Open or closed kitchen: advantages and disadvantages of the two solutions

Kitchen open or closed? This is the question of many people who are preparing to furnish this particularly important area of their home. While the living room is in some ways the beating heart of the house, the kitchen is certainly the most used environment in practice, both for food preparation and for the convivial aspect.

In order to understand whether you prefer an open kitchen or a closed kitchen, it is important to base yourself on the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed and which you most desire.

Other questions that it is important to ask ourselves in order to meet our furnishing requirements are: will the kitchen serve only for the preparation of meals? And again: how often is this room used? The choice of opening up to the living room is closely related to these questions.

Kitchen open to the living room, semi-open kitchen or closed kitchen?

If you have little space available in your living room, our advice as designers is to annex the kitchen to the living room and create an open-plan kitchen. In this way the space obtained will be more flexible. For example, the table can be larger and take up other functions (besides breakfast, lunch and dinner), such as study and hobbies. In this way conviviality and the possibility to spend more time in the company of your loved ones will be promoted, especially during lunches and dinners in the company of friends and relatives.

When choosing furniture for an open kitchen it will be important to consider the fact that island and peninsula solutions are certainly exciting, but sometimes they can become particularly cumbersome or have certain disadvantages (Kitchen with peninsula yes or no: pros and cons).

The main disadvantage of peninsula or island kitchens is the spread of odours and vapours throughout the house, as well as the noise associated with food preparation. If you decide to opt for these furnishing solutions, our advice is to provide a good odour extraction and ventilation system.

Finally, it is important to point out that in an island kitchen or a kitchen with a peninsula it is essential to always maintain maximum order.

If you have discreetly large spaces available and your idea of furnishing is to have a room separate and separate from the living area, this solution has a number of advantages. First of all, a closed kitchen has the advantage of having more space available for the three functional areas of your rooms, i.e. food preparation, storage and preservation.

As far as the disadvantages of a closed kitchen are concerned, we can say that for the same square metres, with this solution we have the idea of having smaller spaces, both for the living area and the kitchen. Obviously in a closed kitchen it will be more complex to adopt a solution of island or peninsula furniture.

A compromise between the two furnishing solutions could be to create a semi-closed kitchen or a closed kitchen with the aid of a glass door.

All the advantages of an open kitchen

A kitchen open to the living area is an environment of great visual impact and able to create a unique suggestion. Among the main advantages that characterize an open kitchen is the ability to optically increase the size of its spaces, creating the feeling of being in a larger environment. For this reason these furnishing solutions are perfect for homes with limited overall dimensions.

An open kitchen is also synonymous with a more flexible and functional environment. With this furnishing solution we do not need two tables, as one element alone will fulfil all the functions. Also for this reason an open kitchen is able to promote integration and conviviality. While you are cooking you will still be immersed in family life and will be able to enjoy pleasant moments in the company of your loved ones.

Finally, it is good to remember that an open kitchen offers us multiple furnishing solutions; at the same time, however, this solution will require great attention in the choice and positioning of appliances.

All the advantages of a closed kitchen

We now come to the advantages of a closed kitchen. First of all this choice of furniture is able to eliminate all the problems related to an open and large space. By isolating the kitchen from the other rooms of the house we will avoid the spread of unpleasant smells, as well as disturbing noises.

Opting for the creation of separate spaces we can also take care of the safety of our little ones by simply closing a door. A kitchen separated from the other rooms in the house may not always be absolutely perfect: we can simply close the door and think about tidying up the kitchen later, without creating a feeling of disorder in the whole living space.

A separate kitchen gives us the opportunity to be more free to choose and place appliances in the space. We can also buy models of external appliances, which are certainly cheaper than built-in models. Smaller appliances can also be placed directly on the counter, without overloading the kitchen space.

In a closed kitchen we will certainly be able to obtain more space and furnish our environment with more furniture. The counters will be longer and we will have more space to store food and accessories. In a closed kitchen it is also possible to use counters on several levels of height.

Finally, with a closed kitchen, if we have aesthetic preferences of furniture that are not 100% in line with the other spaces in the house, we will certainly have more room for compromise. In a closed space the partially different styles do not create a disharmony as visible as in open spaces.

Disadvantages of an open or closed kitchen

As regards the disadvantages of an open kitchen, in the previous paragraphs we mentioned the spread of smells and noises, which inevitably have no barriers in an open space. In an open kitchen it will therefore be important, in order to limit the spread of noise, to choose quiet or low-emission appliances. To counteract odours, we have already mentioned the solution in the previous paragraphs.

Another disadvantage of an open kitchen is that the space must always be tidy, as there are no barriers to hide the clutter. In an open kitchen we will also not have the possibility of restricting the entrance of children. For this reason we will always have to pay the utmost attention to the little ones, to guarantee them maximum safety and not expose them to the risks of a kitchen (oven, cooker, sharp knives, broken glassware, etc.).

Finally, in an open kitchen it will be advisable to pay the utmost attention in the choice of furniture, accessories and lighting system, in order to make every stylistic solution consistent with the whole environment.

As far as the disadvantages of an enclosed kitchen are concerned, we would like to remind you once again how this furnishing solution contributes to making people feel that they are in smaller spaces overall. In fact, the spaces separated by a wall seem more limited than the spaces themselves, open and without barriers.

In a closed kitchen we will also have to consider the preparation of an area for quick meals. In a closed space it is also inevitable that communication with other environments becomes more complex. It is also important in a closed kitchen to pay due attention to the window element. The window will in fact have a dual function: to illuminate the spaces with the aid of natural light and offer the possibility of airing the room. The last disadvantage of a separate kitchen (which for some, however, could be an advantage) is that the person cooking will not be in contact with the other tenants of the house.

How to hide an open kitchen

To hide an open kitchen there are some furnishing solutions. For example, it is possible to arrange a glass window or a sliding door that separates the kitchen from the living area. Or it is also possible to choose to prepare a kitchen that can be closed in a piece of furniture in your open space: you can buy this type of kitchen on the market.