How to Separate Kitchen and Family Room While Keeping Open Plan

(Image credit: © Oakwrights Photography Mark Welsh)

Open plan living is at present seen every bit the norm as opposed to some new-fangled trend seen only in achingly cool industrial-style loft apartments. But while the idea of lots of separate rooms is at present seen as old-fashioned, open plan spaces do non always piece of work well.

The main reason for this simply comes downwards to bad planning and a failure to envisage how the new space is really going to work on a day-to-day basis — practicality must always take priority over aesthetics.

Considering what yous will need from this infinite and how it will serve your lifestyle, as opposed to simply copying an thought you have seen in someone else'due south home, is key to making open up programme piece of work for you.

ane. Work With Invisible Walls

Within this interesting open program living space, clear thought has been given to what each area within the room volition be used for. (Prototype credit: Oak Furnitureland)

To get open up plan living spot on, when designing the space it can be useful to imagine where walls might exist if the space were to be carved upwards into separate rooms.

This might audio odd, but visualising the space as a serial of rooms, as opposed to one open up space, forces you to think most the functions the new space will need to carry out, proper circulation, storage options and lighting and article of furniture placement.

two. Broken Program or Open up Programme?

Very often, a 'broken programme' layout can piece of work better for family life than a completely open up plan living arrangement.

Sometimes described as semi-open up plan – broken programme living recognises the importance of having a few quiet zones, teenage spaces, domicile offices and grown-up living rooms.

Here, the kitchen and dining spaces are kept split up with a glazed separate. The flooring, from Porcelain Superstore , is also unlike in each infinite in order to visual split the spaces. (Image credit: Porcelain Superstore)

3. Keep Open Plan Flexible

The best open up plan layouts incorporate methods forclosing off spaces when required. Sliding doors, or even better, pocket doors that glide abroad into cavities within the walls when not needed, are a keen instance of how open up plan layouts can be kept flexible.

Bifold doors are another option, although one that takes up a little more space than a slide-away design.

Glazed walls and doors are a great thought too — allowing light to move through the layout, while keeping zones separate.

Within this new contemporary home by van Ellen Sheryn architects glazed doors and partial walls keep each area of the layout distinct. The staircase also separates the kitchen and dining infinite from the living areas. (Epitome credit: van Ellen Sheryn)

4. Create Zoned Spaces

Using room dividers is key to breaking up open up programme spaces and avoids that vacuous cold experience that some large spaces suffer from.

I of the most commonly used methods is seen in kitchen diners, wherebreakfast bars orisle units are used not only as a handy extra spot for storage and to eat or work, but besides as a way of keeping theii spaces split.

Constructing partial walls is another way to maintain a sense of flow, whilst creating zones. Stud walls can exist built as high or wide as you lot wish, perhaps spanning half a room at half the wall meridian.

This contemporary dwelling uses a modify in flooring types and a partial wall in social club to create zones within the open up program layout. (Epitome credit: Chaplins Furniture)

Storage units are another great way of creating partitions whilst serving a useful purpose in solving the problem of a lack of space for shelving. Units on castors provide a flexible option every bit they tin be rearranged or pushed out of the way should the need arise.

A popular trend now is forcentral or double-sided fireplaces, orfreestanding stoves. They piece of work especially well between living rooms and dining halls and bring a sense of homeliness which is ofttimes lacking in open up programme layouts, whilst still assuasive light to flow. They should existplanned in at the design stage of a build.

5. Decorating Open Plan Spaces: Employ Visual Room Tricks

Merely choosing unlike wall colours inside an open programme infinite will add interest and suspension upward any stark expanses of wall. Painting the kitchen area of a kitchen diner a light and bright colour, for example, while using a warmer, more than convivial shade for the dining space, immediately sets the areas apart from one another.

Using different colours on the walls, equally in this space which has been decorated using paints from Farrow & Brawl , helps to visually define each area. (Paradigm credit: Farrow & Ball)

Flooring should likewise exist considered. Tiles in the kitchen, timber in the dining room and perhaps rug in the living surface area of a big open plan space will visually split the areas while too making applied sense.

Otherwise, simply choosing varying shades of the aforementioned material or using rugs in club to visually define the spaces can be a expert alternative.

