Brits spend 2.5 years of adult lives in kitchen
A study of 2,000 adults found six hours and 50 minutes are spent in the ‘heart of the home’ during the typical week.
The kettle gets boiled 12 times during a typical week, while 43 minutes are spent stirring food. And the average adult predicts they do more than 300 steps a day in the kitchen alone.
About four in 10 claim most of the time they spend in the kitchen is spent running back and forth between the fridge, oven and microwave – with a fifth claiming it’s taken up with setting up and disassembling gadgets, such as steamers and coffee machines.
It also emerged 51 per cent consider it the ‘heart of the home’, with 41 per cent saying it’s where they spend most of their time. A spokesperson for Howdens, which commissioned the research, said: “They say home is where the heart is, and for most people the heart of the home is the kitchen.
“Throughout the decades, the role of the kitchen has changed – it used to be a room only used for cooking, but now it’s become a hub for so much more.”
The study also found a quarter of those polled describe their kitchen as ‘lively’, while 27 per cent call it ‘busy’. But for 22 percent, the atmosphere is generally ‘peaceful’.
When quizzed on kitchen occasions, a fifth found out they were going to be parents in the room while one in 10 had their offer accepted on a new house.
The ‘happy place’
More than one in five (22 per cent) often use this space for entertaining, with the typical kitchen hosting four parties, six games nights, five book clubs and six seasonal celebrations, such as Halloween or Christmas dinner.
And 34 per cent find themselves gravitating to the kitchen when they have guests over.
Besides cooking and entertaining, the room is also regularly used for listening to music or podcasts (28 per cent), reading (20 per cent) and working from home (18 per cent).
But 41 per cent believe the kitchen is more than just somewhere you cook food, while 27 per cent said it’s their ‘happy place’.
Despite 16 per cent of those surveyed, via OnePoll, claiming they are proud of their kitchen, 36 per cent said it’s the room they’d most like to renovate.
Of those who have recently had a new kitchen fitted, more than one in 10 (11 per cent) said it has transformed their lives.
The spokesperson for Howdens added:
“From using it as an office when working from home to celebrating your child’s first birthday – it’s evolved from ‘just a room you cook your food in’.”
