LOCATING THE KITCHEN
The typical old Toronto house follows a familiar order on the ground floor: living room at the front, dining room in the middle, and kitchen at the back. At the turn of the twentieth century, there was a solid logic to this layout, but when renovating your home today, you have the opportunity to reconsider the best locations for these three functions.
When houses were built in the Victorian and pre-war eras, the culture was much more formal than it is now. Great pains were made to maintain a respectably appointed space to receive and entertain guests: this was the function of the living and dining rooms, and this is why they were at the front of the house.
Victorian style living room, via Period Living
The Kitchen was the workhorse of the family home: it was utilitarian, often messy, and, in the summer, very hot. For a variety of practical and cultural reasons, it was relegated to the back.
Victorian style kitchen, via This Old House
But times have certainly changed. On a practical level, kitchen appliances and fixtures are much more refined than they once were, and the space for cooking has become, for many people, the focal point for both family life and entertainment. Similarly, the need for treating guests formally has greatly diminished, and most people are quite comfortable inviting people to see how they really live.
This change of attitude allows reconsideration for the location of the three main functions: living, dining, and kitchen. There are some advantages to keeping the kitchen at the back: it allows for the most direct access to a BBQ, outdoor seating, and the car if parked off the laneway with groceries. However, the back of the house is usually the most light-filled spot of the house, and with backyards more an extension of living space now, a natural place for the living (or family) room to be sited.
If not in the back, then where should the kitchen be? In our opinion, it is usually best located in the middle so that it maintains adjacencies to both the dining room and the living room. The truth for most families is that the kitchen is the center of domestic life, and having it located centrally optimizes the many conveniences that come from this fact.
Our Ritchie Rowhouse places the kitchen between the living and dining spaces.
But what layout is best? For the typical Toronto semi-detached, there is usually just enough space between the stair and outside wall for a double aisle layout. This places the upper cabinets, pantry, and refrigerator on the outside wall, and an island in the middle. There are many variations you can play with to suit the particulars of your house and needs—an architect can help you decide what works best.
A variation on this to consider, especially if you do entertain more formally, is a ground floor addition that provides you with a family room. For many Toronto parents with busy children running around, this is the most coveted of renovation goals: a room that can be dedicated to the land of Legos and art projects, while a room of calm and sanity is reserved for the adults. If this is your goal, consider leaving your kitchen where it is if at the back, and adding a family room onto the rear. This may simplify your renovation while helping provide more space.
A view of our Lynd Street Semi project, showing kitchen in its original location at the back of the house, and a family room addition that has been added onto that.
Another alternative that we believe can work is putting the kitchen at the front of the home. The front of the typical Toronto home is necessarily narrow because it also performs the duty of the entrance & foyer. This remaining space is usually too pinched for an effective living room, and it can lend itself well to an efficiently laid out kitchen.
A beautiful galley kitchen by Timothy Brown, via Architectural Digest. This compact layout would work extremely well at the front of a typical Toronto ho
