Compiled and edited from Cohousing-L posts 1998-99 by Rose and Rowan Christe-French

Waitakere Eco-Neighbourhood Cohousing Project.

Common House Theory Mac Thomson

There are often parts of common houses that are way underutilized.

A. Provide a common RESOURCE that a person doesn't have private access to (e.g., laundry) AND/OR

B. Accomodate a GROUP ACTIVITY (e.g., eating dinner together in common dining room).

So if a person doesn't need to use a specific common resource for an activity and if the activity isn't a group activity, it won't happen much in a common facility. That's why I think that reading rooms and meditation rooms in common houses don't tend to get used much. Those tend to be private activites that don't require a special common resource.

Re: Common House Theory "Rob Sandelin"

The spaces you create will determine the success of their use. For example, a reading room with a cosy fireplace and couches, a nice rug, the daily newpapers laying about on coffee tables, with homey lighting will attract use. An empty room, with a bunch of old college text books on a shelf, with poor lighting and folding chairs will not attract much use.

Influence of noise level . The noise of 15 kids in active play can influence the use of the surrounding spaces.

Common House Comments: Katie McCamant

· · Make it so beautiful you cant resist going - more beautiful than the private houses, a place to take visitors.

Common House Design & Curing CH Ails Mary Kraus

A good model to is the quintessential ski lodge. Effective design principles that make a very large great room, w/exposed rafters or ceiling, and often a very large fire place, seem intimate and cozy.

*It's most important to have a space in the CH where an individual would feel comfortable being alone.

*If possible, have mail picked up in the CH.

*Put laundry room on the 1st floor.

*People should be able to see people in the CH from outside.

*Have areas you can close off for smaller groups.

*Make the LR/sitting room VERY COZY.

*Coziness in general is a very important attribute.

Materials, colors. Lower elements make a large room feel cozier e.g. wainscotting or painting walls to head height.

*It's more important to focus on the QUALITY of a space than the quantity of space. In other words, smaller is better than larger if the smaller space is done well.

Cast off furniture and decorations. This doesn't make for an inviting space.

*Avoid creating a "tunnel" effect from placing a LR, sitting room or dining room directly down a long hallway from the door to the outside. This is a principle of Feng Shui

*If you have a square great room, break it up into smaller rectangles by furniture arrangements and varying the ceiling height.

*Use low lighting esp. at dinner. Consider using candles.

*Serve dinner family style where food is brought to the tables as opposed to cafeterial style. This will reduce the number of times people get up and down during a meal.

*Close off the kid's room --

*Use smaller tables for dining. 3'x5' rectangle that comfortably seats four w/ room for serving platters.

COMMON HOUSE Katie McCamant

· Must be obvious where to go

· Cubby holes for internal and external mail

· Place to hang coats

· Lots of notice boards

Rob Sandelin about Sharingwood WA

Common House of about 2200 square feet in phase 1.dining area including kitchen and pantry of about 1700. Our pantry is just a set of shelves.

how would you rate the size of your Common House? (a) seriously undersized, (b) somewhat undersized, (c) about right, (d) somewhat oversized, (e) seriously oversized.

About right currently, although the kids space is seriously undersized and this impacts the rest of the space due to their activity levels. When its just adults, the commonhouse is a nice size - even on the largish side for 22-25 adults who come to dinners, when the kids and running around it somehow shrinks and seems much smaller. I particularly like our modest ceiling height (14 feet at the peak). This makes the building much more lodge like and less train station-like than some commonhouses I have been in.We built the one room approach, the great room. future remodel we will add some additional rooms. Our kids space 12 by 14 is much too small to contain the 20 kids that show up for dinner I would change our scullery and go with a above counter dishwasher setup, the under the counter setup SUCKS. could use some additional space to store community purchase items

To keep our costs down we built most of the commonhouse ourselves. cosy, well used and costs us $138,000 to build.

Our second phase programming don't need libraries, offices, laundry rooms, etc. since we all have our own nice custom homes which have those things.What we do need is space to gather and party in, eat meals, hold meetings, indoor recreate.

Also, remember that the larger the building you create, the more work you have to do cleaning it.

Checklist for common house donations Joani Blank

All items that might be donated or loaned to the common house

We expect to circulate this list again close to move-in time for people to add stuff they didn't know they had until they started packing

For each item, we ask that the household be as specific as possible about what they expect to donate, loan or make available using the following column headings:

NUMBER AND DESCRIPTION INCLUDING SIZE IF RELEVANT

DONATE?

LOAN?

AVAILABLE? and we include these notes:

A "loaned" item can be retrieved by the owner(s) at any time; a "donated" item is considered non-retrievable. There are no tax deductions on donated items and no replacement or reimbursement for loaned items if damaged. The last category, "available," refers to items that will be kept at individuals' homes but are available for use by others.

