Kitchen-living room, nuances of choice and ideas
Modern apartments and houses tend to have an open play layout, which implies combined kitchen and dining/living rooms. Such a solution has its pros and cons, let’s have a closer look at them.
Pros of kitchen-living room
Socializing. A kitchen-living room allows the whole family to spend time together while going about their chores. While adults are busy with cooking, children may play, do their homework, or just watch a TV being supervised. Communication is also much easier; you don’t have to shout to reach your family and ask them to help you out.
More space, more light. Quite obviously, an open plan kitchen and dining room is more spacious and lighter than two separate pokey and cramped rooms.
Great money investment. An open space kitchen is literally open for any creative ideas and projects which will increase the cost of your house. Moreover, if one day you decide to sell your apartment, a new owner will be able to redesign it as they wish.
Convenient dining. When a meal is ready, you don’t have to carry it a long way to a dining room or wherever you dine. On the other hand, you still have a separate place to sit at a table, like a proper upper-class member, you don’t eat where you cook.
Cons of a combined kitchen
Socializing. Yes, it was one of the advantages, but on the other hand, kitchen-living rooms lack privacy. Not everybody enjoys cooking accompanied by TV series, your teenage-children's classmates, or a football match.
Kitchen smells and noises. Boiling fish may smell… funny, some refrigerators and other white goods may also be quite annoying. This problem may be solved with a help of good air-conditioning, but you have to fit your kitchen-living room with it in advance, at the stage of construction.
More cleaning up. As a general rule, the kitchen is one of the messiest zones of a flat or a house. As a result, you’ll also have a messy living or a dining room, and you’ll have more cleaning up before inviting some guests.
Cold winters. Smaller rooms are easier to heat, so you’ll pay more to keep warmth in a spacious combined kitchen.
Open plan kitchen ideas
To balance advantages and drawbacks and avail of the full functionality of your kitchen and living room combined, you’d better design point features in advance. Here are some hints.
Design zoning. A kitchen should be visually separated from the living space. They may well be designed in a common style, but there should be a distinct “border” – a bar counter, a sofa, a bench, whatever. It’s also a good idea to have different floorings for different zones. Kitchens demand more durable and water-proof materials, while in a living/dining room you can place cushioned furniture and lay parquet.
Set up proper lighting. Any kitchen must be well lit – you need to see what you cook – but for a living room a dim twilight makes no harm. Even quite the opposite, poor lighting turns a living room into a truly cozy den.
Avail of natural lighting where you can. Open plan layout allows even fitting your ground floor with panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows.
Final note
Whatever you choose, ESCabinetry has solutions for all types of design and zoning. Just make sure that you really like what you get and leave us the rest – delivery, assembling and installing.
