Until a few years ago, it was uncommon in Spain to find a home layout in which the kitchen opened onto the living room. However, this layout—also known as an open-concept kitchen— has gradually become more common in our country due to the many advantages it offers residents.
So, perhaps you’re considering buying a home with an open-concept kitchen and living room, or maybe you’d even like to renovate your home to remove the wall separating these two rooms and blend their styles.
If this sounds like you, or if you simply want to find out why this type of home layout is so popular, keep reading. Here, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about open-concept kitchens!
What are the characteristics of kitchens that open onto the living room?
They are also known as open-concept kitchens because they are quite common in North America, mainly in the United States. They are characterized by combining the kitchen and living room into one large, open common space without any dividing walls. As a result, they offer a wide range of uses: from watching TV, relaxing, or reading a good book, to (of course) cooking and eating.
To distinguish between these two important spaces, we can use furniture or decorative elements. The most common way is to use an island or a peninsula—a functional piece of furniture that can serve as a countertop, dining table, or cabinet for kitchen utensils—and can also incorporate other elements, such as a glass-ceramic cooktop and a range hood. However , we can also use tables, rugs, or different types of flooring.
Furthermore, given their characteristics, kitchens that open onto the living room are particularly appealing for smaller homes that need to make the most of the space they have. This is the case, for example, with apartments, lofts, penthouses, etc.
Advantages of Open-Concept Kitchens
Why choose such a unique design for a home? Here are several reasons you might find interesting.
Functionality
Just as it sounds: open-concept kitchens are very functional and comfortable because they allow you to do different activities in the same space and are particularly inviting. If you need to cook, it won’t take long to get there from your couch. And to carry dishes to the dining table, you’ll barely have to move. What’s more, we can even eat in the kitchen while still feeling like we’re in the living room!
Effective use of space
If the square meters of our home are a bit of a problem for us, an open-concept kitchen and living room will give us a “bonus.” Since there are no walls in the way, we’ll gain a significant amount of space,, and the house will seem larger than it actually is. This will eliminate any sense of claustrophobia that the two rooms might create if they were closed off.
Community and Socialization
Enclosed kitchens define and delineate the space so we can focus while we cook. However, they also isolate us and make it difficult to communicate with others in the house.
On the other hand, kitchens that open onto the living room have the great advantage of fostering both togetherness and socializing. The person cooking can do everything they need to do while still spending time with their family or roommates. So everyone can chat, listen to music, or watch TV, just as they would if they were in the living room. Not to mention that parents with young children can easily keep an eye on them without even leaving the kitchen!
Better Lighting
An open-concept kitchen is one of the best ways to bring natural light into this part of the house. Since there are no walls separating it from the living room, the sunlight streaming in through the living room’s windows or large picture windows will also reach every corner of the open-concept kitchen, giving you better visibility while preparing your meals.
Furthermore, the benefit will be mutual, because if the open kitchen also has its own windows, the light coming through them will add to that in the living room. This advantage is even greater if the windows in these two rooms face each other and, therefore, have different orientations: in this situation, we’re guaranteed to enjoy plenty of light at any time of day.
Oh! And all of this applies to artificial lighting as well, because the lights in the living room will help improve visibility in the kitchen. That way, we’ll also save energy and money at home!
Decorative possibilities
With an open-concept kitchen, design and decor enthusiasts can achieve truly stunning results without overcomplicating things. Why? Because it’s easy for them to apply a consistent look or style throughout the space, playing with colors, textures, and materials. This way, they can create a unique and striking environment; and if they wish, they can even take a risk to create two decorative spaces that complement each other while each retaining its own distinct personality.
Ventilation Capacity
Yes, one of the drawbacks of kitchens that open onto the living room is the smell and smoke they give off. That’s why it’s important to have a good range hood that captures all these fumes so they don’t reach the living room.
In addition, if the kitchen doesn’t have its own window, the open-concept layout will allow us to use the living room windows to ventilate the entire open-concept space.
Things to Keep in Mind for Kitchens Open to the Living Room
As you can see, there are many reasons to choose this home design. However, before committing to it, it’s important to also consider a few things.
Keep an eye on the plans
If you’re starting with a closed-off kitchen and want to renovate it to open it up, don’t forget to check your home’s blueprints to make sure your project is feasible. Knocking down a wall isn’t always possible, since it might be a load-bearing wall or expose beams; in that case, you’ll need to come up with another solution.
The Importance of Furniture and Its Layout
If we want to create more space at home by combining the living room and kitchen, it’s important to keep things simple. The open-concept layout should be, above all, comfortable and functional, so we can cook easily without disturbing those in the living room.
Therefore, each area of the kitchen should be clearly defined —cooking, food preparation, storage, etc.—and easily accessible. And the layout of the cabinets must be well thought out and executed: both so that several people can share this space and so that it’s possible to perform multiple tasks at once, such as cooking, eating, or cleaning up. That’s why we need to make several decisions about the kitchen furniture: its layout (U-shaped or L-shaped), its features (countertop, island, or peninsula), etc.
Order shapes aesthetics
The kitchen is one of the rooms in the home that gets messy most easily, because cooking involves taking out food, dishes, utensils, and so on. And after we finish eating, we don’t always wash, tidy up, and put everything away right away. So this is another factor we should consider before deciding on a kitchen that opens onto the living room.
What exactly do we mean? Well, a cluttered open kitchen can really detract from the look of your living room. So now you know: every detail counts, and don’t neglect keeping your open kitchen clean, because the goal is to create a relaxed and inviting environment for your home life.
When it comes to appliances, the quieter, the better
The washing machine, the oven, the microwave, the blender… it’s inevitable that we’ll make noise when we cook, so we have to accept that our kitchen—which opens onto the living room—won’t exactly be the quietest place in the world. But even so, we shouldn’t just give up entirely, because not all appliances make the same noise when they’re running. If we keep this in mind when shopping for them, we’ll reduce noise disturbances and enjoy a peaceful atmosphere.
And let’s not forget another important detail: the aesthetics of the appliances also come into play. In this case, it’s best if they blend in with the kitchen cabinetry and are as unobtrusive as possible; because in an open-concept kitchen, the focus of the decor should be on the cabinetry, walls, and materials.
Intermediate option
When designing the kitchen and living room, we don’t just have the options of an open or closed layout. There’s also a middle ground, where we can opt for a large glass partition to physically separate the two spaces, but not visually. This not only reduces odors and noise that might reach the living room but also maintains the visual sense of unity between the two rooms—and, therefore, a feeling of spaciousness.
Go for a modern look for your home with a kitchen that opens onto the living room
What do you think of the benefits of open-concept kitchens? They’re a stylish and modern option that we’ve seen for years in countless American movies and TV shows—and now you can have one in your home if you set your mind to it. So take note of everything we’ve discussed in this article… and enjoy the results!
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