Kitchens! Kitchens!! Kitchens!!!

by Teresa Firelight

A lot of people feel the bedroom is the most important room of the house because that is where they conduct romantic activities. But I have a RL husband who won't “set foot” in SL, and who would object strongly if I were to do any sort of online romance with other people. So for me, the kitchen is the most important room of the house.

And that is what I want to talk about in my next series… it will probably be three articles. I want to look at some of the various kitchens that I like to use in my homes, share a picture of them and talk a bit about some of their pros and cons.

This week I am going to focus on corner kitchens that are low LI or that fit in a small space.

Brocante Corner Kitchen

This is a small and low LI kitchen that is shaped like a square and intended to be along a wall or in a corner. It is pictured in a corner, but it would be possible to slide it away from the corner so that the oven and refrigerator side is against the wall, but the sink sticks out from the wall like a U-shaped bar.

There are accompanying pieces you can also rez, including a lamp, a wall unit, a rug and a bar stool. The barstool has some sit animations, the rest of it does not. There is texture change hud with limited color choices for counter, fridge and stove, and minimal color changes for the tile backdrop and stove hood. The rug also has five black/white/gray color choices.

You can purchase it with White Shelves or Black shelves or get both colors in a fatpack. It is editable if you want to color tint.

What I like: this is lowish LI and relatively small. The kitchen itself is 14 LI. The way it is pictured, it is 18 LI – I have linked everything together except barstool. Please note that the texture Hud stops working when you link, so be sure to texture everything before you link.

What I dislike: This unit is not modular. You cant reshape/rearrange it to fit other shaped kitchens. It is not easy to pull specific pieces out and use individually, such as the stove which is 4 separate linked pieces. However, the refrigerator is a single linked piece, so you can tint I with the Hud, then unlink it to use individually. Also, there are no animations included in the kitchen itself, except for the barstool, which has a few sits in it.

I got this kitchen at Famished. When this round of Famished finishes, I suspect the kitchen will move to the Broante store.

DDD Cozy Country Kitchen

This is a small corner kitchen, which fits in almost any corner and looks amazingly complete. It is very low LI – only 3 LI for the kitchen and 1 LI for the old-fashioned stove. The stove is a separate piece, and it can fit nicely on either side of the corner kitchen.

This kitchen has 7 textures for the cabinets, ranging from dark wood to light wood to gray to cream/white wood. There are 5 marble countertop textures, and 5 colors of the backsplash tile. The oven/stove has three different color-able areas, ranging from 4 to 6 color choices each. The stove comes with the teapot attached.

It comes with all the decorations you see already built into it, except for the owl vase potted plant – that is my own addition. All that for only 4 LI!

What I like: I like almost everything about this set. It is easy to use, extremely low LI, and looks very nice. I like that there a rack of dishes drying on the counter, and that the pantry is filled with lots of jars containing flour, coffee beans, and various spices and pastas. I like the plants hanging from the side – I really like the overall look of this tiny kitchen. Another thing I like about this kitchen is that it is very inexpensive, only $L 245.

What I dislike: I don't like that there is no refrigerator with this. It has everything else a kitchen needs, counters/cabinets, sink, stove – but it is missing the refrigerator. It is also missing any animations. I personally don't mind this, but I suspect that other people may miss them.

I got this kitchen on the marketplace at: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/DDD-Cozy-Country-Kitchen-Tex-Change-Low-Land-Impact/6950344

Dekute Dekore 1 Prim Full Functional Kitchen

This is a medium sized corner kitchen, and it is as low prim as you could possibly get – 1 LI. It is extremely versatile, with 12 different cabinet colors and 16 different counter colors. It is a full kitchen and has all the major components… stove/oven, sink, refrigerator. It also has both singles and couples animations for things like cooking, baking, cleaning kitchen, standing around, and a few PG related couples romance poses.

The textures are quite nice. The cabinets have different wood grains, trims on paint, metal textures, etc. The countertop textures include 2 metal textures, 9 marble colors plus a plain black counter. The appliances are a light silver metal and do not change color, but the refrigerator serves both food and drinks.

