Kitchen combined with the living room (60 photos): DIY video instructions for installation, layout options, repair, price, photo

To increase the useful area of ​​their apartment and radically transform its appearance, many today resort to such a technique as combining the kitchen with the living room.

At the same time, instead of a rather cramped kitchen and not the largest living room, it is possible to get one enough a spacious room - however, to make this room really comfortable, you will have to make a lot effort.

Combining kitchen and living room

Kitchen-living room: layout features

When combining kitchen and living room makes sense

Before proceeding to describe the process of redevelopment and combining two so different rooms into one, you need to figure out whether you need to combine them.

Of course, redevelopment will be justified only in some cases?

• Case one - a very small kitchen in a fairly large apartment. The author of this article once had to live in a house in which the kitchen area did not exceed 5.5 m².
  More or less comfortable in such a kitchen exactly one person could feel, and as soon as someone entered the kitchen, it immediately became cramped and uncomfortable. Naturally, in such a situation, combining the kitchen with the living room and getting a spacious room of about 20 sq m will be the ultimate dream!
• The second case - frequent visits of guests and constant parties. In this case, the kitchen falls out of sight, and anyone in the kitchen loses the thread of the conversation and generally "breaks away from the team."
  For young sociable people, the solution may be to combine the kitchen with the hall or living room: it will be possible to cook in this way without stopping communication.
• You can also safely combine the kitchen with the living room in a small private house, for example, in the country. For a country house, such a studio kitchen is generally an ideal option, since in conditions of a shortage of space, it is not very rational to build an extra wall inside the room.

Increasing the area of ​​a small kitchen

Well, if you have a fairly spacious kitchen and you feel quite comfortable in it, maybe you shouldn't blindly follow fashion. In the end, a combined kitchen with a living room is not the only redevelopment option that can be implemented in our apartments.

Features of combining rooms

If you, nevertheless, decide to combine the kitchen and living room, then before starting work, you need to take into account some of the nuances:

Kitchen-living room layout

• The easiest way is when the layout of the living room combined with the kitchen is laid at the stage of building a private house.
  In this case, there is no need to perform labor-intensive redevelopment work, as well as to coordinate them with the licensing authorities.
• If a studio kitchen is planned in an apartment, then before demolishing the walls separating these rooms, you must obtain permission from the BTI.
  In this case, you will most likely need certificates from other organizations - for example, from the fire department.

Note!
To date, unauthorized redevelopment is punished, without exaggeration, with "draconian" fines.
Therefore, it is necessary first to obtain permits, and only then - to start work. It will come out much cheaper than in the case when you try to legitimize the already made redevelopment.

• When combining rooms, only interior ceilings can be demolished - and in no case should the load-bearing walls be touched.
  The demolition of a part of the load-bearing wall will lead to unpredictable consequences, up to the collapse of the building.
• Bearing walls differ from partitions in their thickness, but, nevertheless, it is better to consult with an architect before demolition.

Demolition of partitions during redevelopment

• The optimal layout of the kitchen combined with the living room in a typical apartment provides for laying the kitchen door and removing one of the walls of the kitchen.
  To save space, you can not completely block the door, but arrange in it a niche for a refrigerator or built-in kitchen cabinet.

Note!
Before starting the demolition of walls and redevelopment, carefully study the technology for carrying out such work. The easiest way to do this is by watching the training video on the Internet.

In fact, there are quite a few subtleties when combining rooms, therefore, before a large-scale redevelopment, it is still better to consult with a specialist. In this case, you will not only be provided with answers to your questions, but they can also offer options for combining the kitchen and living room that did not occur to you.

Features of the design of the kitchen-living room

Functional areas of the room

A properly equipped living room combined with a kitchen should not merge into a single room. Despite the fact that one space is used, the functional areas in it should be clearly separated from each other.