Aprons

Art equipment

Art instruction books

Art supplies

Art supplies for kids

Audio cassettes, CDs, LPs

Backpacking equipment

Bicycles/tricycles

Blender

Board games

Books

Bookshelves

Breadmaker

Bulletin board

Carpet sweeper

Casseroles

Coffee maker

Coffee table

Cook books

Cooler

Copy Machine

Couch

Darkroom equipment

Darkroom supplies

Dining table

Dining table chairs

Dishes

Dishtowels

Dryer

Eating utensils

End table

Exercise equipment

Fax Machine

Floor Lamps

Folding table

Food Preperation utensils

Food processor

Frying pans

Gardening books

Gardening supplies

Gardening tools

Glassware

Golf Clubs

Ironing board, iron

Kettle

Kids' books

Kids' games

Kitchen stools

Ladder

Large Rugs

Magazine subscriptions

Microwave Oven

Mixing Bowls

Movie camera

Movie projector

Other camping equipment

Other furniture or appliances

Other kids' sport equipment

Other Sports equipment

Pie and cake pans

Pitchers

Pot holders

Potted Plants

Pressure cooker

Prints/Photographs/paintings

Rice cooker

Roasting pan

Salad Bowls

Sauce pans

Scanner

Screen

Sculpture

Serving cart

Serving utensils

Sitting room chairs

Skates (ice or roller)

Skis

Sleeping Bag(s)

Slide Projector

Soup kettle

Sports equipment

Step stool

Stereo/CD player/changer

Still camera

Storage containers

Table Lamps

Television

Tennis rackets

Tent

Things we haven't thought of

Toys

Tripod

Vacuum cleaner

Vases, flower containers

VCR

Veggie steamer

Video camera

Video cassettes

waffle iron

Wall hangings

Washing machine

Window covering

Wok

Workbench

Workshop supplies

Workshop tools

Katie

· Tend to be a high priority, but think about how youd use it. Could be either a Romp room - a place to run around after dinner, build forts, jump on pillows, unsupervised, OK to leave untidy; or a· Childcare room for supervised day care, lots of equipment, kept very tidy. One room cant be both things. · Acoustically separated from the dining room or people wont hang about after dinner. Maybe glass doors to see whats going on but keep the noise down.

Teen Room:Katie

· Highly used spaces, design in from the start even if no teenagers yet.

· Soundproofed!

Teen rooms are notoriously underused, but if you want them to feel like a part of the community, why not give them a room? You can take it away later if they don't use it [ Stevenson / Bitner ]

Community Office: Katie

· Not necessary for the running of the community - a filing cabinet is all you need.

· Sharing office equipment can be useful.

Library Joanie Blank

The only common house library I have visited that has any hope of being used, other than as a place for people to dump books they don't want any more at Pioneer Valley systematize the shelving of books there, and set up a system for their use.

Workshop Patty Mara

The common workshop. Tierra Nueva is slated to be built "later". We have some new members who are not thrilled using our potential profit from the project to build a workshop, or are not in agreement about the consensed location. Process, process, process. Sigh.

Lynn at RoseWind

We have an area set aside in which we have permission from the City to have Home Occupation type offices or studios, non retail, as well as the potential for a hobby shop or such. We haven't a clue how to legally arrange for who pays for building offices and such, and who owns them or leases them or what. A common shop would presumably be built in common. There are those who would like to use a shop for personal business woodworking, but most of us are leary of the noise, and hoping it will be more a hobby and repair thing.

Are common meals really so important?

From: Joani Blank (Doyle House San Francisco)

The "glue" that holds the community together.

Robyn Williams, Pinakarri Community, Fremantle, Western Australia

Throughout the 7 1/2 years of planning, designing, conflicting, evolving, building, etc coming together to share meals has provided the social glue. We've crammed into tiny flats, spread out in bigger bungalows, picnicked by the river in summer and huddled around fire circles in winter.

Relaxed social interaction, people sharing their stories, dreams and disappointments Celebrations, songs Announcements of pregnancies, couplings and uncouplings, life changes. Undivided attention as the children perform yet another spontaneous play or concert Light-hearted comments made about spiky community or personal topics Deep and meaningful conversations Tete-a-tetes to clear the air Shoulders being cried on Impromptu meetings Howling good times

We each forfeited $'s to be spent on our individual homes towards the building of our common house. I'm not into absolutes but a place(s) to gather is pretty important.

Joani Blank

Family-style serving is preferable negative is the specter of 40 people waiting in line

Hybrids acceptable. bread, salad, side dishes, veggies, butter, condiments, on each table and just the main dish on a buffet table.

Stevenson/Bitner

We have people walk down both sides of the table, and it moves pretty fast. for large groups, it's too hard to do family style, elements of family style, like bread and butter on the tables,

Common house tables Joani Blank

Not a good plan to have a table lamp on a dining room table! Same reason not to have flowers. It seriously compromises everyone to be able to see everyone else at the table, no matter what the size of the table.

Danish communities ( many north american ones who paid attention to their cohousing professionals) have lights coming from the ceiling that hang (or can hang) pretty low over the tables. want them really low, very cozy, you'll want to have a way of pulling them up out of the way for when you want to clear tables away for that dance you'll be having.

Common House Tables Joani Blank

1. Definitely start with new your own extra odds and ends to see what feels good.. Even if you can afford to get all new tables at the beginning, proceed with caution; that is, unless the perfect table has been

designed before you get to the point of buying new ones.

2. Round tables are definitely a no-no in my book. a lot of room have space behind each chair for getting in and out,

just like you have to have 24 feet of backup space behind every 20 foot deep parking place

3. Cohousing dining tables that will seat four, six or eight designed so that as many as four conversations could conceivably be happening at once, but so everyone is close enough so that one or two conversations happening at once feels fine as well, and doesn't contribute substantially to the overall noise in your common dining area.

