How do I plan my open plan kitchen/dining/living space?

[potteringaround]

We have done a couple of refurbishments in the past, and I normally really enjoy the planning etc, but we are about to start refurbishing our bungalow (forever house, hopefully) and I am really struggling with this space.

It is currently a 24ft square living room (previous owner had a wheelchair so after it was extended, the two existing reception rooms were knocked through to the extension to create this), a 12ft by 7ft kitchen and a 11ft by 7ft utility room. We want to knock all three rooms through to create a large open plan space (utility room moved out to garage). It will end up about 30ft by 24ft. However, we have done open plan living before and know how important it is to 'zone' the space (!!). So need to decide exactly how we want to use the space, and then I guess we want to use furniture, low partition walls, glass doors etc to define the different areas for its different uses...

But I am getting overwhelmed by the number of options and, not being a professional, I obviously don't have the knowledge/experience to get the best out of the space.

We already have an architect who is doing plans for us for a loft conversion, but not sure whether an architect is what i need. He is doing a good enough job on the plans for the planning etc., and has charged us a fixed price for that, but when I have broached the subject of planning the kitchen/living space, he said that he would quote for that as a separate piece of work. However, I'm not sure whether it is an interior designer that I need rather than an architect??

Any one had any experience of using one or the other for this kind of job, or indeed done it themselves with the use of helpful websites/books etc?

TIA

Sounds like a great project. Are there any structural implications of knocking the spaces together, i.e. will you need RSJ's? Similarly, are you going to add any french windows, necessitating new lintels? If so, I would get the architect just to draw this up/spec the RSJ's and lintels as part of the building regs application, at which point he will produce scale drawings of the space. Then go to an interior designer (one with more experience than just picking wall colours and cushions - you need spatial planning) with those scale drawings to work on the layout/lighting scheme/finishes. It's the sort of thing I would have done in my interior design days. HTH

Hi fresh,

Thanks for the very prompt response. And very helpful that you are/were an interior designer yourself. I should have been clearer. The architect is doing the plans for the ground floor as well, so we will know, once the Walls go, where any RSJs/lintels will go. We already have 2 sets of very large French windows in the existing living room, but will be replacing with sliding or folding sliding doors. But the plans will simply show a large box with windows, rooflights and doors. And if you dont know how you are using the space, how do you know where said windows and doors should go (assuming there is a choice). For example, for every day eating, I quite fancy a padded window seating area (can't think what you call it and don't want to say, ahem, banquette?!). So choosing between a door, window or glass panel (which architect has already said will 'look great') is fairly crucial. Maybe he would pick this up if I went through this separate process With him but I'm just not convinced...
Now you've given it a name, I know spatial planning is definitely what I'm after! How do I go about finding an interior designer with a limited budget? What could I expect this to cost me? Show me some of your stuff and i will see if i Could tempt you out of retirement ;)

On my iPhone so please excuse typos...

Ha! No chance of coming out of retirement I'm afraid.

The 4 walls of the space will be the same, wherever the windows and doors go, so that's your starting point. I know what you mean, it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation but really you just have to start somewhere and keep refining. You might go thru a few layouts before you find the right one. As a starting point, work out where the drainage is and put the sink/dishwasher near there. Ideally then have yr hob on or near an outside wall so that you can have a proper extractor fan, with as little ducting as possible. Try and have good space between the hob and sink as that's where you'll end up doing most of yr food prep. Work the rest of the kitchen around this starting point, and ideally have it at one end of the space. You could use an island unit as a zone marker, with seating on the non-kitchen side of the island for coffee/breakfast and then maybe a table in the middle of the room for meals. Then the far end could be seating.

This is just one possibility but if you start with it, you'll soon see if it works for you or not, then you can start refining. I can see what you're saying about banquette seating (afraid that is what you call it!) but think about it carefully as it might be difficult when it comes to curtains/blinds, plus it can sometimes be cold sitting next to a window.

I recommend Terence Conran's House book, it has a section on kitchen design which from memory has some key measurements in it (space needed around a dining table, space needed Round an island unit for best circulation, size of dining table needed etc) which can be v useful.

Google interior designers in yr area, they should come out for an initial chat for free. Ask them how they charge and avoid any who say they will work for free as long as you buy stuff from them. Expect to pay a fee, but I can't help with how much without seeing the project. Also ask yr architect but make sure he's an experienced kitchen designer...most aren't.

