The open plan kitchen diner is enjoying a surge in popularity, offering a versatile family area for eating, cooking and socialising.
“You’ll always find me in the kitchen at parties…”
Not just because it’s where all the best snacks are kept, but because the kitchen is very often much more than just a place for cooking. It’s where we do a considerable amount of our living at home. The open-plan kitchen-diner creates the ultimate social space, combining essential functions with space to relax and enjoy yourself. We’ve had the pleasure of creating bespoke kitchen diner designs for a number of clients in Buckinghamshire and the surrounding areas.
Creating a unified space
If you’ve been pondering the decision to create a kitchen diner in your home, it is going to take a bit more than just knocking down a wall. Now it’s time to join the two rooms together to make a space that flows seamlessly. The way that you use colours, materials and textures will help to bring the two rooms together.
The shape of your space will also determine the design of your kitchen diner. Large square or rectangular rooms work best with careful zoning to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your space. If knocking through a wall has created an L-shaped room, this allows you to maintain a degree of separation between the kitchen and dining spaces – great if you don’t want to see the pile of dirty dishes that await you when you finish enjoying your lovely meal!
Choosing your lighting
A well-designed lighting scheme will help to define areas of your open-plan kitchen diner and ensure it’s an enjoyable room to use. You’ll need to consider available ambient light as well as task lighting (think under-cabinet lighting for food-prep areas) and accent lighting to highlight features of the room.
It’s also important to consider how you’ll be using your kitchen diner. Pendant lighting above your dining table may create the perfect ambience for a dinner party, but if the table also doubles as a homework area after school, you may want to consider adding additional light.
Flooring ideas
A great way to bring a kitchen and a dining room together is to have the same flooring running throughout. If you’re going to do this, you want something hardwearing and robust to withstand the demands of the kitchen, such as Porcelain or luxury vinyl.
Alternatively, you may wish to opt for something softer underfoot in the dining area – we can help you to choose a better transition than an ugly strip across the middle of your floor!
Keeping your design flowing
Using a similar palette of colours and materials throughout your kitchen diner ideas will help to unify this space. There are so many options available; perhaps you’d like to create storage in the dining area that resembles your kitchen cabinetry? Symmetry and repetition also play a part, such as incorporating a dining table of similar proportions to your kitchen island.
Dealing with undesirables
The two biggest complaints that customers tend to have with open plan spaces are almost always the smells and noise. A kitchen diner means that you’re unable to just close the door on these things, but help is at hand. Modern extraction systems can efficiently take care of cooking smells, and you may want to choose a ducted hood that expels air to the exterior of your property rather than one that filters and releases it.
When it comes to noise, we can advise on appliances with a low decibel (dB) rating, so you won’t hear the dishwasher sloshing as you sit down to eat dinner.
Are you ready to get your new kitchen diner underway?
Email us a rough plan of your space along with any ideas and we can get creating your new open plan kitchen today. Give us a call on 01280 822749 or contact us via email using the link below.