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Original poster

'Back kitchen' - WTAF?

102 replies

Devora · 13/12/2015 16:01

The Jan issue of Real Homes has a feature on trends for 2016. Apparently the newest thing is a 'back' kitchen, where you can do, um, all that stuff that needs to be done in actual kitchens.

Here's a quote from the founder of Architect Your Home: "Kitchens have become an integral part of family/living/dining spaces and, as such, have had to become more stylish. While appliances are more elegant than ever, more functional designs can be hidden in a pantry or back kitchen... The danger in creating an extra room like this is that it could undermine the open-plan feel of the kitchen-diner. To avoid this, keep it simple in form and away from views through or out of the house, so as not to interfere with your main space."

Moving between two kitchens every time you cook is not going to be at all annoying, obviously. So I guess over time you do all your kitchen work in the back kitchen, leaving your front version an a very expensive accessory, a fantasy kitchen!

Own up, MNetters, has anybody got a back kitchen?

Oh, the other trend is TWO islands - anyone gone that route?

OP posts:

bilbodog · 13/12/2015 16:37

Damn - I want one now as well!

OurBlanche · 13/12/2015 16:40

A 'back kitchen' was the room at the back door in all the back to backs in Liverpool.

Coming in the front there may have been a parlour, used only for best, and thena kitchen/living room. This would originally have had the range in it. That heated the house and provided hot water and some basic cooking facilitiies. A permanent kettle, an oven, hot plate and a warmer, for keeping food warm until all family members had come in from work and eaten - think truly ugly Aga. Off that was the back kitchen, often the first extension these houses ever had, between the 20s and 50s.

The back kitchen had sink, cold slab, cupboards, side units. It was for food storage and was the only place water (cold) came into the house.

Nana had such a house, the range came out in the 60s when the back kitchen was tarted up and had a cooker put in. In the late 70s an indoor bathroom was made out of one of the bedrooms, and Nana got her first fridge.

So it isn't new, it has just been yuppified a bit

LuluJakey1 · 13/12/2015 16:41

My grandma had a kitchen and a scullery in an early Victorian terrace. The scullery hd the door to outside, the boiler, the washer, workbenches a big freezer and the pantry. The kitchen was the daily cookng place. No room for a table or anything in either of them.

HappyIdiot · 13/12/2015 16:45

the house I grew up in, and where DM still lives, has one. the house is just very normal, not massive and posh or anything. I just assumed that "back kitchen" was northern for "utility room".

Viviennemary · 13/12/2015 16:46

I don't think it's anything new. It's probably the equivalent of a scullery which people had years ago. And then it was utility and now it's the must have back kitchen it seems. It didn't need to be full of nice shiny stuff like Kitchen aids and so on.

PuppyMonkey · 13/12/2015 16:49

My utility room has my ugly fridge in and ugly microwave (also ugly washing machine and ugly dryer). We have a sink in there and we do most of washing pots in there as sink is bigger than the one in kitchen. Can I in fact start calling my utility room my back kitchen? Oh go on, let me.

TheExMotherInLaw · 13/12/2015 16:53

OurBlanche has just said what I was going to, except my grandmother lived in Wales, where it is called 'y gegin gefn' - literally, the kitchen back. We've just introduced new words such as utility room.
I think originally a scullery was more specifically a place for washing, scrubbing, cleaning things.

absolutelynotfabulous · 13/12/2015 16:55

Everyone had a back kitchen when I was growing up. As someone upthread said, it was a room where the cooking was done and, in my aunties' case, a range-cum-fire. It doubled as a sitting room, but there would be two other small sitting rooms too-a middle room and a front room, which was only used for visitors/occasions.

The pantry was under the stairs, in the "cwtch".

Sansoora · 13/12/2015 16:56

For my sins I have 3 kitchens and a pantry.

The main kitchen where I do all the cooking is outside the back door, and the back door is almost joined on to the house. We need it because of the central air conditioning. The whole house would reek otherwise.

Kitchen number 2 is where anything that doesn't have to be cooked is prepared. So if people came home and wanted a sandwich for eg its where they would make it and more than likely then hang out because of how nice it is. Its like a big kitchen cum sitting room and leads right out to the pool and the garden. It does have appliances in it though not a cooker. It was planned this way from the time the house was built.

Kitchen 3 is off the dining room and it really is just an extension of the dining room. Everything we need for a meal or entertaining is kept here so there's no need to traipse through the house to the outside kitchen for plates, juice etc. I don't have a cooker in it but it does have fridge and dishwasher.

