Let’s talk about space. We North Americans have more than we need while our European counterparts fit three rooms in the size of one of our garages where we have parked…our stack of empty Tupperware. Half a lifetime ago as a young influenceable actor in New York with barely a cent to buy a pretzel, I would furtively peruse all the House and Garden U.K. and French Elle Decors in the grocery store aisles with the dream of one day owning a galley kitchen of my own. To have a galley kitchen was a tantalizing dream as, up until then, the kitchens I had in our living quarters were part bathroom and part Living room. A galley kitchen meant having a kitchen. Separate from any of the other rooms.
When I moved to Miami and started the married portion of my life I became quite skilled at these perfect little jewels as all of the kitchens in the Art Deco district were 7’x6’. Kitchens in our Northern Continent have now integrated family rooms and have become the de facto hearth and heart of our homes. Living and Dining rooms, let alone libraries, are imperiled spaces, literally on the extinction species list of living quarters. Somehow I see this as a good thing in the “more is less” philosophy quadrant. It is not the space in our homes we need to find. It is the space in our minds to learn and the space in our hearts to grow that we should seek to expand.