eating in the kitchen

You know the saying, “The family that dines together, stays together”?

Or how about this one: “The kitchen is the heart of the home.”

These days, we’re pulled in so many directions - the hours between breakfast and bedtime filled with work, school, homework, practices and games…..Yet we still need to be together…..

This is something my clients keep asking for – new and different ways to be together in their home. Especially the kitchen, where we naturally gather – to cook, read, drink our morning tea, help with homework, and of course – eat…..

This was my childhood – growing up in the seventies – eating together in the “breakfast room”. Long gone are the days when we dined in the dining room.

But then, a funny thing occurred, after the invention of the “kitchen island” (the breaking off of the “peninsula” which divided off our 70′s breakfast room from the kitchen):

Everybody started hanging out there!

Enter my clients! Lately, they have been requesting islands that can also serve as their table. Take this trestle-style farm table, for instance. It visually breaks down the barrier between kitchen and eating even more than the island.

Do you see the chairs peeking out from behind that island/table? The trestle base allows the chairs to pull up.

But what if you want to raise that table up to “counter height”? You can always pull tall stools up to it. But then some folks’ feet (mine! children’s!) might dangle. We recently tackled that problem for some clients: A post and beam style table with integrated footrest – based on this inspiration picture below:

Notice how the table base pulls in from the edge of the table? That way anyone can sit comfortably around the table without banging their legs. But also notice: There is a crossbeam at the bottom, which can act as a foot rest (like at a bar!)

So here is our rendition: