Kitchen-living room design: we develop ourselves

A person feels more comfortable in spacious rooms than most of our apartments, and many private houses do not sin. Rooms can still be more or less decent in size, but kitchens are often frankly small. Especially in the famous "Khrushchevs". So the idea of ​​redevelopment arises. The most popular option is to combine the kitchen and living or dining room. Due to the fact that the wall leaves, additional meters appear, and a properly designed interior of the kitchen combined with the living room can enhance the feeling. How you can arrange the combined premises and will be discussed.

Combining kitchen and living room: pros and cons

The idea itself came from the countries of Europe and America. In these cultures, the kitchen and living room together are the norm. But the way of life there is very different from ours: few people cook complex dishes at home. Basically, if they do anything, then sandwiches can warm up semi-finished products. This concludes the cooking. For us, the cooking process does not take half an hour or even an hour. All this is accompanied by strong and persistent aromas. If the kitchen is combined with the living room, then even such a leaky barrier as a door will not exist. A powerful exhaust hood and a well-designed ventilation system can partially cope with the spread of odors. But far from 100%. You will have to fight this (strengthening the hood and properly organizing the air exchange) or put up with it.

There are no barriers to smells in the combined living room with kitchen

Another point is cleaning. In a kitchen open to all eyes, you will have to constantly maintain perfect order. You will no longer leave any unwashed plates or food on the table, since everything is in plain sight. Another moment. If earlier it was necessary to clean only in a small kitchen, then in the kitchen-living room the area, and therefore the time for cleaning, is much larger.

All about the shortcomings. Now about the pros. In a spacious room, the sensations are completely different, not like in a small kitchen box. It is more pleasant to work and relax here. The combination leads to the fact that it takes less effort and time to set the table or remove it: less movement from room to room. What is also important is that much more original design ideas can be realized in a large room: the interior of a kitchen combined with a living room is definitely much more interesting than two separate rooms. Here it becomes possible to play with the levels of the ceiling and floor, with color and light, combine materials and combine styles. All this is also important and often outweighs the negative aspects. But before making a final decision, you need to familiarize yourself with the legal requirements.

Legal subtleties

If a gas stove is installed in your kitchen in an apartment building, you are prohibited by law from combining the two rooms: you cannot demolish the walls. There is one possibility: make the doorway wider. In this case, the kitchen and living room will be adjacent. You can arrange a doorway in the form arches or make it square - it depends on the interior. In this case, doors are required in the opening. They may be sliding or foldingbut should be.

You cannot remove the partition between the kitchen and the living room, but you can expand the doorway

If there is electrical equipment, the union is possible, but the wall can be demolished only if it is not a load-bearing one. The supporting walls cannot be disassembled: the entire building may collapse. But even here there is a way out: instead of walls, put columns equal in bearing capacity to the former wall.To do this, you need to order a rework project in a specialized organization.

It is impossible to remove the load-bearing wall, but you can put columns instead, which will have the same load-bearing capacity

Just make sure in advance that such an alteration can be accepted by the administration and you will be given permission for such work. It is necessary to get it in any case. To do this, you will have to write an application and attach a redevelopment project.

After obtaining permission for hands, you can begin to demolish the partition.

Zoning options

Although we tried to unite the living room and kitchen, we strive to separate them in design. Still, one area is working, the second is designed for a pleasant pastime and relaxation. Naturally, the styles should differ, as will the furniture used. This division is also called zoning: we divide the premises into zones.

Ceiling and floor to separate the kitchen and living room

The most common technique is different levels of floor and ceiling. When two rooms are combined, they can turn out naturally - they were just different from the beginning. You don't need to align them, but you can beat them using finishing materials of different texture.

Even a small difference of a few centimeters is enough for the rooms to be visually separated. And if you add a different texture and / or color, the effect becomes more noticeable. From a practical point of view, it is more convenient when the place where the food is prepared is slightly lower. So the garbage, which in this case certainly appears less spread. It is a pity that this cannot always be realized.

More about the design of ceilings can be found here.

Partitions

A more explicit way to separate one part of the studio kitchen from another is to make a partition. Such is the oddity, at first we removed the wall, now we recreate it. Yes, but in another version - lighter and more airy, which only marks the border, without compressing the space.

The most material of the partitions is glass. Only part of the passage can be closed, and maybe the whole. In this case, sliding systems are most often used. Such a glass wall visually leaves the living room-kitchen as a single room, but prevents the spread of odors and almost completely dampens sounds (in a closed position, of course).

Another way is to divide the kitchen and living room area using a plasterboard or wooden (furniture) partition. Naturally, the partitions are not whole, but only "partial". In some interiors, the kitchen is separated from the living room only by a hint of a wall, in others it is located in the middle of the zone, leaving two aisles to the right and left.A hall combined with a kitchen with an arch or just a beautifully designed opening often looks much more attractive than just separation with the help of light. After looking at the photo, you will understand what it is about.

The next way is organization bar counter or the counter. They differ slightly in design, but not in the way they are arranged. Sometimes, even at the stage of repair, a "stump" with a height of about a meter is left from the former wall, which is then converted into an appropriate separator. Sometimes such a rack is set up on purpose, often made from kitchen cabinets. From the side of the kitchen, these are cabinets, and from the side of the living room or dining room, there is a bar counter. Practical. Especially for small studio kitchens.

There are many options for zoning the kitchen and living room. In the photographs, you have seen only a small part of the design methods. Taking one of them as a basis, adding something of your own, you will get your own, original and unique design project for your combined kitchen-living-dining room. After all, this is how the resulting room is often used.

We think it's clear how to separate the kitchen from the living room with a partition, but that's not all. The layout of the living room-kitchen also provides for the choice of lighting. This is no less important than everything that was said before.

There are several repair options for 9 meter kitchens here.

Lighting in the living room-kitchen

Since premises with different purposes are combined, they also require different lighting. In the kitchen, it is required that the work surfaces are clearly visible and the light needs sharper. In the living-dining room, the atmosphere should be softer. Ideally, multistage systems are made, then, if desired, the light is made bright or dim. Based on these requirements, a lighting scheme for the combined premises is being developed.

In the kitchen, the problem of illumination of work surfaces can be partially solved by installing lamps at the bottom end of the hanging cabinets or led strip... They will give light and raise the lockers visually.

If there is an "island" in the kitchen area or a free-standing counter, a bar counter, you will have to make lamps above them as well. These can be ceiling options or descending from the ceiling on long cords. In some versions of the kitchen design combined with the living room, you can put classic chandeliers.

Interior of a kitchen combined with a living room of a small size

We have to talk about small rooms separately. In small areas, most of the ideas cannot be implemented: functionality in such rooms is in the first place. Nevertheless, even on 15 squares you can make a very good interior, let alone 20 square meters or more ...

You have already seen some of the ideas in the photo in the previous chapters: this is a counter, which is at the same time a dining table and a zoning detail, or the same counter, but which on one side is kitchen cabinets.

The main idea is to make the interior of the kitchen combined with the living room in light colors, with several bright accents. Light shades add volume, pushing boundaries. Another well-known trick is using mirrors.

Several ideas for a small kitchen can be found in this article.

The next moment is the installation of furniture at full height: a large amount of it simply will not fit, but everything needs to be accommodated. Therefore, we make lockers and other storage systems under the ceiling. In addition to functionality, they will also merge with the wall, raising the ceiling.

ABOUT the development of the kitchen interior can be read here. Subtleties the choice of kitchen set are described here.