Tile and laminate joint at the border of the zones

To separate the cooking area from the recreation area, the following techniques are used:

• Laying various floor coverings. This is the easiest and least expensive zoning method. When the living room combined with the kitchen is being renovated, a more durable and resistant coating is laid in the cooking area, for example, a ceramic or clinker floor kitchen tile.
  And in the recreation area, carpet or laminate is laid - in this case, the joint of the coatings is made out with a decorative sill.
  Such a nut is a kind of border between the kitchen and the living room.
• Arrangement of a multilevel floor. This method is a logical continuation of the first: the floor is not only finished with different coverings, but also arranged at different heights.

Advice!
If you are making a kitchen on a dais, then pipes or wires can be disguised under the floor.

• Various finishes. You can divide the kitchen from the living room area using various materials in the decoration of the walls and ceiling. In this case, of course, the color scheme of both zones should be in harmony.

Bar counter

• You can also install multi-level suspended ceilings for separation - they can also emphasize the border between parts of the room.
  The instructions for making such a ceiling are quite simple - so you can make it yourself.
• Bar counter. Perhaps, this method of dividing zones in combined rooms can be called classic.
  The bar counter not only delimits the kitchen and the hall, it also acts as a dining table.
  In addition, the bar counter also looks very stylish - so that it can rightfully become the central element of the interior. kitchen-living room with a bar.
• Dinner table. Since the bar counter does not fit stylistically in some kitchens combined with the living room, it can be replaced with a large dining table.
  This will give us a cuisine that fully corresponds to Western traditions - after all, in Europe and the United States, it is customary to dine in the kitchen.

Dining table in the kitchen-living room

There are several more ways to divide functional areas, for example, installing decorative columns (as in the photo) or installing temporary screens. By the way, this method is the most economical, since its implementation does not require repair of the kitchen combined with the living room - you just need to install the screen in the right place.

Column in the kitchen

Kitchen studio lighting

An important design element combined kitchen-living room is its lighting.

At the same time, the living room combined with the kitchen should be illuminated in such a way that we can comfortably use both functional areas together, and each of them separately.

Kitchen lighting

• High-quality lighting of the work surface is very important for the kitchen area. Therefore, the best option here would be to install compact surface-mounted or built-in spotlights above the table top.
• Additional lighting should be above the stove (as a rule, lamps are built into the hood), and above the dining table or bar counter.
• In the recreation area, it is necessary to install one common lamp - for example, a ceiling chandelier, and several sources of directional light. The placement and type of such lamps depends on how the furniture is placed in the living room area.

Pros and cons of combining

Advantages of the kitchen studio

The advantages of a combined kitchen and living room are as follows:

• First, combining premises gives a significant gain in area. For small private houses, and especially for small apartments, this is a very serious plus.
• Secondly, in such a united room it is much more convenient to receive guests, since the hostess does not have to go to the stove or oven every minute. Yes, and during everyday cooking, you will not need to break away from communication with loved ones - after all, it is much easier to speak when you see the interlocutor than to shout over the wall.
• If the living room has windows, then the kitchen will be much better lit. Still, two windows are much more convenient than one small kitchen window.

More light!

Disadvantages of kitchens combined with living rooms

However, as we already noted at the very beginning of our article, combining a kitchen with a living room is a very controversial decision.

This approach has several significant disadvantages that must be taken into account:

• The first drawback is the smell. Anything you cook in the kitchen will spread the aromas into the living room. At the same time, even the most powerful hood cannot cope with the complete elimination of odors. But the kitchen can smell not only of freshly brewed coffee or an appetizing stack - but also of onions, burnt butter and herring.
• The second disadvantage is regular and laborious cleaning. If in a separate living room it is enough to walk with a vacuum cleaner, then in the living room-kitchen you will have to do regular and full-fledged wet cleaning. And the cleaning area increases accordingly!
• The third disadvantage is the price. The cost of all work on combining the premises, as well as the interior, which is equally well suited for both the kitchen and the living room, can be very high. You can slightly reduce costs by doing redevelopment and finishing with your own hands, but significant financial investments will still be needed.

Note!
An important column of the expenditure side of the budget will be the costs of obtaining a permit from the BTI.

But if these shortcomings, nevertheless, do not scare you, and the combined kitchen and living room seem to you the best option for planning your apartment - well, it's time to get down to business! There is a lot of work to be done, but in the end you will end up with a spacious room that has enough room for everyone!