Kitchen open to the living room - pros and cons

Kitchen is a unique place in every home. It is here that plans for the future are born and delicious meals are created. That is why the organization and design of kitchens is so important during construction or renovation. One of the options that have been used quite frequently recently is to open the kitchen to the living room. Thanks to this, the cooking and recreation area becomes one large area.

The decision to combine the rooms into one day zone should always be carefully considered. When is it worth to do it, and when is it better to stay with the traditional division into kitchen and living room? Can an open kitchen be non-functional?

Advantages of open kitchen

• Additional space

The combination of two rooms creates a slightly loft-like atmosphere, and thus - optically enlarges the area of both. If the kitchen is small and the living room is large, the kitchen space will certainly benefit from this treatment.

• Indoor lighting

A kitchen open to the living room is also a way to light up one of the rooms when there is a small window or there is no window at all.

• Integration of residents

When one person cooks in the kitchen and the other does something in the living room, opening up the space enables them to communicate more easily. The same applies to the reception of guests - when they sit in the living room, you can talk to them, finishing dessert preparation in the kitchen.

• No rigid functional divisions

An open kitchen is also a field for combining the functions of rooms. Who said that a kitchen table couldn't be a great place for board tournaments?

Open kitchen - defects

• Smells straight from the kitchen

The main and most frequently cited disadvantage of this solution is the transfer of odors from the kitchen to the rest of the house. The aroma of fried onion will not necessarily work on cushions from the sofa. Good ventilation will solve the problem.

• Perfect order and order

With a kitchen connected to the living room, we also can't afford to "wash after the party tomorrow". - Dirty dishes will be visible even from the TV.

Not only in a single-family home

An increasingly popular solution is also a kitchen open to the living room in the block of flats. Although flats in blocks of flats are not very spacious and unfortunately they are not associated with space, such an idea does not have to be unambiguously bad at all. Opening the kitchen to the living room in a block of flats can "play" the sense of additional space, and also be an interesting aesthetic treatment. It is only worth considering whether the apartment is adequately ventilated - in older buildings it may be a problem. Unfortunately, without good ventilation and the possibility of solid ventilation, kitchen odours will quickly become a nuisance. Unless you think of an intermediate solution, such as a screen that can be opened or closed.