Consider also how the layout and shape of rooms can lend definition. For instance,Fifty-shaped rooms piece of work particularly well, with the dining area tucked out of view from the kitchen. This leaves the 2 spaces continued but the sight of dirty pots and pans won't spoil relaxing meal.

6. Vary Floor and Ceiling Levels

This cocky-build open uses a split level layout to ensure each space has a very different experience to the next. (Paradigm credit: Jeremy Phillips)

Usinga split-level layout is an platonic way to ensure open programme spaces can be organized into zones. Living spaces accessed by two or 3 steps from the kitchen diner, for case, clearly stand out every bit a relaxing surface area, without being shut off completely.Varying ceiling levels is a good idea too, perhaps using a slightly lower ceiling elevation in a dining room to that in a kitchen, for an intimate feel.

Theuse of beams tin too be employed to betoken a change in use from area to surface area. This is a really practical method for renovators opening up a number of small rooms to 1 another as steel beams are usually required as a ways of back up.

7. The All-time Lighting For Open Plan Living

Usingdifferent lighting styles within an open plan space is fundamental to creating character and interest.

Inside the kitchen, task-based lighting makes sense — this means lights positioned to illuminate the work surfaces, hob and sink. Spotlights recessed into the ceiling work well as full general lighting in a kitchen and are all the better if they tin be gear up on dimmers or zoned.

Low level lighting over the dining infinite, brighter job lighting in the kitchen and softer mood lighting in the living area of this layout, using lights from John Cullen , all means the whole space is lit perfectly. (Image credit: John Cullen Lighting)

Within a dining space, pendants hanging relatively depression over the dining table are a not bad idea, while wall lights will provide an added level of ambient lighting.

You need to recollect creatively when it comes to lighting open plan spaces where the reduced number of walls can limit your options.Floor lamps and side lamps add some other level of lighting, whileconcealed LED strip lights can be used to assistance create graphic symbol at the same time as defining zones and highlighting notable features.

Using lights inset into the floor or along the bottom of walls provides a distinction betwixt spaces and fitting uplighters beneath a central fireplace volition highlight it as a divide.

(MORE: Clever Lighting Design Ideas)

In open up plan kitchens information technology can exist hard to go along cooking smells and steam contained, and racket will easily travel likewise, with no walls to conceal sound.

Ensure there issufficient means of extraction inside the cooking space and locate your cooker and hob near a window and ideally at the bespeak furthest away from living spaces.

Proficient, quiet extraction in open up plan kitchen diners is essential to ensure the dining space is a pleasant identify to eat and entertain. This kitchen is fitted with the Piano from Falmec . (Image credit: Falmec)

9. Soundproofing in Open Plan Living Spaces

From a sound-proofing bespeak of view, opting for soft floor over hard should minimise noise, equally will plenty of soft furnishings, such equally heavy curtains and upholstery. If yous are really worried about the trouble of smells and noise, consider fitting sliding doors.

Using plenty of soft effects and floor coverings will help with soundproofing in open plan spaces. (Image credit: Essential Home)

10. Choosing the Correct Furniture

One of the near frequent mistakes made by those with larger open plan homes in their homes is selecting items of article of furniture that are out of proportion with the space.

All to often, open plan living spaces can lack a sense of warmth and homeliness due to items of furniture that are just too pocket-sized to properly fill the layout, or too few items of furniture to make the whole area feel lived in.

While not all your furniture needs to exist over-sized, do take the time to consider how it will fill the space and create a plan to avoid big unfilled spaces with no obvious purpose — the utilise of rugs, wall art, side tables and enough of side lamps will also all aid to fill up out the space.

The large, welcoming dining table and benches inside this open programme kitchen diner ensure the infinite feels sociable. The domicile, past Edge Oak , besides features a double sided fireplace — a swell manner to separate spaces in an open programme layout. (Image credit: Border Oak)

Natasha is Homebuilding & Renovating's Associate Editor and has been a member of the team for over ii decades. An experienced announcer and renovation expert, she has written for a number of homes titles. She has renovated a terrace and is at the end of the DIY renovation and extension of her Edwardian cottage. She is now looking for her side by side projection.

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Source: https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/advice/open-plan-living

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