Kitchen design

We are not enamored of the kitchen in our new house.

We are trying to work on redesigning it.

I have looked at countless pictures of kitchen online, and I have come to one conclusion.  White and black kitchens are not my favorite.  They sometimes look pretty, but they do not look like kitchens that I would enjoy cooking and eating in.

Food is the purpose of a kitchen--creating food and consuming food.  Kitchens are the heart of a home, where family gathers and snacks and laughs.  White and black (and gray, which also seems popular) are not colors that I associate with warmth, happiness, food, family or comfort.

But brown.  Brown.  Now there is a color that makes one think of food.  Everything delicious is brown.  Chocolate, for starters.  Roast chicken.  Cinnamon rolls.  Gravy.  Coffee with cream.  Tea with (or without) cream.  Gingerbread men.  Roast beef.  The crust on a perfect loaf of homemade bread.  The crust on a perfect apple pie.  The crust on creme brulee.  Baked beans.  Pumpernickel.  Oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins.  Pancakes with maple syrup.  Toast.  Pecans.  Chocolate chip cookies.  Brownies.  Bacon.  All of the most delicious things to eat are in shades of brown.  I am not making this up.

So I will have a brown kitchen.  I hope.  If I do it right.  It will have accents of cream and pale butter-yellow, because butter is delicious, too, with pretty much everything.

I may be out of style.  I may have no fashion sense whatsoever.  Still, I know what I like and what I do not like.

I hate that aqua color, the one so many people love.  It's a personal thing, a mental association, a carry-over from early traumatization at swimming lessons and the color of public swimming pools.  I recoil whenever I see this color featured in someone's design project.  I recognize that it's just me, and I'm thankful that nobody can make me use that color in my house.

I really do not care for cold, stark looking white kitchens, and I really hate them when they have black granite counter tops and lots of stainless steel.  Black granite is not my favorite; the only reason I'd ever use it is if I needed to for resale on a home I was leaving.

I don't much care for green, either.  Often I think I like green.  Then I live in it for a month or two, and I'm ready to run away.  Actually, I love green, but I think it belongs on leaves, outside the windows.  A beautiful leafy view is my ideal.  So yes, I like green plants, trees, foliage.  I don't care for green paint, whether or not it matches the foliage.  Unlike aqua, though, green doesn't make me recoil.  I can think that I like it... it's just after I use it that I find out I don't.  But I am old now and have been tricked enough times that I don't think I'll make the green mistake again.

Red is my favorite color.  Like brown, it is the color of many delicious things to eat: cherries, strawberries, raspberries, watermelon, barbecue sauce, marinara sauce...  However, I am not big on red in my kitchen design, unless it were a red brick kitchen fireplace.  Which it will not be.  I did see a red brick floor, but I couldn't feel it, and I'm not going to do it.  (I rarely wear red, either, but I enjoy things like red handbags, shoes and phones.)

Yes, we will have a brown kitchen, brown and tan and butterscotch and granola.

Boy, oh boy, do I hope I get it right.