Open kitchen layouts certainly have their appeal, but this arrangement is not for everyone. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Closing the Door on the Open Kitchen” has sparked an intriguing question: How transparent do you really want your kitchen to be?
When it comes to entertaining, the flexibility of an open floor plan can be advantageous. As WSJ writer David Sokol put it, the open kitchen transforms the host into “the celebrity of family and social life.” But once the sink starts to pile up with dishes, that’s when you can start to miss that wall between your kitchen and the gathering space. Instead of reverting back to traditional kitchen layouts, however, architects and designers are developing innovative ways to maintain a subtle separation between these living spaces.
Oven & Storage Room Divider: One way architects and designers are dividing the kitchen and dining room is by replacing the adjoining threshold with an oven wall and/or floor-to-ceiling cabinets.
Photo via Houzz
The Pocket-Galley Kitchen: This solution is especially great for city apartment dwellers. In this layout, the kitchen is designed like a galley but is hidden from the dining room with pocket doors which can also be used to conceal a wet bar area.
Photo via Houzz
Kitchen Wall of Glass: A semiprivate layout can be achieved by enclosing the kitchen in glass. This approach can create a stunning effect for contemporary kitchen designs as it still allows natural light to flow in and out freely while maintaining a certain level of privacy.
Photo via Houzz
What are your thoughts on open versus enclosed kitchen layouts? What are the pros and cons? Please share in a comment below.
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Open! Open! Open! i’m so not for closed spaces. Plus I think the air and feng shui flows so much easier and fresher.
I love open kitchens!
I do kitchens in California and it seems like the client almost always wants me to open up the space as much as possible.
I also like open designs. While the top photo looks quite lovely, it doesn’t seem practical at all. The idea of using pocket doors to alter the level of visibility at times is interesting though. I kind of like that. Nice topic!
Open moves the party and community into the kitchen, the heart of the home. If you are afraid of he cluttered sink there is always a Butler’s pantry “Carson would approve”.
Love the “Pocket-Galley Kitchen” solution – pocket doors to close when the dishes begin to pile up.
I’ll vote for open…It is all about the ‘Social Kitchen’! 75 percent of the remodeling projects I design and execute are opening the existing kitchen spaces to other rooms – ie, dining room, family room, sunroom, or breakfast room. It is nice to be able to engage with guests in the other rooms, and ways to do that are plentiful. Often we may use large french pocket doors or ‘wide pass-throughs, at 42″ high, with no upper cabinets. Mid-height cabinetry on the back of islands or ‘room dividers’ of cabinets do help hide the mess, as well. I do away with most tables in the kitchen, instead adding islands seating 4 to 6 people as more people are gathering in their dining rooms when they ‘finally and not often enough’ get to sit down as a family to eat a meal together.
A semi-open kitchen is kind of the best of both worlds. Like the pocket doors concealing or revealing the wet bar shown in the home above for example.