05/22/2026
Hope you're out on a boat this weekend — or at least somewhere that doesn't involve a to-do list.
We've been thinking about boats too. Specifically, a kitchen that had one.
A family hired me to fix their kitchen. Before I'd even seen it in person, they told me what they called it.
The boat kitchen.
Nine by eleven feet, an island wedged nine inches from the counter — enough to technically walk through, not enough to actually use. Two people couldn't make breakfast at the same time. They'd been working around it for years, the way you do when a problem has no obvious solution. You just absorb it into the routine and stop noticing.
The 1990s renovation had made the room smaller without making it better. That's the thing about bad renovations in old houses — they don't just fail, they leave the next person less to work with.
The island came out. A peninsula went in — better storage, no floating footprint eating what little floor space there was, bar seating on the end.
The house is 1960s MCM so we let the architecture lead: slab doors, walnut lowers, painted uppers, white oak floors. One 48-inch pendant over the range. In a room this restrained, one good decision carries a lot of weight.
There's a drawer at the peninsula's edge, accessible from the hallway, dedicated entirely to charging. Every family has this problem. Most kitchens ignore it.
The boat kitchen is gone. They can make breakfast and pack lunches on a busy morning now — without running into each other. That's the whole point.
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The kitchen was 9×11 feet. The previous owner had put an island in it — nine inches from the counter on one side. Not a typo. Nine inches. Enough to technically walk through, not enough to actually use.
