The 3-way kitchen inside the "House of Ideas", Seminole Circle, Green Manor Estates, West Hartford, Connecticut

7/19/2025 11:22:00 AM

The average American housewife prepares 1,085 meals a year. In this kitchen, you can turn out any meal from pre-school breakfast to a buffet for thirty guests with a minimum of effort and without confusion. The real heart of this young home is its kitchen, which is not only a pleasant and efficient place to work, but overlooks an enclosed play yard for children. Your first impression of the room is that it is large, but you will discover that floor dimensions are quite small. This wide-open feeling is due chiefly to the high, raftered ceilings (an unusual feature of the whole house) and to the fact that every inch of floor space has been planned for maximum efficiency.

Here, in a minimum of space, there is a refrigerator-freezer (cutting marketing to once a week), a double-oven range (to cut down cooking time and increase the variety of menus), an automatic dishwasher (an extra hand after meal-time) and a large pass-through (which is a ready aid for serving meals and entertaining). The steel cabinets are equipped with sliding racks, hangers and shelves for file-like precision, storage capacity and availability. A mobile chef's table on casters is always on hand where needed, replacing a stationary kitchen table. An added feature of the room is a continuous strip of electrical outlets running around the tops of the counters, permitting appliances to be plugged in at any desired spot. And to augment light from the windows during the day, or to provide adequate illumination after dark, each countertop is lighted by fluorescent tubes directly below wall cabinets.

Easy upkeep is quickly achieved in this room with countertops of washable plastic, and vinyl tile floor. Taking its color scheme from the other rooms on which it opens freely, the ceiling echoes the blues of the living and dining areas, and the range and refrigerator are a soft yellow, repeated in the split bamboo curtains. The cabinets have been finished with a semi-gloss spatter paint in citron, cloud gray and white to blend with floor and counters. Utensils introduce an accent color of warm red-orange. This room has a warmth created by the glowing brass range hood, brass hardware on cabinets and the whitewashed brick wall. There is another chapter to this kitchen story which is found in the adjoining utility room.

This compact area (6'6" x 7'4") houses an automatic washer, dryer and ironer to cut your laundry time in half. As a warm neutral background for the white appliances, the walls have been covered with scrubbable plastic material in a basket-weave design. An accordion folding door at one end of the room carries out the beige wall color and split bamboo curtains repeat the citron- yellow accent of the kitchen. A long counter for folding and sorting clothes is directly below the double window and next to a convenient utility closet. Since this room leads outdoors to play yard and carport, it is the general port of entry for the whole family.

Passing through the folding door you enter the room where housework ends before it begins! This is the mud-room, and a boon to mothers of small children. It contains a lavatory complete with built-in drawer space, and is surrounded by pegboard walls for stretching of freshly laundered mittens and sweaters. This is where the children tidy up before entering other parts of the house. Here, also, is where they can shed their outdoor clothing, for the family coat closet is directly opposite the washstand. A louvered door connects the mud-room to the entrance hall making it accessible from both front and back doors; because of its convenient location, it also serves as a powder room for guests, a flower arrangement center for mother.