How do you use your kitchen?

My kitchen is only about 9'x 9' so no room for a table. It's just a functional kitchen with a view over the neighbours garden.
It's silver and pale aqua, I painted it myself when I moved in here and it could do with being re-painted. The best feature is that there are loads of cupboards.

I love my kitchen, could do with a refit but even so...its about 18 x 12 with a vaulted ceiling..glass door into the garden..no table ..that's up a step in the dining area...couple of tall stools though where I sit looking at a forever view...I'm in Lancashire but can see straight across the fields and beyond to the Old man of Frodsham..Joddrel bank...and on a very clear day the Welsh mountains...its a 'people'kitchen..we all tend to hang about in there...its a bit cluttered also..I love stuff on my worktops ?

We designed & built our own house (absolutely NOT Grand Designs!). Taking elements from houses we had lived in (and my mum's mantra that everyone ends up in the kitchen!) and how we live, we have an L shape: kitchen is bottom of the L, dining is corner, and living room is longer part.
Great for moving about, chatting as you feel like, keeping an eye on cooking etc.
Wouldn't suit everyone, and definitely need a seriously good cooker hood / extractor.

Our kitchen is not small but putting a table in it would crowd it so cooking only. We are moving to a house with a kitchen diner where I intend we do more congregating and I can plonk DH at the table with the veg to prepare and to read from the paper to me while I'm cooking. I also want people to stand around in smart clothes, drinking champagne and making witty comments.

No idea what size my kitchen is, but previous occupants of the house knocked a bedroom out to make a dining section which is quite nice. DH also has his TV there so is able to watch the news and whatever else is on at mealtimes. I have filng cabinet there which he ignores, preferring to use the table and floor for filing!!
I do cook and bake in the kitchen, too!

Well, I am sitting in the kitchen now at the kitchen table, DH is making me a coffee. I must go and do something useful.

If we were younger I'd be tempted to knock through to the dining room, but then we'd have to be a bit tidier. At least we can shut the door on the dining room (aka the hobby room).
A 'back door' to the garden would be nice; we have a side entrance through the utility.

20' x 20' is large, kitty!

Australian homes tend to be all-in-one which I like when there, but in the UK I like cosiness in the dreary winter months with a separate sitting room.

Love my kitchen! It's the full width of the house as we knocked a wall down many years ago. I can sit at the breakfast bar and look out at the garden.

I love my kitchen, friends certainly congregated around the island with a glass of wine while I cooked before lockdown made it the scrabble and food hub for two.
At 16 x 18 it's not quite as big as yours Kittylester but I consider it huge.

Our kitchen is a reasonable size and nicely fitted but not big enough for a table. The window faces north and the view is of the concrete sea defence across the road so I don't spend anymore time than is necessary in there.

I live alone and downsized to a smaller house but the kitchen in my newish house is bigger than my last one. It's enough for me. I have a small table in it under one of the windows looking out onto the back garden. It's a nice square shaped room, gets the sun all afternoon and evening and everything is at hand. In the summer I often leave the door open but wasps have a tendency to come in. Family wander from kitchen to sitting room to dining room.

I've got kitchen envy Peardrop! Your kitchen looks lovely.

My kitchen certainly isn't small but it's full of kitchen units so is used for cooking and washing up etc. Washing machine and tumble dryer are in the utility room along with second fridge freezer and tall freezer. The kitchen has french doors at the end opening into a very large conservatory which houses the table and chairs and sofa etc. We also have a dining table in the dining room. I like my kitchen a lot but spend as little time as possible in there.

Ours is also a small kitchen but recently fitted out in grey/blue as we just moved in two years ago. The large window overlooks the garden and we have a door to access the back. I enjoy cooking, baking in our compact space, also the washing machine there which is handy for pegging out the washing on sunny days.
No space for a table and chairs but all good, keeps me fit going in and out of the dining/sitting room!

Fairly big kitchen 16x16 at least but I only go in it to get food or to cook something don’t like kitchens, as not much of a domestic goddess

Thank you Chewbacca I spend most of my time here as it's the nicest room in the house.

Bluebelle we probably do need a new kitchen but if we had one, would I feel obliged to spend more time in there cooking?

Half of my ground floor is the kitchen diner and the other half is the sitting room. I only use the sitting room in the evening. Everything else happens in the kitchen.

How do I use my kitchen?

With caution

we probably do need a new kitchen but if we had one, would I feel obliged to spend more time in there cooking?

Heaven forbid!

We knocked through so now have a kitchen diner, which I love, as it's much lighter and more spacious looking now, modern farmhouse kitchen style.

However, for some weird country reason, the back door is always used as the main entrance to the house. This means that the kitchen is also a through route to the rest of the house. We use it a lot, but not so much for real cooking. I have a old wooden arm chair in it as well, good for a coffee.

When we were planning it, I wanted an island. I got some big cardboard boxes to the size I'd considered, and put them in place. We soon realised that was a no go for us.

How do so many homes have such big kitchens now?

Ours is a strip of a kitchen so cooking and enjoying the view to the birds in the hedge.

The kitchen is being remodelled so my kitchen at the moment is in my bedroom! It's either slow cooker or microwave and wash up in the bathroom.

I think I will need a new carpet ?

Our kitchen would fit into kittys twice and still leave a bit of hers over. . Refitted to our design it works well, I’m happy with it. No room for table and chairs and only one other person can fit in there with me. Works for me, I’ve never liked observers when cooking. .

I was told by a social historian that the historu of the kitchen goes like this;
in working class / ordinary homes, food prep was done in the main living area, but in rural areas, there would be an outside (or outhouse / scullery) for basic food prep - washing mud off vegetables, plucking / gutting animals etc.
Posher town houses had sculleries for prep and kitchens for cooking.
When servants went out of fashion, middle class women thought it 'common'to be seen prepping & cooking, so they wanted small kitchens (1930s). However, as more middle class women went back to work (working class never stopped of course!) and children played out less, families began to want larger kitchens so life could go on around the cook. The 'farmhouse' kitchen came back into vogue. He recalled that as a working class boy in the 30s, he did his homework in the 'parlour' quietly on his own. By the 60s, he and his wife got the children to do their homework in the kitchen so they could keep an eye on them whilst they cooked.

Mine isn't a bad size for two people but being as there's only myself it's more than enough. If I got a barstool I could eat in there as well quite comfortably. Plenty of room for cooking and preparing. Lots of cupboard space and surfaces. It has everything I need.

The table is in the living room by the patio window and will comfortably seat four when the leaves are out but two would be the limit in the kitchen, on stools. In effect I could still cater for 10 people who'd all be seated so not bad space for a retirement apartment really. Homes for life Happy days.