A Kitchen Refresh to Welcome Spring
The Heartland of Our Homes
A guest blog written by Penny Lyons
LyonsLifestyle
As we come up upon the one year mark for staying at home and staying safe, let’s celebrate life, though different it may be. Today is our new reality…and the way we live in our homes has been forever changed. We’ve turned to our homes as our place of comfort and shelter, a safe haven where we’ve come to discover what the silver lining is in all of this; finding the joy in life’s everyday seclusive activities of daily living. We’ve learned to slow down, to read more, to talk with each other, to garden, to experiment with the art of cooking and to pay more attention to the world around us .Our homes have become the heartland of our existence and our kitchens have become the heartland of our homes, where we have learned not only to bake bread, but to break bread …
Make your home your sanctuary and surround yourself with the things you love. When we satisfy our five senses of sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste, our minds are in a better place, uncluttered and unencumbered. Kitchens are the epicentre of that sanctuary, a command central with many functions we don’t consciously think about…It’s a place from which familiar and comforting aromas (smell) emerge and bellow through the house conjuring up childhood memories. It feeds us food. (taste) It feeds our soul. It may give us a blazing fireplace to warm us up with an early morning coffee or late-night glass of wine. It's a place where we begin and end our waking hours, and most importantly, a place where our daily emotions begin and end...
The emotional benefits of cooking nowadays
“Happiness in a home can be found in many ways. And cooking or collaborating in the preparation of the menus is one of them. Psychologists and humanist therapists talk about the emotional benefits of cooking and consider their domestic space as an ideal environment to put the stress of frantic life at bay, foster positive feelings and much more.”
The Kitchen is the room in our homes with the arms that wrap around us, providing us with warmth, relaxation, purposeful activity and the universal sign of love, food. Eating all meals at home for a year has certainly been a challenge. With children home from school and college, or young adults fleeing the cities, our families have grown in size; more food to cook, more people to feed. We are a society of hyperbolically social beings who crave human interaction and socialization. And today, that craving has been restricted to those living in our bubbles or extended pods. So it’s more important than ever now to pay attention to creatively infused quality as well as increased quantity of our ever-changing needs. A kitchen for me has always been an extension of the overall decor in my home. I display interesting artwork in my laundry room, and hang beautiful ceiling to floor draperies in my kitchen eating area.
There is always a bouquet of flowers in different places each week. Candles are lit for dinner every night just because, and the table is always beautifully set for dinner (sight). Why not pretend we are at a lovely restaurant every night? It makes cooking and serving a delight and definitely creates a more positive and happy environment for teamwork. Collaborative cooking always makes the dining experience more fun!
New trends in kitchens are helping us to coalesce
our new and suddenly growing needs with form and function.
Hygiene, a priority trend emerging from necessity is giving way to the evolution and convenience of hands - free or touch tap faucets, and the much needed built-in dispensers for hand-sanitizer and hand cream. (touch)
Kitchens with large dual-purpose islands to accommodate the NEW family size, and to serve as another work space for your work-from-home selves, young adults or home-schooled children are on the rise. The original kitchen desk is expanding with a renewed sense of importance. Rather than it being a spot to drop your keys or toss your mail onto, it has become an enlarged, more elaborately defined and constructed workspace, complete with more storage and dedicated areas for charging the multiple devices that run our lives. The convenience of multiple charging stations throughout the house has been in urgent demand. Phones, watches iPads, computers X number of users = high demand!
Cooking at home is now easier and faster with the advent of multiple not-so-small appliances like the Instant Pot and the Air Fryer! Time-saving cooking and delicious food served in a nano second (taste). These appliances take up counter space, valuable kitchen real estate, you may not have or may not want to give up. It is optimum to have these appliances easily accessible, but neatly tucked away in their own cabinets or on their own shelving.
Self-Sustaining Practices became a cruel reality, the result of empty shelves in markets across the US. Self-sustaining measures grew out of necessity, teaching us to how to rely on ourselves to provide for our families. We’ve learned to bake bread, to share our sour dough starter and to store loaves in the newly discovered built-in “bread box”, something old that has become new again. The practices of canning and freezing have given way to the need for more basement storage and shelving, and larger freezing capabilities.
Live Greenery of all Kinds we know has many therapeutic benefits that go beyond the oxygen it provides in our home. Plants are known to increase productivity levels, reduce stress and increase our concentration levels. Kitchen gardens have emerged to grow our own vegetables and fruits. Kitchen herb gardens are the newest actors on center stage, providing us with fresh, robust aromatics in window herb boxes or directly outside our kitchen doors, perhaps creating the need for new kitchen access to the outside. (sight & smell)
Organization is the Key that Unlocks Frenzy and puts our minds at ease. Closet organization or the addition of closets, cubbies and cabinets may be necessary for ever-changing needs. Now may be the time for the custom closets you’ve always dreamed about, or the easy glide, self-closing drawers. Organization boosts productivity.
“A clean working area is a more productive working area”
State-of-the-Art Built-in Music Systems & Speakers for both interior and exterior enjoyment fuels your spirit. It provides a mood-changing calm which keeps creative juices flowing or keeps everyone dancing in the kitchen (hearing)! Quiet can be daunting, and even noisy. Find music that you can draw upon to reflect or create a mood. It can be peaceful and calming or upbeat and uplifting! This is the best investment you will make.
Music makes the world go round!
And Last, but Certainly not Least is Touch, so important to our psyche and well-being and the one sense that is very much challenged today. We don’t feel free to greet friends with a hug just yet. Soon. In the meantime, besides gleaning comfort from the hug of your furry pets, envelop yourself in a soft cashmere throw, sip a drink from a beautiful stemmed cut-crystal glass. Bring out your finest linens and commune with the earth in your new garden. But most importantly, hug those in your bubble and hold them tight (touch)!
Always feed your soul with the
~ beauty of your home ~
About Penny Lyons:
Penny Lyons is an entertainer, party planner, food stylist, and table designer who splits her time between her homes in Westport, CT and Nantucket Island. She is the owner of LyonsLifestyle, a go-to blog and website where she shares her passion for celebrating the art-of-the-home. Penny has owned and renovated 12 homes during her 42 year marriage. She is a luxury curator of taste, style and design, always "making the ordinary extraordinary". She is a lifestyle contributor whose work has been featured in New England Fine Living Magazines, DC Magazine, Modern Luxury Magazine, Tampa Magazine and on Martha Stewart Living Radio and Own Your Truth with Laura T, Talking All Things Oscars.