Is the granite/stainless steel kitchen a fad?

[Find Finn]

It's not a technical term, if you drop some redwine etc. on to marble it will absorb some of the color and become discolored, which is why 99 out of a 100 manufactured doesn't of marble tops.

You can get quartz/Silestone/Corian tops that look like marble without the drawbacks.


My next kitchen will have glass or stainless steel tops.

 

[gdl203]



It's not a technical term, if you drop some redwine etc. on to marble it will absorb some of the color and become discolored, which is why 99 out of a 100 manufactured doesn't of marble tops.

And that's called "sucking collar"? learn something new every day...

I've owned marble countertops for many years and what you said above is simply not true. Or rather, it's only true if you leave that wine or stain on the top for an extended period of time. If you wipe it off, there will be absolutely no absorption or marks. Since I'm over 19 and don't throw parties where I leave wine and sauces on my kitchen tops overnight, this is not something I have any issues with. Now, for someone who is not accustomed to cleaning this kind of mess for hours, then I do agree it is a drawback of marble. It looks 10x better than granite though.

 

[Find Finn]

It was in lack of better words.

I have seen it happen more than once, I had a mate who had a marble coffee table with a big red mark on it.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

Alright, some interesting responses. In many places I could see how it would be impossible to separate the kitchen. I agree Douglas, my family, for whatever reason, prefers to crowd the kitchen even if I am prodding them to move on the lounge areas.

My friends however seem to prefer to hang out in the lounge.

 

[Douglas]

Gdl, I believe he means it absorbs (sucks) color (collar).

 

[StephenHero]



LOL @ SFthink. .

I don't have a problem with hanging out in the kitchen. I just hate the idea that people design their kitchens as if the kitchen is a parlor, which inevitably results in ridiculously post-modern things like baroque range hoods. There's just such an absurd falseness to the way that people unconsciously try to turn HVAC equipment and work surfaces into conveyors of domestic royalty and wealth. Every time some housewife puts a bowl of Chef Boyardee ravioli into her microwave that's been fitted into cherry colonial cabinetry, the universe is thrown out of balance, and I'm continually worried about humans' relationship to reality.

 

[Fuuma]

My kitchen is stainless steel because I live in a loft so it fits, appliances are white though cause I don't like stainless steel appliances. I am sure I am committing some kind of crime here that Mr. eurokitchendesignnomarble or stephenhero (whom I tend to agree with on pretty much every interior design discussion I see) will be happy to point out. I don't give a **** if you wanna hang out near me when I'm cooking well you can, but then I don't cook often and there's a "lounge" area not that far. My microwave is on top of the fridge, which I assume is a worse crime. It is also white to represent white power and to match the appliances.

I would not like to have granite or marble in my place but I guess it looks ok in GDL's kitchen + he likes white so he's a'right with me. I find people 1) spend way too much time in their stupid kitchen 2) make them too big, that whole "my kitchen has to be like a restaurant kitchen or some island of family gathering" bullshit has got to stop. In the end I don't really care but most people live in places I find ugly.

That will be all.

 

[mordecai]

nm

 

[Fuuma]



nm

I mind, please express yourself.

 

[the shah]

It's not a technical term, if you drop some redwine etc. on to marble it will absorb some of the color and become discolored, which is why 99 out of a 100 manufactured doesn't of marble tops.

And that's called "sucking collar"? learn something new every day...

I've owned marble countertops for many years and what you said above is simply not true. Or rather, it's only true if you leave that wine or stain on the top for an extended period of time. If you wipe it off, there will be absolutely no absorption or marks. Since I'm over 19 and don't throw parties where I leave wine and sauces on my kitchen tops overnight, this is not something I have any issues with. Now, for someone who is not accustomed to cleaning this kind of mess for hours, then I do agree it is a drawback of marble. It looks 10x better than granite though.

for some reason I imagined a few clay tagines and something like this in your kitchen


Fuuma is right -- the kitchen should be only big enough to hold the help who is cooking the meal, no more, no less. it's not a damn resort for these foreigners to lounge about in

 

[impolyt_one]



LOL @ SFthink. Everything has to be balls to the wall, pro-style or bust. Nobody drives new Bimmers because they've become to sluggish and luxury oriented. GIVE ME A RACE CAR!
Open plan kitchens are a response to the way people live. You can ask "why" all you want, but people congregate in the kitchen. I don't know why. Maybe it's the smell of the food. Maybe people are interested in what's for dinner. Maybe they want to spend time with the host. But that's just how it is - open plans and open kitchens are a reaction to the way people live. People didn't start congregating in kitchens because the kitchens were made that way. They weren't.
I just moved out of a house that did not have an open kitchen. There was a separate living room and a separate dining room. Where was everybody when I was preparing dinner? Up in my g*ddamned grill when I was making a mess and trying to plate dinner. Our kitchen wasn't made for it, and yet there everybody was.
These days it's not uncommon for two parents to be working. Nobody's been home all day in the pro kitchen whipping up a meal to serve in the formal dining room. Cooking and cleanup have to merge with homework and family time. Even dinner parties have morphed into something less formal than a sit-down dinner. Hence the open plan, where you can actually kill two birds with one stone.
We just renovated a historic home with an isolated butler's kitchen, and we had the option to maintain the floorplan exactly as-is. It would have meant tens of thousands of dollars in tax credits to preserve it perfectly. But I turned down that money to be able to integrate the cooking (most of which I do) and the cleaning (most of which my wife does) with our family time, and to be able to be a part of the dinner party, and to keep an eye on the tube or whatever while doing these tasks. It was a no-brainer to want to spend more time with my 3-year-old, which is why some of the "family" comments (from people with no families yet, go figure) are particularly puzzling.
Sure, there are drawbacks. Perhaps you sacrifice some of the ability to clean up properly after dressing and butchering the whole lambs you have been raising in your backyard. And it's true that it exposes some of the mess (hence the recent proliferation of butler's pantry/kitchens where much of the cleanup is obscured). But the tradeoffs and accommodations for modern living are obvious and desirable for all but a select few who, for whatever reasons, must maintain monastic devotion to their craft.

Calm down Doug, nobody in this thread is taking away your right to the suburban neo-farmhouse design ethos.

 

[Douglas]



Calm down Doug, nobody in this thread is taking away your right to the suburban neo-farmhouse design ethos.

phew.

FYI I don't live in suburbia - I purposefully located my home above a salt mine so that I have immediate accessibility to an effectively limitless bounty of sodium.

 

[impolyt_one]

Well, that's smart - seems the people around your parts like a bit of food with their salt when dining at upscale places.

 

[Find Finn]



Gdl, I believe he means it absorbs (sucks) color (collar).

LOL damn iPhone spell check, didn't notice it had written collar, instead of color my bad.