You are designing the plans for your future new home and you do not yet know what type of kitchen to choose. A kitchen open to the living room? A closed and independent kitchen? A semi-open kitchen as a compromise? Not always easy to decide! It must be said that each solution has advantages, but also disadvantages. Let’s take a look at the question to help you in your decision-making for this room at the heart of the house.
The open kitchen, for more conviviality
The open kitchen is a space that opens onto the living room that is the dining room and/or the living room. It is sometimes part of a unique piece, and in other cases it is part of an unhooked part. Anyway, there are no borders with your stay and the contact between the zones is direct.
This solution is ideal for lovers of conviviality, since the open kitchen allows the cook or the cook to stay close to his relatives or his guests and to be able to share their conversation while working on the preparation of meals. It’s also a great way to keep an eye on busy children in the living room or living room while taking care of the kitchen.
The open kitchen is also a much brighter room than closed spaces since without a partition, it is bathed in light from the living room, which is most often the brightest room in the house. The gain in brightness is clear, but also in space, since this continuity without borders allows you to take advantage of a large united and open kitchen-dining room-living room, where circulation is pleasant, fluid and facilitated.
The downside of the open kitchen is that sharing goes both ways. Indeed, if it is pleasant to enjoy the conversations and activities that take place in the living room, the kitchen also shares its disadvantages which are odors and noise. Without a wall, it is not possible to slow down the passage of odors and the operating noise of household and cooking appliances.
The decoration of the open kitchen is free, although most of its supporters conceive its style as a reminder or as an extension of the living room. Nevertheless, a complete shift in layout is possible, provided it is designed well and faults in taste are avoided.
The semi-open kitchen, the right compromise
For those who hesitate between an open kitchen and a closed kitchen, the semi-open kitchen seems like a good compromise. However, it all depends on the criteria that make you lean one way or the other.
The semi-open kitchen is a trend that has appeared in recent years. It has established itself as an ideal solution between the traditional closed kitchen, which was losing its appeal, and the open, contemporary and designer kitchen, which has greatly appealed, but which has sometimes proved to be restrictive in use for the reasons previously cited.
The semi-open kitchen has the advantage of being a well-thought-out in-between, which brings together without mixing and which separates without dissociating. The solutions are multiple, since the semi-open kitchen is generally designed as a continuation of the living room, but a partial separation does exist. It can be removable partitions, half partitions, trellises, canopies or any other arrangement of this type.
The semi-open kitchen therefore has the great advantage of being part of the continuation of the living room and the dining room in order to stay in contact with the family and the guests to share moments of conviviality, to supervise the children who play, etc The border allowed by the glass roof or the partition allows light to pass through and reinforces this continuity, but allows odors to be filtered so as not to invade the living room and to limit noise. Removable partitions, more and more developed, even allow you to completely close yourself in the kitchen if necessary.
In terms of decoration, the semi-open kitchen has the advantage of being independent without being so. It can be designed in total harmony with the living room or in a radically different style. A choice !
The closed kitchen, a guarantee of intimacy and independence
The closed kitchen is the traditional form of this room dedicated to the preparation of meals. Until recent decades and the arrival of the open kitchen, the closed kitchen was an independent room in which the family could prepare to eat and share their meals. The dining room was generally dedicated to the reception of guests. If the open kitchen has shaken up these habits, many appreciate a return to the independent kitchen, proof of which is the semi-open kitchen, which initiates an in-between by standing out from the all-in-one.
Some cooks like to prepare their meals out of sight and conversation. The bubble offered by the closed kitchen is an essential solution for those who do not like to be disturbed or who want to prevent the smells and noises of food preparation from invading the rest of the house. It must also be said that the kitchen can be a sometimes messy space, in which dishes and pots are piled up, a place loaded with cupboards and drawers full of crockery that you don’t want to show. When we experiment and we cook, we can like to be at ease and not have to worry about other people’s eyes.
The closed kitchen is thus a space in its own right and dedicated to this activity. Its decoration and layout are completely free, since the room is independent. On the other hand, it can be too isolated for some, who regret not being able to share the moments of food preparation with their family or their guests.
And you, which cuisine will you choose?