Finally, be a bit flexible with your layout, if it's going to cost ££££ to move a window just to line it up with the dining table, it might be worth moving the dining table! HTH

We have an open plan room of similar size - roughly 10m*6.5m. Maximum steel support beam we could have without a vertical support was 6 metres.

So we have a line of wall kitchen units along the 6.5m wall - then we have a large island unit, parrallel to the wall units 3 metres long and 1.2 m deep.

Next section is dining - long table again, there is a vertical post after the dining area, 6m from the wall units - we put sockets in this and they were badly needed.

After that is the seating area arranged around a wood burning stove/tv and garden. The outside wall (10m) is mostly glass.

The areas are clearly defined by zoned lighting and furniture, no need for physical barriers. I'm really pleased with it.

Draw up a simple scale plan of how the room will be, with doors/windows etc. Then use tracing paper to add room layouts on top (measure your sofa/dining table/armchairs etc. A scale ruler and/or some graph paper is useful.

I find it is only really by drawing stuff out that you can work out what goes where. Or you can cut out scale models of your key furniture items and arrange them on top of the plan (take a quick photo with any arrangement you're happy-ish with before you rearrange with a new idea)

If you go to a kitchen place, many will do free designs for you. They may suggest things you didn't think of in terms of whereabouts to put the kitchen in the space, how to lay it out etc.

Meant to add that George Clarke's Home Bible is really good for ideas, I think.

It depends on the architect (I'm one but I don't do domestic remodelling except for family) some are good at this others less so. Have a look at their previous work and see if it's the kind of thing you are looking for and have a quick chat with them ... You can get a lot from gut feeling. An interior designer can also help but again some are better than others and you need to look at their portfolio and have a chat.

Where are the good views? Back or front? Do you want to face the views eating or sitting on the couch?
Where are the front and back doors? Might be good to have your kitchen at the door area for bringing in shopping etc?
Agree to be near drainage etc.

By the same token I wouldn't be too concerned about keeping the services in the same place. I had a sink put into my island unit as a bit of a last minute decision - it cost £150 to dig the drain and in the grand scheme of things that was pennies....if you are have lots of work done, it may not cost you a lot more to have things exactly where you want them rather than where they were historically.

fresh - Have heard of the TC book and will definitely check it out. And, that is pretty much the kitchen unit layout that we are thinking of. Line of base units along the length and large island going in the same direction. Also, bank of floor to ceiling units across the back wall, with oven, fridge, larder and access to utility room etc. Sink in the island and hob in the units along the wall. Seating area (banquette or otherwise) at the garden end. But, its where we go from there, moving across the room, that I struggle.

WinterGoddess - your kitchen layout sounds very similar and I am intrigued by the rest of your room, Is the vertical post structural - how wide is it? And when you say 6m from the wall units, do you mean there is 6m from the start of the kitchen wall to the end of the dining area (i.e. an area 6.5m x 6m approx)? Does that mean your seating area is 4m wide by 6.5m? Is your wood-burning stove against the wall, or sort of central?

TracyK - in terms of layout, size is the main thing going for it. Approx 9m across the width of the house and 7m across the length - from centre of house to garden. It is a north-facing garden so although we will have up to a 9m wall of glazing, the light is not great. Compounding this is that it is a semi on one side and they built close to the border on the detached side, so no natural light along the 7m length. We are putting in a glazed roof along the length on the kitchen side, and rooflights/sunpipes on the semi side. There are currently double doors into the room right in the middle of the 9m width.

So if I assume a similar layout to WinterGoddess' kitchen area, after the large island along the length of the room, I think I would still have quite a large space (width of approx 6m, length of 7m?) to accommodate main dining and seating area. For this reason, I considered a fireplace (either freestanding woodburner or regular fire in a partition), with dining on one side (at the back of the room, with not great light) and seating on the other (alongside doors to garden). Or do you think unnecessary dividing up this sized space?? Especially with the light issue?? However, if I were to put the dining table along the length as WG has, I'll just end up with a long thin space (darker one end) for the seating area....

Pootlebug - you make a great suggestion re tracing paper/cut outs. I did mark out a potential layout for furniture etc on graph paper, but I came a bit unstuck trying to change things around, rubbing out and re-drawing. Will also check out the GC book you recommend.

