10 stylish open plan kitchen-living room ideas from the House & Garden archive
Open plan living is easy if you have sweeping expanses of space to play with, but it can also bring a more spacious feel to tiny houses and flats by opening up the rooms to create a much larger, brighter space. Although the sense of openness is highly desirable, and makes it easy to socialise, to have dinner parties, to cook for the family while they do homework or watch television, it's still important to create zones within an open plan space. This helps to encourage a sense of cosiness, or a sense that one space is designated for a particular function.
While keeping the walls and floors the same colour and material can help to unify the space, zoning an open plan room can be done in lots of different ways. Most obviously you can create separate areas through the arrangement of seating and furniture–large sofas, islands and shelves can be helpful for blocking off sitting rooms from kitchens, while maintaining the flow of light and sound. You can also zone the space through different styles of lighting (pendant lamps over a dining table, table lamps in the living area), or by using rugs to delineate the different areas. More and more, people are opting for ‘broken-plan’ layouts when they have an open plan kitchen living room to deal with – this involves using glazed doors or curtains to create a sense of separation while still allowing light (and people) to flow between the spaces.
If you don't want to be crammed into one room at a time, take a look at some of our most popular ideas for bringing the kitchen and living room together.
Open plan kitchen-living room ideas from the House & Garden archive
Chris Horwood1/10In this super-chic apartment in Marylebone, Salvesen Graham have divided up the long main room into a kitchen, dining room and then sitting room, which begins around where this shot was taken. The dining area effectively divides the kitchen from the living area, creating a transitional zone between the spaces. We like the way that the studio has used upholstered pieces to go round the dining table, including a smart little sofa and patterned chairs, so that this part of the room doesn't feel too kitchen-y. We also like the use of a dresser on the left, which provides extra storage while not feeling too built-in.
Christopher Horwood2/10If, like so many city dwellers, your kitchen and living room are the same space with no real demarcation, then painting your kitchen cabinets in a colour you really love is the way forward. In this loft-style apartment near London Bridge, Howark Design painted the joinery in a bespoke shade of olive green, which neatly separates it from the living space, with its deep blue sofa, and the dining area to the right.
Christopher Horwood3/10An island is the classic way to divide off a kitchen from a living room, but we particularly like this example from a 1960s apartment by Natalie Tredgett. There is a strong colour link between each part of the space – the yellow stools pick up the yellow of the sofa – and we also like the fact that the island has open storage, which makes it feel more like a piece of furniture.
Owen Gale4/10If you're able to play around a bit with the architecture of your space, installing glazed doors is a great way to divide off a kitchen from a living room without creating two separate rooms. This kind of ‘broken-plan’ layout is becoming more and more popular. Lishan Tham of Studio Shan has done it beautifully in her Holborn apartment, where the colours flow easily between the kitchen and living space, but you certainly wouldn't feel like you're sitting in the kitchen when you're trying to watch TV.
Simon Brown5/10Another good idea for creating a sense of division is an archway – we're all in favour of installing them wherever they make sense. In this tiny flat in Paddington, Beata Heuman has taken advantage of the archway, building an island (or a peninsula, strictly speaking), around the half wall, and echoing the curve in the marble on the kitchen backsplash.
Taran Wilkhu6/10Instead of leaving the kitchen open to the rest of the living space, why not consider making one side of it into a bar? The kitchen in Zoe Zimmer's small but ingeniously designed flat in Notting Hill is rather stylishly done, with the space largely closed off but one side functioning essentially as a bar – the fact that the backsplash is mirroed only adds to that effect. The galley also functions as a passageway from one end of the flat to the other, avoiding closing off any spaces with doors.
Paul Massey7/10This expansive open plan space in Jos and Annabel White's London house is unified by the pink walls and by botanical motifs, including the murals by Timna Woollard. Designer Suzanne Sharp, who co-founded The Rug Company with her husband Christopher, chose the brand’s ‘Berber’ rug for this open-plan space, which marks out the zone between the kitchen and the dining area. Ochre’s ‘Arctic Pear Chandelier Wave’ hangs above the dining table. The rattan ‘Teddy Lounge Chairs’ and matching footstools by Viggo Boesen are from Foster & Gane.
Simon Brown8/10A U-shaped kitchen was the solution Beata Heuman proposed for this tiny London flat with its open plan living area.This immediately created an additional surface on which to serve food or use as a bar. ‘It also provided a wall against which to place a banquette, which was something the owners really wanted,’ says Beata. Again, the use of upholstered pieces at the dining table connects the space to the living room, which continues to the left.
Owen Gale9/10In designer Angelica Squire's London house, the kitchen flows into the dining room, which then opens up down a small set of stairs into the living room. Each area is clearly demarcated; the dining table with its sofa, large art work and wall lights feels like a separate space from the kitchen, and the change of level clearly indicates the living room, but the glorious light from the french windows at the back of the house flows through the whole floor.
Simon Brown10/10Edo Mapelli Mozzi, Princess Beatrice's husband, created his bachelor pad out of one room of a Victorian house. Crittall windows and doors separate the kitchen from the sitting area, while allowing light through. The upstairs mezzanine level houses his bookshelves and bed.