I think the perfect table will be no wider than 34 inches wide and 60 inches long, but I want it to have curved flaps at the short ends that can be raised to make a curved end at one or both ends of the table. Then up to four more people can sit at the ends as long as the table has either pedestal legs (2) or trestle table legs so that you can pull chairs in

anywhere around it flexibility, meaning you can pull in a high chair, or even an extra chair or two when a person not seated with you wants to bring his/her coffee or desert over to your table at the end of the meal, or so that one extra person doesn't have to sit by him/herself at dinner.

Custom made tables would be very expensive,

Common House Tables_ ideal design Lynn Nadeau

The ideal tables also fold up, reduce in size for when a meeting, dance or floor scrubbing is happening. Maybe with locking or retractable casters, to further ease rearrangements and storage.

Many school dining areas are also used as "multi-purpose" areas and have furniture that easily folds up and rolls aside. School-furniture catalogs perhaps. One goal might be to come up with a design which, rather than being patented, manufactured, and sold, would be plans which could be available at a modest cost for local groups to manifest in their own ways removable plug,

Common House laundry Rebecca

Laundry in the basement is terrible. Pioneer Valley 's ended up in the basement by default, and it is truly not somewhere that you would want to go if you didn't have to. I wish we had designed an upstairs room with couches, small tables, bookcases, magazines, games, a telephone, and washing machines. It feels like we are missing a great opportunity to socialize in the commonhouse, which we do not use very much for socializing except at meals. I myself have a washer in my house because I have no desire to haul my clothes all that way to be alone in a dark basement room with a lot of abandoned clothes! (To be fair--some people here do use the laundry room--maybe they like it.)

Denise Meier (Two acre wood Northern California)

Our laundry room is extra large and we have put tables and cupboards on the far side to make a crafts room/laundry room combo. It looks out on the kids room, the outdoor play area, and the multi-purpose room.. Appealing

Common house laundry Pablo Halpern

Iit is not necessary for a basement room to be unpleasant. The usual problem is that it is too "basement-like": concrete floor, cinder-block walls, dim flourecent lights, exposed ceiling studs, etc

.Some things to consider:

1. Separate the laundry area from the rest of the basement with real walls.

2. Use vinyl or lino floring to make attractive and easier on the feet

3. Use good-quality lighting (no flickery flourecents).

4. Make sure there is somewhere to sit.

5. A telephone might be nice. As would a radio/tape player.

6. Make the laundary convenient to the stairs, so that someone could throw in a load and then pop upstairs to eat, socialize, or relax in the lounge/living room.

7. If the basement tends to be damp, put in a dehumidifier.

Common House Laundry Joani Blank

It should be on the same floor as your dining room .The laundry should be light and pleasant but more important is the idea of getting folks to sort and fold laundry in the dining room! IMHO, CH laundries would do well to have little or no counter/folding space. Not only does that encourage folks to socialize while folding laundry, but it helps keep your dining room from feeling institutional to have a couple of people folding laundry on the dining room tables. some cute signage or snacks always available in the common house, could encourage use of dining area for said folding.

Cheryl Charis-Graves (Harmony Village Colorado)

Our laundry is in the basement, in a small, windowless area. It is the most frequently used part of the common house and is certainly the least aesthetic. If it were in a sunlit porch where w e could watch the kids playing and look up through the common green, that would be a vast improvement over what it is now. claustrophic I hate doing laundry). But I like socializing, so if the two could be combined . . . ? I'd probably need less underwear!

John Abrams ( Island Co Housing Inc Marthar's Vinyard)

We thought it would get better use, be more pleasant, be more accessible, and be more convenient if the laundry > were on the main floor. But now we're grappling with the issue of devoting such prime real estate, which is limited, to the laundry area when there are so many other competing needs.

Patty Mara Gourley

Tierra Nueva's (central California coast) laundry room is one the first floor just off a sunlit porch/deck directly to the side of the kids' outdoor play area. We chose bright turquoise and magenta formica for the cupboards and counter, and have room for two washers and one dryer. Clotheslines are outside, location to be determined soon.

Our belief is that laundry should be incorporated into the everyday patterns of life in the common house. It is close to the kitchen and has a large sliding door to the sunporch.

I am one of a small circle of folk in our community who is willing to shed personal washers and dryers and use the common house laundry room exclusively. I look forward to the experiment, but I must admit that as a mother of teens it will be easier for me than for the families with babies and toddlers.

Our community clotheslines have yet to be sited...and we've had some interesting discussions on who wants to look out and see someone else's laundry blowing in the breeze. To me it is art, a moving domestic sculpture. But then, I enoy finding art in the ordinary and simple. To others it feels like an eyesore. I'll let you know how we resolve this one too.

Pam Silva Southside Park CA

Main floor sure gets my vote..Our laundry room is off the main porch by the mailboxes, off the main hallway where we can read all the posted stuff and 20 feet from the kids room so that toddlers can play while someone is folding laundry. When I am in the sitting room, I can hear the washers, so I always close the door to the laundry room when I enter the Common House. We only have 3 washers and 3 dryers, so the noise is not a bid deal at all. Half of our families have washers/dryers in their own homes and it is quite noticable that those of us who use the common laundry room know more about each others daily lives, what is going on, etc, due to easy interaction.

Our clotheslines are just about 30 feet from the laundry room, by a bike shed, landscape shed and gardens. This also really enhances casual interaction.

You know, it ain't easy living with a bunch of other folks. Peoples feelings get hurt, little things can grow. Every little daily interaction really REALLY helps people get over their little hurts and see their neighbors for the regular everyday flawed but loveable folks they really are. I never though of putting the laundry in the basement - because we don't have basements - but I don't think it is a good idea.

