What sets the suburban kitchen apart from that of a city kitchen?
Photo Credit Murat Demircan
Space
The suburban kitchen has square footage, and the homeowner will certainly utilize it to its capacity. A suburban kitchen includes anything and everything. Most of my clients tend to design a kitchen with the consideration of real estate value. While they may not use some of the kitchen features on a regular basis, they see them as a requirement.
Suburban homeowners want high-end specialty appliances such as an oversized refrigerator, 6 plus burner cooktop/range, built-in coffee machine, wine fridge and a sea of cabinets including glass window displays for their nice dishes and counters that include an extra-large island to accommodate the kitchen square footage.
The city homeowner designs a kitchen with practicality in mind. Square footage is limited and thus one must be creative and practical when it comes to designing a kitchen space. While brand appliances are still important, the urban homeowner is more selective in purchasing the necessary and forgoing the specialty.
Structure
A suburban home has the luxury of a make it happen contract team. Walls are easier to remove, energy source preference of gas vs electricity … no problem.
A city kitchen, particularly in attached high-rise living comes with the question of what you can have vs what you want? For example, some building structures are older in age thus a gas top range is not a possibility or other building codes play a part in the design of the space.
Lifestyle
Perhaps one of the biggest differences found between
these two kitchens is simply the lifestyle of the kitchen owner. An urban homeowner has a kitchen that extends beyond the structure of home. Taking a brief walk down to the grocery store or perhaps if lucky like I am, they may just have Whole Foods on the bottom level of their building, this is a norm of city living. The grocery store becomes an extension of the home. Rather than the large walk-in pantry found in the suburban home, the pantry of an urban homeowner is indeed the grocery store shelf or the take-out restaurant you pass as you make your way home from a long day at the office.