Home Kitchen

Who needs a kitchen more?

Here we are in the 21st century and cars drive themselves, refrigerators automatically order food on the interweb, and most shocking of all, Millennials have become the biggest buyers of new homes! You could have cheated on me. (See the Millennial Song link below.)

And, as we move inexorably into the future, technology is advancing faster than ever before in human history. A perfect example of this is Virtual Reality. It has made tremendous strides in how real the virtual word that is created fools us into thinking it is the real world. (Read snow crash by Neal Stephenson, written in 1992, to glimpse the future). My nephew works for Microsoft in the virtual reality department and he lets me try out the latest hardware/software. In one show I felt like he was on top of Mount Everest and in another I was at the bottom of the ocean, picking clams. I really thought he was there!

So how does this directly affect our future, or more specifically mine? The days of the modern kitchen are coming to an end. Since Eve, with the help of Adams, made a mistake in the garden, they had to start preparing food for their family by themselves. Hence the need for a functioning kitchen. But imagine Adam or Eve putting on their VR (Virtual Reality) headsets and calling whatever restaurant they craved. Open the virtual menu, tell the avatar (fake [virtual] person) waiter what they would like, and they pay with a Bitcoin!

A few minutes later, a self-driving car would pull up to his house with his virtual dinner (probably just some porridge) and a robot would ring the doorbell. They would no doubt think it was by far the best meal they had ever had. Virtual Reality 1; kitchen 0.

Fortunately, it’s not as gloomy as it seems. Although we’re all getting older as you read this, we’re not quite there yet (despite the fact that I’m using Word 2003 in a Virtual Windows XP program, which resides somewhere inside my Windows 10 computer). Fortunately we still need kitchens and we will always need bathrooms (I think). Our best bet is to slowly try to adapt to new technology. Talk to Siri and Alexa, which are great ways to start, and you’ll still be able to sit in your kitchen to eat, do homework, have coffee, and read the paper (while they still exist).

I imagine that kitchens as we know them will be around for at least another twenty or thirty years, so if you’re thinking of remodeling, don’t wait until they’re obsolete. Remodel now so you can enjoy it for years to come. And, if you want to get ahead of things, fall is the best time to start planning and getting projects underway.

Hurricanes, nuclear threats, and global warming may come and go, but for now, nothing makes you feel better than a new or remodeled kitchen or bathroom. Even if you have to pay the deposit in Bitcoins!

(Millenial song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZthGh758pYY)