Solar Drying Kevin Wolf

Hi all What about that wonderful invention, the solar dryer?

At N Street, it is the clothes lines that brings people together, to hang and takedown their clothes. Our washers and dryers are in two different garages which share the same clothesline area. Here, most everybody sorts their clothes at home. We have thought of centralizing the laundry in the common house but then where would people hang dry their clothes, close by?

Laundry: Katie

· 2 washers and 1 or 2 dryers is enough for 30 households if you have a system where you move other peoples stuff through. People leave instructions with their washing, people load up the next load after they take theirs out.

· Great excuse for getting people to use the common house. Put it in right at the start or people will get their own machines and communal laundry will never get going.

Design of kitchen area Stephanie Fassnacht

We are trying to get a handle on the volume of food that makes its way through the kitchen and auxilliary areas. how much food storage space we are going to need. This would depend on how many people are served per week,

and how often shopping gets done. What are these figures for your group? Does your community shop monthly? weekly? on a per-meal basis? some of each? and in what percentage of total consumption How much food does this turn out to be at one time (e.g. how many grocery bags, gallons, pounds?). How does this stuff get

handled, e.g. is it all stored in the kitchen area? or is there a hierarchy of storage locations with stuff being brought to the kitchen in smaller batches? How big are these areas? How big is your refrigerator and is this the right size?

design of kitchen area "David M. Dobkin" (Berkeley)

We have someone whose chore is to shop for staples. A staple list is up in the kitchen and as we run out, or near to out, items are added. I don't know how often this person shops but the system has workled for four years. Each set of cooks is responsible for that meal. They buy whatever it is they need to cook for that meal. We have community meals on Tue, Fri., Sun. We do keep a comon kitchen recepe book with some fondly recalled meals for others to attempt. How does this stuff get handled, e.g. is it all stored in the kitchen area?

What is stored in kitchen and pantry-Is there a hierarchy of storage locations with stuff being brought to the kitchen in smaller batches? How big are these areas? Do not recommend a commercial fridge. Noisy, energy mongers, space consuming beasts. If you design a kitchen to meet the needs of a household, it'll meet the needs ofa the community. just needs to be bigger. Layoput principles are the same for efficiency.

Kitchen topic "Rob Sandelin"

Open to the rest of the building, don't cut off the cooks from everybody. Noise from the kitchen is not a factor.

Put in as much counter space as you can get. You will always want more than you have. This is especially true around the dishwasher.Make it easy to find things. Keep your tools visible, don't hide them in drawers or behind cupboards. Lots of people will use your kitchen and they won't know where things are.Having lots of electrical outlets is useful for things like radios, toasters, quisenarts, blenders, waffle irons, etc. etc. etc. Having more then one circuit allows you to run a couple of things at once without blowing a fuse. 2-3 people working together and design your space so they can easily talk with each other and socialize. cooking is a social experience.

An irregular polygon can make a much more usable kitchen island than a rectangle.

Kitchen: Katie

· DONT BUILD A COMMERCIAL KITCHEN! Regulations will require much more stuff and it will cost many $$thousands more.

· Homey feel but still has capacity to cook for large groups.

· Comfortable, because the cook may spend many hours there at a time.

· Connected to dining room. You want to be able to talk to people but with them not in your way, not in the kitchen but around and able to chop carrots while they chat.

· Everything out in the open so people can find stuff, easily accessible. People may cook here only once a month and will forget where stuff lives.

· Preparation sink

· Deep dishwasher sink by dishwasher; sprayer hose is good

· 6 burner hobs

· Double oven. Key things to spend money on are the stove and the dishwasher.

· Domestic size fridge. Only store food for the next meal, and condiments. Move out leftovers as soon as possible - at Doyle St theyre up for grabs free after midnight - up until then you have to pay. A commercial fridge is very noisy, uses a lot of power and generates a lot of heat, therefore it needs its own space away from cool food storage and the dining room.

· Have kitchen open to the dining room, but with a leaning bar between so there can be interaction with the cooks. Make sure the acoustics are good in the dining room and the noise from the kitchen should be OK. Maybe have the ability to close it off if you want to.

· Condiment bar, tea, coffee, sink, sauces, etc. available to the dining room.

· Store dishes so you can get them without going into the kitchen. Dish carts are useful - you can load the dishes straight from the dishwasher onto the dishcart and from there to the tables.

· Serve food family style in pots on the tables, one salad for each table, etc. Make it that everyone comes at once and eats together.

· Dont call it a commercial kitchen. Were not selling stuff, its just for the use of residents.

· Grills arent used much - its hard to do stuff on a large scale on a grill.

· Avoid stainless steel because very noisy.

· Dont serve cafetaria style.

Re: Connection between kitchen and dining room Roman Bitner

It's a hard job cooking for fifty people and you really don't want to be isolated. Get rid of the windows. the noise in the dining room around and make it louder. Just don't skimp on the noise control in the dining room itself. Oh, also get a really quiet dishwasher.

RE: Connection between kitchen and dining room "Rob Sandelin"

The dishwasher only runs after dinner, and only for 60-90 second bursts covering a total of 12-15 minutes so its noise is not a big deal.At Sharingwood our kitchen is not only totally open, its on the main path from door to dining to encourage people to drop in, sample whats happening, check in with the cooks, help with last minute prep if needed. I would encourage you to open that space up as much as you can ;, Isolating the cooks from the rest of the scene would be, in my experience, a bad social design..

