Setting the stage

When it comes to the places in my stories, I don't do a lot of in-depth describing of them.  In fact, I may be excessively generic.

There are two reasons why.

One, I want my readers to fall into my stories.  So when I say kitchen, and I put a table in that kitchen that the family is sitting at to eat, I want my reader to picture whatever kitchen is familiar to them.  I don't think that saying the oak cabinets and granite counter tops is important to the story.

Two, I get bored when I read stories that describe place in great detail when it doesn't add anything necessary to the story.

I know that in science or speculative fiction, there needs to be a significant amount of attention given to place, and describing place, as it could be that none of us have ever inhabited a world that looks like the one created by the author for the story.

I don't think places likes churches, offices, family rooms, strip malls, restaurants need a lot of description to make a story work, so I don't dig deeply into them.

If it is important to know there is a fireplace in the family room, or that there is a Christmas tree in the corner, I'll tell you.  But most of the time, the place descriptions in my stories are very sparse.

What do you think?  Is setting the stage, describing the place important for you to enjoy a story?  Or are you more like me, and your imagination is happy to fill in the blanks?