Nuts & Bolts : A how-to for homeowners : Kitchens Demand a Place for All Things

Watching somebody like Jeff Smith cook on TV makes me grind my teeth and pray that the moron who invented my kitchen is claustrophobic and is trapped in a phone booth with the 1952 Rockettes.

There’s the Frugal Gourmet himself, slinging food and hardware around like confetti, with only slightly less room to work in than an airplane hangar. If he needs something, it magically appears in his hand. No rummaging, no clattering around, no sweat.

Meanwhile, my kitchen has all the elbow room and storage capacity of a Yugo.

Consequently, things get strewn around, hung up or stuffed into mysterious, dark corners where they can be retrieved only by dismantling the cabinets. This leaves me with a food-preparation area about the size of a Bermuda onion, which takes the panache out of cooking in a hurry.

Gary White said it’s all in my mind.

“Space is more psychological than physical,” said White, the owner of Kitchen Design in Newport Beach. “We’re coming out of an era when the kitchen was put together in a happenstance conglomeration of not-quite-integrated parts. The appliance people were over here, the cabinet people were here, the counter people were here. Nobody worked together. Everything was kind of a little bit off.

“The interior design basics that kitchens were built around back in the ‘60s or the ‘70s, most of which we’re living with today, have too many surfaces that are of different textures, too many different colors and too many changes of dimension. Every time you change a dimension, you make your mind work. You say to yourself, ‘Look out for this, look out for that.’ ”

Trying to make your kitchen look like the Auberge of the Flowering Hearth just isn’t practical, White cautioned. All that copper stuff hanging from the ceiling may look great in the House Beautiful photo layout, but by the time you bang your head on it for the 20th time, you’ll want to toss it instead of cook with it.

“You probably think you’re being efficient (by hanging things up) because your cabinet system doesn’t work for you,” White said. “But you need room, psychologically, for your head to bob around.”

The solution you’re after, said White, is an old one--a place for everything and everything in its place--and a corollary: everything working together harmoniously. And if your present kitchen is a hodgepodge from the old days, you have a couple of options.

The first is remodeling. And the best choice of elements, White said, will leave you with a Western European-style kitchen, the hottest design going at the moment. This isn’t the clinical, flat, glossy-white cabinet-look many Americans think of, he said, but “a careful integration of all the elements. There are devices and ways of putting things within your reach and not in your face.”

All the cabinet space is used, and is easily reachable--no “blind corner” cabinets with dark, invisible interiors that you couldn’t reach back into even if you had the courage to try. All the drawers are flush with one another--no wasted space in between. The range and the counters are at the same level--no catching a pot of hot water on an exposed edge. Everything is the same color and texture. Everything works together.

The reason for all this harmony is that the cabinets have no frames, as more traditional American-made cabinets do, said Ettie Ettinger, the owner of Kitchen Gallery, a kitchen design and remodeling business in Laguna Beach. This not only allows for a greater use of space within the cabinets, but more flexibility in cabinet design.

“You gain an area of between, probably, 4 inches by 24 inches deep” in a small kitchen when that kitchen is remodeled in the European style, Ettinger said. “It’s the American frames that take up the space. Overall, I find that the European cabinets have more of a variety to play with and be creative with. Some American lines give you that variety, but most of them are limited, compared to European ones.”

One of the more obvious advantages of the European cabinets is their ability to be built into corners, with the shelves swinging out for easy access to, say, pans that used to hang from the ceiling. Ettinger said she has found that some cooks are willing to give up space to the hanging pans in return for their quick accessibility. She still feels, however, that “they clutter the kitchen up. It’s a question of taste.”

It all doesn’t come cheaply, however. Ettinger said a full cabinet remodeling job for a kitchen measuring 8 by 10 feet could cost anywhere from $6,000 to $15,000, depending on materials and design. If a new set of basic appliances were installed--a refrigerator, cooktop, microwave oven, sink, disposal and dishwasher--figure on a minimum of another $5,000.

The prize when it’s all over, however, is not only more space, but more freedom of movement.

“You ought to be able to be blind--or blind drunk--and be able to stumble around in the kitchen without bruising your hips,” White said.

Which is a really great idea for devotees of “The Frugal Gourmet Cooks With Wine,” especially the ones who have trouble getting the wine into the pot.

For the truly frugal gourmet, however, there is a second option, one that’s a bit heavier on the psychological than the financial.

“Lighter colors,” White said, “make space feel brighter and larger. A coat of white paint on the cabinets is about the simplest remodeling job you could do.”

I’ll cook. You bring the paint brushes.