Sorry so long, but everyone has been so helpful!!

I think the dining table next along from the kitchen makes sense - so's not to traispe food miles. How about a circular table?
We also put in two sinks as out kitchen is quite large. One main sink/drainer at the window - but a smaller sink only at the opposite end of the kitchen - just for quick access to water - also our kettle etc is there.
I love the double sided fires that you could put as a divider and have the fire at the dining area side and the lounge side. But is big commitment and you couldn't change your mind.
Could you plan it so you could add your fire after living with the space for a while before you decide?

I'm interested in how everyone lives with the noise of open plan living?

We have open plan and regret doing it now , wish we had a seperate room for kids/teens.

I agree. Our downstairs is very open plan and I don't like it at all. Noise carries and there's nowhere to get away from children fighting, someone else's choice of what to listen to on the radio, etc.

Me three. I couldn't have a kitchen in my living space, the smell.......the clutter....

I need to be able to shut the door on it, especially when surprise visitors come calling.

Nooo - i love having an open plan space. Our last house was a three bed semi with a through lounge when we bought it. We knocked the kitchen into the through lounge and put dividing doors in the through lounge to give us a separate quiet room (and to hide mess) if we needed it. But we had the doors open most of the time.

We bought this bungalow because we wanted a bigger ground floor space and were less fussed about bedrooms (we had big bedrooms in the last house and felt it was space wasted upstairs that we would have preferred to have had downstairs). At the moment we only have two bedrooms (on the ground floor) and although we have a separate kitchen, we have only one, huge 24ft square living space. And although we are all sitting around storage boxes, as there is little point going mad with the unpacking with building work (hopefully) starting in the not too distant future, we love the living space even as it is!

However, once we do the roof conversion, we will have converted one of the ground floor bedrooms to a separate reception room for 'noisy' activities.

In terms of mess, we are by no means neat freaks although I do aspire to having a clean and tidy house most times, and the mess does not really bother me more than it has when we have had separate rooms. Family life is messy! Really important with open plan living to have great storage somewhere to hide mess when you have unexpected callers.

Now smells, on the other hand, do bother me. We had a really powerful extractor at our last house, for that reason, but I am more bothered by smells wafting up to the bedrooms then around the ground floor.

TracyK - great great advice. It hadn't occurred to me that we could leave it all as one big room and then add a double sided fireplace, space dividers etc once we have had some time to get used to living in the new space. Great suggestion. The current living space already has a double-sided fireplace bang in the middle of the room, but it is a humoungous, old 70s style thing and I can't wait to get rid of it for something more streamlined. You are right it is a big commitment for something so permanent and will need to think carefully about relocating it.

This weekend, we did think of a prep sink in the island, and then the main sink along the wall....

Yes - we did the same with the extractor fan - got a really powerful one to keep the smells down.
One thing I did regret was not putting underfloor heating in the kitchen. The tiles are sooo cold and it permeates into the 'warm' living areas. Also the cupboards are all on external wall - so you get cold just opening a cupboard!.
I'd think carefully as well as how much glass you use in the walls. Only if you have a nice view have it glass. Otherwise you won't have much wall space for artwork, radiators, etc. We have a large window overlooking the side of the garden and I'd love to brick it in cos it compromises the rest of the things I want.
I do like the open plan 'wow' factor of our house. You come in the kitchen door and see right through to the end of the lounge 15 odd meters away. But yes - it is a pia sometimes. Esp in winter when ds has friends round - they 'play' in our lounge!
We have a TV room further into the house - but its just a typical modern double bedroom size.

Underfloor heating - check

Any tips for ensuring tiles in kitchen and something else (wooden floors, say) in living space looks seamless?

Re glass walls. Oh if only we had that problem. We are having to go for glass in the roof, as the only wall we are able to put glass into is the garden wall. So this wall will have to have as much glass as we can manage to maximise light.

For this reason we are probably going to go for large sliding doors, rather than folding, sliding doors. Given the weather in the UK, they are more likely to be shut than open so, to avoid looking out on lots of vertical lines (and again, to maximise light) we are probably going for less fashionable sliding doors across the width.

Where abouts are you in the country pottering?
I would love to have the folding back doors - and if I could - I would add one of those sail/canopy type things for over the area outside the doors iykwim.