Common house kitchens JoycePlaths

At Marsh Commons in Arcata, Ca. We built a large cool box pantry that allows us to keep most things cool without refrigeration, thus making it possible to purchase a much smaller refrigerator. A cool box is an insulated cupboard or room with low, cool air venting from the north and warm air venting through the roof. It works great.

Common house refridgerators JoycePlath

At Marsh Commons in Arcata, Ca. we made our pantry into a giant cool box be running a duct to the north from the floor of the coolbox in the crawl space under the building and venting through the roof, the room is well insulated. We can keep all sorts of stuff the is usually found in a refridgerator in there including juice, wine, vegetables, and condiments. This arrangement has resulted in the need for a much smaller refridgerator.

Common house stoves John Poteet (Valley Oaks Village, Chicago)

There are home grade, commercial grade and hybrid stoves. The home grade stove isthe cheapest and most attractive. The commercial grade stoves are more expensive and require a large hood but significantly more powerful. The hybrid stoves have the power of the commercial stoves but have features which make them more comfortable to use; they are the most expensive.

Home stoves are fairly cheap, $600 for a good model, and attractive. Unfortunately they just do not have the power to cook large quantities of ingredients quickly. You will not be able to heat pots of water for spaghetti or vegetables to boiling in any reasonable length of time and they will not have the heat available to saute 15 onions. Forget stir

frying for more than 2 people at a time

. Commercial stoves can be had used in good condition for as little as $1200. The stove we have in Chico has four burners, two ovens and a 30 inch grill; cost $1500 used. I can boil ten gallons of water on each of the burners and still keep sauces or side dishes warm on the grill. The inch thick grill can fry fajitas for 40 people in one batch or fry twenty vegiburgers. It does require a huge, expensive, noisy fan but large amounts of food cooking can create significant smoke, grease and humidity. These vapors have to go somewhere and your standard household hood fan wont do the job. It also needs considerable clearance on all sides as it gets quite hot. You also need to light the burners by hand as the pilots will use lots of gas and warm things up a bit. Its a black and ugly beast.

The hybrid stove. These have the best of both worlds. Familiar controls, electronic ignition, insulation and lots of space and power. I believe they still require a large hood fan as that is a function of the heat output of the stove. Viking makes the only models that are affordable and they start at about $4000. These are very, very nice to

use and are the preferred home stove of serious and/or wealthy gourmets.

Our dishwasher uses the same space as a home model but does a load in 3 minutes. Our refrigerator is a large, double door, restaurant model. It is a bit noisy but every inch of the space will be full by Saturday noon to prepare for our Sunday community thanksgiving. This fridge is large enough that we can and do put whole cases of produce straight in without repacking with room to spare.

A simple test would be to find a cafe with about the same seating as you are planning to have in your common house. Look at the equipment there. Those cooks are feeding people in three or four seatings when

they fill their room. You will feed everyone in one seating. Common house cooking is quite different from cooking at home and to confuse the two is to invite disaster. Yes these things are not pretty but the reason you are in the kitchen in the first place is to prepare tasty, nutritious food. White enamel will never make up for soggy stir fry or

waterlogged spaghetti.You will end up spending about twenty thousand dollars on your common house kitchen

Re: Creating a cohousing kitchen Joani Blank

Widely recommended that you start out with everyone's extras and don't buy any stuff before you've lived with the hand-me-downs for a while.Appoint a committee of 2 or 3 people to sort through people's contributions to eliminate the least functional 3 of the 4 blenders you'll get, and the best of the two old vacuum cleaners. In the Old Oakland group, about a year before move-in , we filled in a check-list of stuff we'd like to donate to the common house and stuff we'dbe willing to loan. We will repeat this exercise close to move-in to update our info as we come across things we hadn't thought of before. Several months after move in our small group (9 households at that time) bought one large stainless steel pot (we already had one) and a set of sharp knives.

RE: design of kitchen area Deborah Behrens

Some of our problems were necessitated by budget constraints, some of them were miscommunication amongst us, the subcontractors, the builder, and the architects. Some were just lack of foresight on our part. We only do 2 meals a week, so often they're potlucks. We shop for each chef prepared meal, and only keep staples on hand - but not generally bulk stuff like rice or flour. If we have leftovers, we sell them after the meal. Our staples include napkins, condiments, spices, dish soap, plastic wrap, garbage bags, etc. We do keep a supply of various soda pops in the refrigerator for sale at 25 cents each. Meal prices are usually $2.50 residents, $1? kids, $4 guests. Cooks have a $2.25 /person budget, the other 25 cents goes towards staples and breakage. If an expensive meal has been planned, they can raise the prices, but some marvelous meals have been prepared within budget. We occasionally do vegetarian meals, but not often.

Our pantry has some problems. They put in wire shelves, which would be ok, except that they're not adjustable. They left room for us to put a freezer in there, but didn't include a vent fan in the design. There's no separate janitorial closet, so our cleaning supplies such as mops, etc, are stored in there too (not very sanitary IMO).

The dishwasher - the choices for commercial included either chemical or heat boost sterilization. We chose heat boost as being more environmentally friendly. There was no place in the cabinet next to the dishwasher that the heat boost piece would fit. In order to keep it within required 3? feet of the dishwasher, we had to go thru the floor and install it near the ceiling of the laundry room underneath. It's very heavy, needed very secure installation. You can't dishwash some plastics with the heat boost tho - they soften/melt.

