For the last 13 weeks we’ve undergone a kitchen renovation. Completely gutted it down to the studs and changed everything. At the end of the day we really had a singular purpose for going through this trying experience. Now that it’s done we couldn’t be happier that we did it and we are already experiencing what we had hoped to accomplish.

Our previous kitchen was cool. It looked good and most people liked it. Here’s a pic:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cool little bar area, great brick wall thingy over and around the range. However, what you don’t see is that on the other side of that brick wall is our table and 4 great windows heading out to the side porch. This massive brick wall completely blocked not only natural light but also the table from the rest of the house. So we sit down to eat at the table. We’re engaged in conversation and I have to get up to grab something from the kitchen. Conversation has officially stopped until I return b/c I literally have to enter a different room and completely disconnect. Bad design and bad plan. Totally impractical.

As Amanda and I are really being intentional about building more relationships in our life and as my kids get older I am desiring more and more what I will refer to as “Intentional Spontaneous Interactions”.

This was highlighted for us when we visited my Mom this summer. She has this little bar area in her kitchen and she always has an iron skillet or frying pan on the stovetop ready to make anyone anything at a moments notice. She also always has something pre-made to eat so you can munch on that while she’s cooking, frying, baking something else for you to eat. If you visit my Mom, you will stand in the kitchen and then magically you will notice food on the bar. You will start to eat as you talk and catch up. Then she will start making some more food. She’ll ask if you want something to eat (keep in mind she’s already making it) You figure why not? The conversation is nice and the food I’m already eating is good and the food she’s making smells great.

Before you know it you’ll have spent 2 hours talking and enjoying eachother. It seems easy and spontaneous. But it isn’t. Well, it IS easy but that is b/c she is intentional. She has created these intentional moments that feel spontaneous. It’s quite an art. Amanda and I want that. B/c we want that, we completely gutted our kitchen and spent 13 weeks living out of a dorm fridge and microwave on our back porch.

Thanks to our good friend Chris Veal at Whitestone Enterprises and the awesome job he did, It’s finally done. Here it is. . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We now just have one massive, well, I guess massive is relative, it’s big to us, kitchen / eating area, living room. It’s completely open, we get light in from those windows and you see that island with the walnut top? It is now our gathering place to intentionally spontaneously interact. My little kids are sitting on it doing puzzles most nights when I get home. We get drinks, make something to eat and just kind of end up standing around it and catching up.

I have a feeling this is where some of the best conversations are going to take place. We’re looking forward to that. I’m glad we did this.

This is somewhat of a long post so you can stop reading now, however, for you brave souls who want to continue, read this excerpt from Steve Jobs book. I’m a HUGE fan of this book and love this idea from it. Seems he, too was a fan of these interactions. He called them unplanned collaborations. I love this. Have a great weekend.

Despite being a denizen of the digital world, or maybe because he knew all to well its isolating potential, Jobs was a strong believer in face-to-face meetings. “There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat,” he said. “That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘Wow,’ and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas.” So he had the Pixar building designed to promote encounters and unplanned collaborations. “If a building doesn’t encourage that, you’ll lose a lot of innovation and the magic that’s sparked by serendipity,” he said. “So we designed the building to make people get out of their offices and mingle in the central atrium with people they might not otherwise see.” The front doors and main stairs and corridors all led to the atrium, the café and the mailboxes were there, the conference rooms had windows that looked out onto it, and the six-hundred-seat theater and two smaller screening rooms all spilled into it. “Steve’s theory worked from day one,” Lasseter recalled. “I kept running into people I hadn’t seen for months. I’ve never seen a building that promoted collaboration and creativity as well as this one.”

Isaacson, Walter (2011-10-24). Steve Jobs (Kindle Locations 7452-7461). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.