We have caramelly tiles in kitchen - then chocolate/dark brown wooden flooring in dining/lounge areas (the same colour of wood as the kitchen units). Joiner made a wooden threshold for the join out of one of the planks - so it matches the wooden part of the floor exactly.
the join from our kitchen out is only about a metre wide as I have a half wall and units seperating rather than an island. The wall comes above the units by about 20cm - so you can't see the clutter from living space and also let me hang a radiator on the back of it.

We got an extractor fan with an external motor - so it's whisper quiet. You might want to look at frameless doors rather than sliding, they are more expensive but very slick looking. We kept the same floor surface throughout, depends how contemporary you are going but my feeling is that the floor surface needs to be uniform otherwise you cluttering up the floor and it is one of the biggest features in the room.

TracyK - we are in Hertfordshire...

Bizarrely, the old dear we bought the house from had one of those canopy-type things over the patio area. Unfolds at the press of a button. She had all manner of gadgets installed, but they look so decrepit we have no idea if they will work/be of any use. Water softener and central vacuum system anyone?! Pity she didnt pay as much attention to the state of the roof. Also, the garden is north-facing (grr, but can't do much about that) and so not sure it will get used much.

That is a good tip from your joiner re finishing off the floor join. I'm determined this time around that we won't run out of steam when it comes to sorting all those finishing touches which frustrate the hell out of you in years to come if you don't.

WG - will definitely look into frameless doors (hadn't heard of them). Which type of flooring did you go for to meet the needs of the entire space?

A water softner is essential - I love mine. After much consideration we went for an engineered oiled oak. I'm really happy with it too - I have spilled red wine, tomato sauce etc, it's been left over night and wiped off with a wet cloth, it's no bother at all and doesn't look dirty, even though it needs a good sweep.

I had considered rubber, resin, tiling, polished concrete & amtico - they all have strengths and weaknesses, you just have to decide what is important to you. Mind you if having a break in the floor doesn't bother you then just go with it....but a break in the floor was something I couldn't compromise on.

There are many people offering services as 'design consultants', 'architectural designers' 'architectural design consultants' and the like. Clients are often deliberately innocently misled into believing their 'designer' is qualified to use the title.

If your designer is not a registered Architect (i.e. registered here then maybe an interior designer would be useful in addition to your adviser.

If you have employed an Architect you will should not need an interior designer as our 7 year education and training includes all aspects of a building's design including comprehensive and in-depth experience with interiors.

We also put two doorways into the back of the house - so that we wouldn't have kids traipsing through our living space. But our house is a bit of an awkward layout. 2 side doors, the main one coming straight into the kitchen. If I had another £15k I'd build a large dog/boot/wet room entrance. Then the bedrooms and loo are off to the back of the house - its kind of an L shape.

Have you got loads of nice housey mags to get ideas from pottering? Get the posh ones as they will have open plan type to the highest spec.

Yes when Dad heard I had a water softener he was very envious, but think I will need expert input to get it up and running again...

You can't beat an oak floor and I bet you get a lovely natural-looking finish on an oiled floor. Can I ask what style your kitchen units are? I fancy oak on my island and matt white on my wall units, but want grey-based whites in my decor and not sure if it will look weird with oak. Walnut probably a better wood to go with, but we had walnut veneer and cream gloss in my last kitchen...

Pendeen - I thought our 'architect' was an architect but he isn't registered there. Eek! Works for a large firm as a 'director', but I guess that could mean anything. Since the plans side of my job is straightforward, we were happy to go with someone recommended with a track record of getting approval with our planning authority. However, as wonkylegs says, my gut feel is that he wouldn't be right for what I want on the design-side. Incidentally, wonky is an architect but doesn't do domestic remodelling??

Good idea to have prep sink in island rather than main sink. Unless you're super tidy, stuff always accumulates near/in the sink and you don't want that hanging around on the island unit.

Using a piece of flooring to finish off the floor area (running it at right angles to main boards, for instance) is a great way to manage the transition. In our open plan room I got them to lay the floorboards diagonally (you can imagine how popular that was ). 11 years later I'm still glad I did as it makes a massive difference to how the space feels. You do use more flooring though as there's a lot of wastage.

Quick thought: you can use low bookcases as zone markers, and if you have sockets put into the floor at the right spot, you can put lamps on them to really mark the transition.