The placement of our dishwasher / cleanup area is right out in the open, between the kitchen and dining room. Very noisy, can't do cleanup when meetings going on. A walled in area with a pass-thru would have been quieter. We still haven't gotten the washup organized well. some communities have well positioned soaking tubs that diners put their

plates, etc in after a meal. Our dirty dishes just go willy nilly somewhere on the counters around the sink/dishwasher. Allow space near the dishwasher for spare racks.

Recycling, trash - make sure to allow space for a number of wastebaskets in the kitchen, and also in the dining room. Shouldn't need to go into the kitchen just to throw away a paper napkin or pop can.

Cabinet doors make the kitchen look neater, but at the expense of difficulty finding things. Put labels on drawers, etc so things generally end up in the same location most of the time.

Corelle, 60 plates, in a couple different sizes, 60 bowls in a couple different sizes, etc, can take up LOTS of room.

So can the glasses, especially if you've more than one size. (small glasses or coffee cups as icecream bowls, because we don'thave small bowls yet.) Portable bins/boxes to put the flatware in arehandy. Dishwasher safe bins, that you could stand the flatware inwould be even better. Stored very near the dishwasher and yet accessible to the dining room would be great.

Pay attention to little things like salt/pepper shakers - but functional too. Our water pitchers and some serving bowls and utensils are not dishwasher safe. How many of what size casseroles can you fit in the oven?

Refrigerator - donated one. We have someone delegated as 'Rot Patrol' to make sure nothing stays in the fridge too long and gets too disgusting.

Tables, chairs - mismatched is ok to start with, even if it looks funky. Replace the chairs first - table cloths will

cover a multitude of sins on the tables. You may need to go with more than one style of chair to suit everyone's comfort level. To get some non stackable, but make sure the majority are stackable or foldable. storage closet big enough for some table/chair storage, on the same floor as the dining room would be handy too.

Lighting - Track lighting is great for flexibility . Dimmers

Outlets - lots. set up buffet service at table height if the buffet might be against a wall; in the middle

of the floor if the serving table might be out in the open. ( wet mopping might not be good for a floor outlet)

Holidays - If you're planning on decorating with lights and such, you might want extra outlets at unusual places to accomodate them.

Stove - 4 burner gas with center griddle, high-end residential stove. can't keep to the desired temp -much longer Sometimes, in a panic, we've had to ferry stuff back to home ovens.

2. Oven doesn't have much more capacity than a regular home oven -

4. Griddle is a pain to clean

5. Takes a long time for water to boil in big pots.

6. Don't hang your utensils behind the stove - the heat vents up the back and they'll get real hot.

7. The vent fan is soooo noisy.

1. Separate out the stove top from the oven.

2. Get two (stacked?) ovens, residential ok, if reliable brand and fairly high BTU capacity.

3. You'll be able to fit more in two residential ovens than one And you'll have more flexibility for

different temperature needs. They probably won't get used that much that you'll need extra insulation. Or you could put insulation in the walls next to the ovens. Or one oven and a microwave.

4. A four or six burner residential stove top (high BTU). Only get a griddle if it's easy to clean around / under / behind it. Make sure the burners are close enough to straddle a large roaster or other big pot over two burners. Easier to boil huge quantities of water for spaghetti or soup, etc. You can store big pots and pans under it.

5. Put a durable countertop next to the stove - something you can put hot pots and pans directly on - steel, butcher block, etc

6. Don't get commercial equipment unless you want to deal with the code requirements of a commercial kitchen - venting, fire suppression, etc. High-end residential, and assuring them that we don't keep our stove/oven going all day - we generally cook twice a week at the most. not to zone us commercial. Our vent/fan is VERY NOISY. We hardly ever turn it on because of the noise.

7. Big double boiler pots would be very handy for cooking stuff that you

don't want to burn at the bottom - spag sauce, etc. Not cheap tho.

8. For BBQ just have the neighbors bring their gas grills over, and use

them outside. - a lot easier to clean than the stove broiler.

Kitchen Equipment Stevenson/Bitner

We feed 30-50 people per meal. We have two stoves, and one dishwasher, and are putting in another dishwasher and deeper sinks next week. Yes, you will absolutely use more than four burners at one time, and often enough to have two stoves. For that matter, we use both ovens at many meals as well, so it's a must. I don't know that make and model are as important as the features. We occasionally use the griddle, but could live without it. A wok burner takes up lots of space, and you'll need to have more than one wok going at a time anyway, so get the highest BTU stove you can get your hands on, and use the woks on the stove. Don't get a commercial stove; they get way too hot for safety. There are some new ones that have the safety features of a home unit and the btus of a commercial unit. I'd recommend looking into them. Also, you will be using big pots, and residential stoves have burners close together. We can't use all the burners on the stove at the same time, so the savings in getting residential stoves was a false economy.

You'll get lots of conflicting advice on dishwashers. There are basically two camps, commercial or residential. Commercial dishwashers are counter-level and are finished with a cycle in a few minutes. People say they love them, but I don't. You need a stainless steel countertop, and they are VERY noisy. Also, that's wasted counter space. On the other hand, residential washers take a long time. We opted for residential, but I think that one depends very much on your individual kitchen and people's needs.

My opinion on warming drawers, convection ovens, and grills is that these are frills, and will probably be taken out of the plans when the budget gets tight anyway!

