Living room, combined with the kitchen: how to combine?

For most people, the kitchen is the mostfavorite place in the house. There is nothing more pleasant than to gather on it with the whole family at dinner or sit out with the best friends for a cup of sweet-scented tea. But few of the inhabitants of urban apartments can boast of large dimensions of their own kitchen. This is especially true for "Khrushchev" and panel houses. In order to increase the area of ​​the room intended for cooking, it is often combined with the living room, thus creating a spacious room that simultaneously functions as a kitchen, a dining room and a hall. This kind of redevelopment has many nuances, so before deciding on it, the apartment owners need to carefully weigh the pros and cons of this design decision. The kitchen, combined with the living room visually increases the space of the small apartment.

Demolition of the wall between the kitchen and the hall: requirements and methods

Uniting the kitchen and hall into one openspace requires a partial or complete demolition of the wall located between these two rooms. To remove the wall between the rooms, the owner of the housing will need to obtain an official permission to redevelop, which is issued by the local housing inspection. In the process of redevelopment it is necessary to observe a number of the most important building standards: The wall, which is planned to be connected, should not be a carrier.

You can clean only those walls that are not carriers.

The unification of the kitchen with the hall is feasible only in apartments where electric cookers are installed (it is impossible to make any changes to the design of rooms with gas stoves).

Having conceived the redevelopment,that a radical rearrangement in the united room will not work: the sink, stove and dishwasher should remain in the places that they were initially assigned to when designing the building, but kitchen cabinets, a dining table, a bar rack and other pieces of furniture can be placed at their own discretion.

You can unite the kitchen with a hall in two ways. Full demolition of the wall between the kitchen and the living room will create one large space.

Full demolition of the wall between the living room and the kitchen. This design approach allows you to create from two separate rooms one spacious open space. Since the wall between the two rooms will be completely absent, homeowners will need to think about the most convenient option for zoning the room. Two doors in this room are not needed, so one of them (usually the one that leads from the hallway to the kitchen) is simply laid. The niche formed on the place of the enclosed door will be the ideal place for a refrigerator or a kitchen cabinet. You can get into the cooking zone through the door leading to the hall. This option of combining kitchen and living room will suit a single person and a newly-married couple, however for a large family with several children it will be inconvenient.

Partial demolition of the wall allows for a clearthe distinction between the cooking area and the rest area. With this kind of redevelopment, the kitchen area from the hall will be separated by a wide opening, which with the help of modern decoration materials can be given any shape, making it an ornament of the combined living room-kitchen. A clear demarcation of zones will allow to spend time indoors to all members of the family simultaneously, without interfering with each other.

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Zoning options in a combined kitchen / living room

Open kitchen, combined with the living room, requiresspecial approach to zoning. In the arsenal of modern designers, there are many ways to separate the working kitchen area from the rest zone. You can divide the space with different levels of the floor and ceiling, lighting, contrasting floor coverings, bar counter, ceiling beam, etc. The kitchen can be divided from the living room with furniture items, for example, a bar counter.

The kitchen and the hall can be demarcated by the podium, slightlyraising the floor level in the cooking zone. The elevation perfectly disguises the pipes, the floor heating system and other communications, without which a modern house can not be avoided. If desired, the side surfaces of the podium can be decorated with LED spotlights, which will gently illuminate the room in the dark. The kitchen on the catwalk looks unusually stylish, however, such a design approach may not like the owner of the house, because in the process of cooking she will have to climb to the top and descend from it repeatedly.

Some owners of flatszoning of the combined premises by creating a multilevel ceiling of various materials. A wide popularity is enjoyed by a combination of stretch ceiling with multi-level gypsum board structures.

will help the floor covering: in the work area, ceramic granite or ceramic tiles with moisture-resistant properties are appropriate, and laminate, parquet, linoleum and any other floor material can be placed in the recreation area.

Zoning the space between the living room and the kitchenIt is possible to carry out, having established between them a ceiling beam. Such a design will clearly divide the zones and at the same time not interfere with the free movement of people through the integrated room.

The zoning of the premises will helppieces of furniture. Separate the kitchen from the hall can be with the help of a bar, a large dining table, sofa, double-sided shelving. The larger the area of ​​the room, the more massive the furniture can be, separating one part from the other. Instead of furniture, you can use sliding, folding or glass partitions, false walls, curtains.

Having decided to combine the kitchen with the living room,care should be taken to ensure that each part of the room has its own lighting. Separate groups of fixtures must be installed in the cooking area, in the rest area and above the table, after which they dine.

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Features of the arrangement of the kitchen-living room

Particular attention should be paid to choosing furniture inkitchen-living room. Furniture for all zones should be made in a single stylistic and color scheme, have the same doors, shelves, handles and other elements. Such a design approach will emphasize the unity of the space of the room. An open kitchen has a number of shortcomings, which must be taken into account by a person who has conceived the idea of ​​replanning a house. The interior of the kitchen and the living room should be made inuniform color style. All the smells that appear in the kitchen during the cooking process will instantly spread into the living room. A powerful and low-noise extractor installed in the cooking zone will help to correct the situation. The system of forced ventilation in this case, too, will not be superfluous. Foreign smells in the recreation area is not the only inconvenience that the kitchen, combined with the hall, can deliver to the dwellers. Refrigerator, microwave oven, electric meat grinder and other kitchen appliances with their noise can spoil the rest of the household. Ideal option for the rooms combined with the kitchen will be the purchase of noiseless household appliances or models that create a minimum noise level during operation. In the kitchen, especially if the house is used to cooking often, it is very difficult to maintain an ideal order. In order to prevent the guests from seeing the numerous pots, plates and other kitchen utensils, the owners should take care that there are enough compartments, shelves and drawers for storage of things necessary for cooking in the lockers. In the open kitchen it is desirable to purchase built-in appliances, as it always fits organically into the overall interior of the room. If every thing has its place, then the kitchen and the living room will be in perfect order.

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