!

Developing a New Design

Our initial goal was to enlarge the kitchen enough to include a central island.  I craved the extra workspace and storage that an island would provide.  So my husband and I consulted with several remodeling firms regarding the proposed kitchen expansion.  Only one of them, BOWA, was astute enough to suggest that the best way to accomplish that objective was to redesign the entire main floor.  The BOWA team members literally thought outside the box.  They envisioned transforming the space from boxy, dark, and dated — to open, clean, and airy. We were sold!

Over the course of several months, we met regularly with the design team at BOWA to bring the vision first to paper, and later to life.  The designers truly considered how we would use the space, and they customized the plans accordingly.  The end result: a truly transformed living area through which our family, friends, and pets can flow with ease and comfort.

Fabulous Features

It’s true that much of the functionality of our chef’s kitchen results from the interplay of the various parts.  Yet there are also a lot of special kitchen components that make my life easier every day.   Even if you’re only envisioning a modest upgrade to your kitchen, you might want to include some of these items — as your budget and the available space will allow.  So I’d like to describe a few of these fabulous features for you, in case the information might be useful.

• The kitchen table is one of my favorite features in our new chef’s kitchen.  The built-in table is perfect for a casual meal or for sitting down to make notes about a new recipe.  And it provides exactly the right amount of separation between the kitchen and living room.
• Just like granite, the quartz countertops in our chef’s kitchen are durable and stylish.  But in some ways, I believe that they are even better than granite.  Many articles on the web provide helpful detail regarding the differences between these two materials.  Quartz countertops are harder than granite.  Quartz countertops don’t need to be periodically resealed like granite.  And quartz countertops are not quarried like granite slabs, so they can be made with some recycled content.  That means that quartz countertops are more environmentally friendly.  It warms the cockles of my tree-hugging heart!
• Any chef and many home cooks will be familiar with the three-sink system in a commercial kitchen.  One sink is used for washing dishes, a second sink is used for rinsing dishes, and the third sink is used to sanitize the dishes.  While I use my 3-sink system in a different way, it definitely increases the efficiency of my time in the kitchen and helps me to keep my workspace and dishes squeaky clean.  You see, the old kitchen had only one sink.  I was continually draining soapy water to rinse veggies and then would soon be running another sink full of soapy water.  And then I would need to drain it again.  No more!  Now when I am cooking I can use one sink for veggie prep, the second sink for washing dishes, and the third sink for rinsing dishes.
• In the old kitchen I used to struggle to pull pots and pans out of the back of the cabinet.  And don’t even get me started on the lids.  Now my pots and pans are stored in a convenient pull-out drawer beneath the cooktop.  The drawer is deep enough that even a large stockpot will fit inside.
• I have been completely spoiled by the touchless faucets in our new chef’s kitchen.  Sticky hands?  No problem!  I simply wave a hand over the faucets and they come on automatically.  It’s like magic!  The faucets shut off the same way, with a wave of the hand.  And in case you’re worried about accidentally turning on a faucet and flooding your kitchen, there is an automatic shutoff after a few minutes.
• I’m convinced that double ovens are the key to perfect staging of a multi-course meal.  It’s tough to bring a meal together when you’ve only got one oven and must cook a variety of dishes at different temperatures.  It can be quite the juggling act!
• Don’t you hate it when you’ve got a dish simmering on the stove, and even the lowest setting is too high?  I’m very happy that two of the burners on our new gas stove feature an extra low flame setting, in which the burner turns itself on and off to keep the dish at the perfect temperature.  More magic!
• I love natural light.  The large skylights over the island provide ample light for cooking, even on the cloudiest days.
• Gone are the days when cans of food hid behind each other, out of reach and way in the back of the old, bookshelf-style pantry.  Now the pantry shelves pull out easily and nothing is hidden from view.
• My cutting boards and cookie sheets are now stored in a vertical rack.  I can easily find the board or pan that I want and pull it out without having to juggle all of the others.
• The microwave oven is now a drawer in the island, rather than being over my head above the stove.  I can simply reach down and lift out hot food in heavy dishes.  Seems much safer and is definitely easier.

Thanks very much to our BOWA team for building a chef’s kitchen that we love!