01 June 2010
- One of the most frequently consulted pages on this website is Kitchen/Dining/Family….
- This comes as no surprise to me as a very large percentage of my 2 hour House Consultations relate to how best to achieve and organise a space incorporating these 3 elements.
- Whilst some people might refer to this as “open plan” living, the reality is that these functions can frequently be accommodated in spaces of varying sizes and to varying degrees.
- For example, a single sofa can satisfy the desire to include an element of “living” within the cooking and eating area and allow a newspaper to be read comfortably in the sun. I recently helped one client to achieve this by simply re-locating a dresser from a sunny to a less favoured spot, placing a small couch in the space instead. Bliss…
- Where a larger space is available – or capable of being created by means of an extension – the positioning of the kitchen is the single most important decision to be made.
- A well located kitchen will allow for maximum flexibility in the future and for a variety of furniture arrangements according to the season or the occasion.
- How the kitchen is designed and located will also be influenced by the extent to which privacy is required by the chief cook – preparing meals in full view of guests is not to everyone’s liking, while the less tidy amongst us may be reluctant to eat in view of dirty dishes.
- Most people will like to retain at least one separate living area in addition to this multi-functional space, especially in the context of a family home.
- Whilst most people’s instincts will be to earmark this space as an adult, tidy area, it may alternatively work well, especially where space is limited, to reverse this order and to designate this space for the use of the children. This will work equally well at a younger age where toy storage is at its maximum, and at the teenage stage where you may well want a space for your teenagers to bring their friends.
- In my own home, a room at first floor level functions as TV Room and Study. This allows us to maintain virtually the whole of the ground floor as one, open plan area, with sliding screens allowing for the kitchen/family/dining area to be screened off when required.
- The fact that ours is a mews house undoubtedly makes this “extreme” open plan living more possible as there are no privacy or overlooking issues.
- Read June Edwards excellent discussion of the issue of open plan living in her article published in the Irish Independent on Friday, 28 May 2010, “Opening up – the debate”
- Enjoy the June sunshine…!