Oh no, it's that Kitchen topic again! Mela Silva

At Southside, we bought Big Professional Pots, and many of us can't lift them when they are full of food! Also, Big Professional Pots don't do well on smaller BTU stove tops, so pasta turns to a gluey mess, ect .So many meals are cooked in 2 or 3 seperate ways (mild or spicy, vegetarian, kid friendly) which means that medium size pots (what we call our big pots at home) are the most desirable.

The folks who really know how to set up a kitchen for an ever changing mass of VOLUNTEER COOKS are church folks! Go see how a few church kitchens are set up, and talk to people who use them. Everything is well labeled, making it much easier to find and to put away. Instructions for using the food processor and dishwasher are posted where they are easy to see, etc. It is great to get some input from a pro, but we are really trying to cook in such a way that we include everyone. We have survived many a bad meal at McD or Dennys. We will survive many a bad meal at cohousing - but at least we will be sharing the table with friends.

Rob Sandelin about Sharingwood WA

. If you are up and running, how would you rate your dining area? (a) > seriously undersized, (b) somewhat undersized, (c) about right, > (d) somewhat oversized, (e) seriously oversized.?

Our space, 22 X 40 is about right for 40-50 people dining. We have 6 tables and could easily add a couple of more. We usually get 30 people or so at dinners so the space is not maximized yet. Also one corner of this space is taken up by some couches and such. The kitchen, food service (a table) and the dining all flow into one another and I like this design. The cooks are very much part of the flow, and not cut off from the rest of us. It encourages people wandering in and engaging the cooks, it also makes it really easy to help out. There are a couple of people who regularly show up about 20 minutes before dinner and see if they can help out doing small tasks, or just conversing. Its a great community builder.We built the one room approach, the great room. future remodel we will add some additional rooms. Our kids space 12 by 14 is much too small to contain the 20 kids that show up for dinner I would change our scullery and go with a above counter dishwasher setup, the under the counter setup SUCKS. could use some additional space to store community purchase items.

The biggest change I would make would be to set up behavioral expectations for kids at the dining hour so the noise level was reasonable.

Dining: Katie

· Create a space where people really want to hang out. Make it comfortable and attractive.

· Acoustics are really important! Talk to an acoustic engineer, leave money in the budget. Have acoustically-designed ceiling.

· Use lighting to create a more intimate space. Low lighting over tables can have pull cords to raise the lights up for dances and parties.

· Use family-size tables to give it a more family feeling. Square tables are easier to combine if required, round tables are less flexible. Have comfortable chairs.

· High ceilings can give it the sense of a great hall, but watch the acoustics. Avoid columns in the middle which get in the way of clear space.

· The dining room is almost always the largest room in the common house, therefore good for passive solar, etc.

Sitting Room: Katie

· The place where people naturally congregate before or after dinner. Make it an eddy off the dining room, on the flow path.· Dont put it upstairs, itll never get used as a sitting room. There are very few things that can work well upstairs - maybe a teen room if its sealed off, or a sewing room. A TV in the sitting room is a social draw card even if people arent all that interested in the program. Make it cooks choice - if they want it off its off. Always off at dinnertime.

Common House Ceilings Paul Kilduff, Liberty Village,.

At Greyrock Commons, we tried for the best of both worlds with a stepped ceiling It starts at a conventional height (~8') and goes up to about 18' at the peak (my guesstimates). We used slats with gaps between them in the stepped portion of the ceiling; putting these in was a community project during construction, as was the cleaning of the maple floorboards which had been retrieved about 2 years earlier from a roller rink that was being demolished. The stepping and slats were for sound absorption, which is partially successful in my opinion. At the peak of the ceiling we have clerestory windows, which light the common house interior wonderful ly and provide ventilation in the summer. Indirect evening lighting is provided by lights on the ledges above the ceiling overhangs.

I think I speak for most Greyrock residents when I say that we absolutely love the looks; the sound control could be better but it's not as noisy as a smooth cathedral ceiling would've been.

Commonhouse ceilings Ruby

We made the mistake of designing it so that it is impossible to have lights any where near the tables, so no cozy lighting. Our living room (couches and rug and coffee table) moves around in the space--in the winter it's in front of the masonry heater, and in the summer sometimes it's in a space that's divided off by glass doors and sometimes it's just in the other alcove. in any of these spaces and we have another room, and a couch which is small but cozier. Some people think it feels too institutional and not homey enough. I myself would advise against tall ceilings and long hallways Don't go for "public building", go for "home".I would also say have round tables and lighting near or over each table. Avoid the cafeteria effect of long uniform tables, even if they are nice tables.

Noise abatement tricks: Mary Krause

*Ceiling should be finished w/ an absorbent surface.

*High ceilings are more effective at controlling noise but make sure the ceiling is of varying heights to prevent noise from bouncing off the surface of the ceiling.

Ceilings Rob Sandelin"

IF YOU COULD HAVE A TWO-STORY DINING ROOM, WITH STATE OF THE ART ACOUSTICS, AT NO ADDITIONAL COST, WOULD YOU TAKE IT?

Absolutely not. Its not only acoustics, its visual space. Your living room at home does not have a 25 foot ceiling, nor should your commonhouse. Don't build hobby or recreational spaces for what people say that they would like to do, build it for what they actually do. The best commonhouse spaces feel like living rooms, the worse feel like train stations. Living rooms encourage you to hang out, train stations encourage you to do your business and move on.