It does not come with any sort of tile backdrop... just a space where the wall goes. You can place it up against the wall, or you can easily add a prim at texture it as a tile backdrop, as seen in the 1st picture. Or, if you want, you can use one side as an opening to another room (picture 2).

What I like: This kitchen is the lowest LI I have ever seen (just 1 LI for a full kitchen) and most of the textures it has look amazing. It is a complete unit with no invisible sides, so you can easily place it just about anywhere that you want. I personally like to decorate it with a some low LI kitchen and food decorations. What you see in picture in the second picture looks like a fully stocked kitchen and is only 6 LI of decorations plus the 1 LI kitchen, for 7 LI total.

What I dislike: the product rezzes several items along with the animations, such as teapots, frying pans, coffee cups, etc. Many of them have an outrageously high LI (such as 10 LI for the frying pan used with one of the cooking animations.) That totally goes against the idea of a low LI kitchen. I recommend that if you use this kitchen in a setting where you really need to be low LI, you disable the animations that rez things. The easiest way to do that is to turn them all off by editing it and setting “Touch” to “None.”

You can get this kitchen (as well as some other 1 LI kitchens from Dekute Dekore’s mainstore.

WRONG Kitchen Fatpack

This corner kitchen barely fits my definition of “low” LI, but it as some really nice features. It is a modern-style kitchen, and it has a lot of moving parts. The refrigerator and Freezer doors open, as do both oven doors. One lower cabinet opens and so does all 6 of the upper cabinets. The sink has running water that can be turned on and off. ATM it is only offered in one color, beige. However, it is copy/mod, so you can edit it and tint it to a darker color of your choosing.

The Fatpack includes both a PG and an Adult version, and both come with a slew of animations.

This is “low-ish LI” kitchen at 15 LI for the unit itself and another 7 LI for the accessories … and that still leaves the refrigerator/freezer mostly empty and the cupboards bare. You don't have to populate them if you don't open them. But I think it looks funny to open them and see an empty refrigerator or empty cabinets.

What I like: I like that it includes several 1 LI items you can put out, including: a set of cutting boards, a coffee glass with cookie, salt and pepper shakers, a bag of coffee grinds, a set of kitchen knives, a sixpack of beer and a bowl of oranges. It is nice to have decorations you can place out to make a kitchen look more lived in. I also like how you can interactively open/close many parts of the kitchen.

What I dislike: I am not crazy about the color, and about the fact that it doesn't have any other color options. I would have preferred a white cabinet, so that I could tint it to be whatever color I want. As it is, you can tint to the darker colors, but it is hard to tint that beige to a lighter color. I also don't like how fast that auto-close kicks in on the cabinets, refrigerator and freezer – I wish they stayed open a bit longer before closing themselves.

At the moment, and I am not sure how much longer this will last, this kitchen fatpack is a 60L special at WRONG. That is a fantastic price, and I strongly recommend jumping over there and getting it while it is still on sale.

Comments

[Leora Greenwood]

Wonderful, wonderful, and so needed for our Belli Homes! Here is one kitche that I used a LOT: Chez Moi's https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/CHEZ-MOI-Quinn-Kitchen-PG/20912184 (18 LI as shown, with color options, but no fridge)

Also, Chez Moi's Bellshire Kitchen, which I do not own as yet, looks good with similar LI and features: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/CHEZ-MOI-Bellshire-Kitchen-Sink-PG/22159316

Since fridges seem to be omitted so often (NO idea why), my frequent flyer fridge is the BAZAR retro fridge, 4 LI, fully loaded with food and very easy to recolor: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/BAZAR-Retro-fridge/5514890

[Dave]

Great article Teresa. I look forward to the next two. I endorse Leora's suggestion of the Quinn kitchen from Chez Moi. I use it in my houseboat and it fits neatly leaving space to move around. It also has a great set of animations for food prep and cooking.

[Trinity Blakewell]

I chalked my inventory and also found the following: Kraftwork Mini Boho Kitchen, Bazaar Arizona Kitchen, and as mentioned by Leora Greenwood above, the Chez Moi Quinn Kitchen.