Carolyn Muse-Grant

Kitchens are truly the heart of the home, whether you are a foodie, gourmet cook or just like to hang out with friends and family. Because kitchens are so popular, their design and effectiveness are important.

“You choose, you live the consequences. Every yes, no, maybe, creates the school you call your personal experience.” — Richard Bach , American writer, “Running From Safety” (1994)

“If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm.” — Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973), Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer, “The Death of the Heart” (1938)

“Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending,” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), American poet and professor, Elegiac Verse (1881)

“All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.” — John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), British philosopher, on liberty (1859)

“The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, poet, “New England Reformers,” 1844

“Small is beautiful.” — E.F. Schumacher (1911-1977), German-born British economist and author of the “Small Is Beautiful” series of books

“Mirrors are there when we are and yet they never give anything back to us but our own image. Never, never shall we know what they are when they are alone.” — Erich Maria Remarque, “The Black Obelisk” (1957)

“The extent and condition of our property, and our choice of style in dwelling, create a powerful emblem of our identity and status.” — Deborah Tall (1951-2006), American writer and poet, “Dwelling,” “From Where We Stand” (1993)

“Understanding is the beginning of approving.” — Andre Gide (1869-1951), French author and Nobel Prize winner in literature

“When I speak of home, I speak of the place where — in default of a better — those I love are gathered together; and if that place were a gypsy’s tent or a barn I should call it by the same good name notwithstanding.” — Charles Dickens (1812-1870), English novelist, “Nicholas Nickleby”

“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning, but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.” — Hal Borland (1900-1978), American author, “The Tomorrows — December 30,” Sundial of The Seasons (1964)

“It’s a small world after all. It’s a small, small world,” lines from a song written by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman.

“Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night.” — Hal Borland (1900-1978), American author and journalist, “Autumn on the Doorstep — September 13,” Sundial of the Seasons (1964)

“Less is more” is a phrase from the 1855 poem “Andrea del Sarto,” also called “The Faultless Painter,” by Robert Browning. The phrase was adopted by American-German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) as a precept for minimalist design.