The pantry is upstairs at the end of the hall and is built into an alcove. It has everything you need for a snack and cuppa anytime of the day and night.

Its just the way it is here, but I did grow up with a back kitchen as well in a council tenement building with an outside lavvy.

ImperialBlether · 13/12/2015 16:57

The original kitchen in my (Edwardian) house is tiny. I use as a utility room with a washer, dryer, fridge/freezer and cupboards but you couldn't really do much more in it than load up a wash. The room that I use as the real kitchen is the morning room. There's a separate dining room so I'm not sure what they did in the morning room, but I think the range would've been in there, which means it would be used for cooking, doesn't it?

absolutelynotfabulous · 13/12/2015 16:57

exmother our scullery was behind the back kitchen. My aunt's was in a glass house to the side.

fidel1ne · 13/12/2015 17:00

What CremeEgg said. They basically just mean a scullery.

Lots of the larger, less mucked-about-with Victorian terraces and semis still have that basic layout.

HeartsTrumpDiamonds · 13/12/2015 17:00

I've been in houses of wealthy kosher families that have two full kitchens - their "milk" kitchen and their "meat" kitchen. Both beautifully done up, top of the range everything, marble and granite everywhere, but still completely separate.

Original poster

Devora · 13/12/2015 17:02

THREE kitchens? Sansoora, it doesn't sound as though you like in the UK?

OK, I have learned a lot about the venerable history of back kitchens through some fascinating posts (love yours, OurBlanche). Though some of these have as much connection with the Real Homes concept as, say, the outside toilet of my childhood had to those open-air bathrooms favoured by posh hotels in hot countries.

Anybody else think this may be the start of kitchen-diners cycling themselves back out of fashion?

OP posts:

fidel1ne · 13/12/2015 17:03

Oh x-post with absolutely everyone

Sansoora where are you?

fidel1ne · 13/12/2015 17:05

Anybody else think this may be the start of kitchen-diners cycling themselves back out of fashion?

It's more of an add-on isn't it? There is a crazy room-greed going on.

House hunting recently it felt as though 4/5+ bathrooms has become almost standard.

InQuiteAChristmasPickle · 13/12/2015 17:05

Aw, my Gran always used to call the kitchen "back kitchen", I always presumed it was because her kitchen was at the back in her house. It confused me when I was little because the kitchen in our house was at the front!

InQuiteAChristmasPickle · 13/12/2015 17:08

Btw, she was far from posh, very working class family. She was such a lovely woman .

Sansoora · 13/12/2015 17:15

Im in a very hot part of the world and to be honest my house was built to accomadate extended family living. I have a son with a very serious disability who requires round the clock care and when Im too old to be his main carer (with the help of staff) one of my children and their family will move in with us and take over the role. So when I was building the house I did it so that when the day comes my daughter or daughter in law will always have a kitchen to call her own as well as other key parts of a house that I think a woman needs to make it feel like hers. And I'll have bits that are mine even though I doubt there will ever be any need for a divide so to speak. Does that make sense? Oh and if you think 3 kitchens is jaw dropping - how about 13 bathrooms

Its all very tasteful though and you would never know. Its just a very carefully designed house built for a specific reason after bringing up 5 kids in a 3 bedroomed bungalow and realising - we have to sort out the future.

Original poster

Devora · 13/12/2015 17:19

13 bathrooms???!!!

When you say 3 bedrooms - is that still the case? Presumably you have extended massively? You don't have more kitchens than bedrooms?

OP posts:

fidel1ne · 13/12/2015 17:23

13?! Your cleaning product bill must be colossal. Unless you have lemon trees?

wowfudge · 13/12/2015 17:25

I'm from Manchester and the room behind the kitchen at my parents' house has always been referred to as the back kitchen. Like the pp from Liverpool I have always assumed it was just an older term for what we now call a utility room.

Sansoora · 13/12/2015 17:38

*13 bathrooms???!!!

When you say 3 bedrooms - is that still the case? Presumably you have extended massively? You don't have more kitchens than bedrooms?*

No, we now live in a custom built house that has way more than 3 bedrooms.

13?! Your cleaning product bill must be colossal. Unless you have lemon trees?

Yes, I have lemon trees but only a few of the bathroom are used at any one time so the rest are just given a cats dicht once a week to keep the dust down. And I quite like cleaning with vinegar as well. My daughter told me about that and its good.

Original poster

Devora · 13/12/2015 17:46

Right, we're all over to Sansoora's for New Year's

OP posts:

derxa · 13/12/2015 17:56

a cats dicht
Sansoora I know exactly what you mean by that
Are you Scottish?

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