Ceilings Liberty Paul Mary

At Pioneer Valley , the library, a second floor loft which overlooks the dining room, was little used. Even the architect (a resident) said she would not design a two-story dining room if she had it to do again

glass, most sound-reFLECtive substance around! Good question to ask is Is it designed according to good acoustical principles;

Ceilings Joani Blank Drapes or even some shades can be sound-absorptive.Old Oakland is covering the ceiling with acoustic material This is a significant expense for an amenity which we didn't even consider eliminating when projected costs rose dramatically a few months back. Common Houses are really worth the best acoustic treatment you can afford.

Stevenson/Bitner

. We don't have a guest room- couldn't afford it, but we don't seem to suffer much. We have lots of trades, where one person goes away for a holiday, and another has people in to visit who stay at the first person's house(but they have to take care of the cat/dog/goldfish/plants or whatever). It works pretty well. Some groups have onsite childcare, which is a great use of the space, but requires different code specs, and makes a room unavailable for anything else. We recently looked into using some room in the CH for shared office equipment. We didn't do it, but it's a good use of pooled resources if you don't need exclusive use of it.

Guest Rooms Yorick Paine

We don't have any guest rooms and, so far, haven't missed having one very much. We've always had people who could accommodate others' relatives. Often during the summer, we'll have guests of one person house-sit for those who are away on vacation. This is not to say that a guest room mightn't have been handy on occasion, but if you look at what it costs to build one, it didn't make economic sense for us. There is another reason not to have a guest room; people with especially unpleasant relatives can send them to a hotel without appearing inhospitable, since our homes are so small.

Cynthia (Cambridge Cohousing)

I really appreciate our two guest rooms and have used them quite a bit in our short time here. It's been wonderful to be able to put up our relatives *near* us, but not actually in our unit. Our kids can reach the guest rooms easily and safely, yet our visitors can retreat to their own space any time they want and we get a little more privacy, too

We charge $25/night for the use of the guest rooms and hosts are responsible for cleaning and changing linens in between guests. Guest rooms do require some administrative work: one of our members keeps acalendar for reservations, distributes keys and collects the fees, etc. She and a few others also did a lot of upfront work into making the rooms cozy and inviting; we furnished them largely with donations from our members.

My husband and I rented one for New Year's Eve for a retreat from our three small children :-). I've also used them for a small private meeting. The standards for cleanliness are higher than in other areas, though, so it's hard for them to be truly multi-use. perhaps for friends and family in transition between housing or for a teenager or nanny who needed a room nearby, etc.

Patty Mara

At Tierra Nueva we have two guest rooms. They are used heavily. During the month of Januaryout of 31 days, the rooms were used 25 of the days. 18 days of both rooms booked, 7 days of just one room booked.

We have 27 households. One of the rooms is handicap/wheelchair accessible, one is not. The common house is 3500 sq. feet. We have had small committee meetings, private conversations, and occasionally find a couple ot the five year olds together under the covers of the beds, giggling. Mostly they are bedrooms, used by guests of the household members and sometimes by the households themselves when they needed to be out of their homes for flooring installation etc. I would suggest that you consider a guest room policy. We crafted ours over the past 6 months regarding who can reserved the rooms, how long the stays can be, who does the cleanup. We set a $25 per night use fee on our rooms for these folk, and are considering raising it. Our priority is to have the rooms available for members, not run a hotel.

Patty Mara

Have created some very needed boundaries so that we can remain hospitable. We now have one Sunday tour per month, and will send out an information sheet to anyone who requests it. We have a "community host" who volunteers to interact with visitors.

The guest room is available if it is not reserved by members, and the $25 per night fee is divided into $10 for the homeowners association, and $15 for the host who does the cleanup, linen laundry and housecleaning.

Most guests or "strangers" don't remain strangers for long. Most contribute wonderful energy and enrich the life of the community. Some don't. Such is life.

Kids' hand and footprints and tile painting playshops PattyMara

One of the ways we have chosen to celebrate our children at Tierra Nueva Coho is to make tiles for the common house kitchen with their footprints (infants) and handprints (toddlers).

The older kids painted their own designs along with the rest of us at two special "playshops" we organized to paint the tiles. We now have 50 original, handpainted tiles ready to be set into the splash surrounding the common house kitchen. We held the playshops at a local ceramic shop and everyone agreed they were among the most entertaining gatherings yet.

Consider making tiles for your common house. Or create something together as a community art project.

Jennifer McCoy ( Lake Claire Atlanta)

a) Bulletin Boards are divided into 3 topics: Urgent Notices of meetings, etc; Official Coho Business (meal sign-ups, memos,informational items); and Community News and Announcements. We have a bulletin board guru who monitors the stuff, taking down items after 2 weeks or after event has passed. People sign and date notices. Removed items are placed in an archival box for later retrieval; official coho stuff we want to keep goes in a notebook. Yes, the boards fill up fast.

b) Bulletin Board locations: Urgent Notices is right above mailboxes so people will see it; other two are on wall facing the entry door. Still, some people don't read the bulletin boards. We often put notices on the entry door glass as well.

c) Unit cubbies: In addition to the locked U.S. mailboxes, we have cubbies in which we distribute minutes, notices, memos, and notes among ourselves. This is invaluable.

d) We've tried other ways to communicate, too, outside of business meetings -- grafitti boards posted on the walls for people to comment on special issues for a specified time period; improvement plans and designs posted for comments. This saves some meeting time.