To design a kitchen well, you
need to actually work in one,
cutting up veggies, scrubbing pots
and pans, and mopping the floor.
You also need a sense of aesthetics,
and a knowledge of materials and
detailing that will help you make
the kitchen pleasant and attractive
as well as useful. Beyond that, a
certain amount of "book learning"
will help you to coordinate and
optimize storage, counter space,
traffic flow, and other factors critical
to this very function-oriented
space.
Steve Thomas and Philip
Langdon, authors of This Old
House Kitchens, seem to have all of
these qualities. Their book is based
on projects undertaken for the
popular PBS television series, and
it rivals Rodale's Build Your Harvest
Kitchen as the book