Kitchens are the bread and butter of any home. While others would say that the living rooms and bedrooms come close to taking the title, there’s no denying the amount of entertainment, function, and overall utility a well-planned out kitchen can offer. Plus, unlike bathroom renovations that could end up costing you way more than you’ve bargained for, knowing where and how to invest your extra savings toward a kitchen remodeling can almost always guarantee the most bang for your buck.
However, the one problem we have with the kitchen design trend is not necessarily the space itself but the overarching theme that everyone defaults to, which is going open-plan and tearing down the walls to make everything feel more spacious. We know that magazine catalogs, modern aesthetics, and celebrity homes make them work, but there’s more to it than just the good side, especially the unexpected drawbacks.
More Space Doesn’t Mean More Freedom.
Firstly, people often assume that more space immediately relates to more freedom around their kitchen. While the blending of your living room space into the kitchen area does look fun at face value, you can expect a lot more issues in exchange. You see, peace with an open-plan kitchen design is only possible if you live alone or with just your significant other, but if your household has multiple members of the family running about, then the cons will outweigh the perceived benefits.
- Expect Things To Get Extra Noisy: Usually, you’d have your walls to dampen the noise from room to room for you, but since you’re tearing them down to achieve an open-plan kitchen, then things will get extra noisy soon enough. It’s only natural for someone to watch TV and blast the volume from time to time, but having all that noise isn’t typically the best motivator for meal preparation and cooking.
- Disrupting The Harmony Of Space And Function: In addition to things getting a lot noisier than usual, open-plan kitchen designs often disrupt the harmonious relationship between space and function. You might find it difficult to switch from one activity to the next due to a lack of division in space, and from an objective point of view, you will need to check on your plumbing and heating because those systems will also take a hit.
Your Kitchen Will Feel A Lot Messier Than Usual
Secondly, while most people assume that open-plan kitchen designs will make the area look and feel a lot cleaner, more space tends to introduce more clutter if you’re not used to it, which will make the room feel way messier than it should. And if you live quite the active lifestyle with almost no time to gather your bearings and dedicate the weekend to cleaning things up, that mess you made with an open-plan kitchen design will be staying there for quite some time.
- The Smell Gets Everywhere: Although most movies and blockbuster films always portray the kitchen scene with delicious and jaw-dropping aromas from freshly baked desserts and full banquets, real-life cooking is a lot different. Some ingredients can carry strong odors, and messing up a dish can stink the place by accident, and the lack of walls will cause the smell to get everywhere and is a recipe for disaster if anyone’s staying in the dining area or living room.
- Say Goodbye To Any Form Of Privacy: Besides the risk of strong odors ruining the environment of your kitchen, open-plan designs also mean you’d have to say goodbye to any form of privacy while cooking. Sure, some will argue that it makes for better communication, but you may have come to enjoy the quiet and closed-off nature of working from home and in the kitchen. So, even if it scores you extra space for building your chest through push-ups, there’s always a cost.
Of Course, It’s Not All Bad
Although we’ve made it abundantly clear that open-plan kitchen designs also have plenty of shortfalls, that’s not to say they are entirely bad because there are justifiable reasons as to why they’ve become famous. Namely, open-plan kitchen designs are excellent at (1) raising your property’s value and (2) allowing you to design without holding back, both of which are fantastic features.
- Raising Your Property Value: If you’re on the market to sell your home sometime soon, then investing in an open-plan kitchen design is not a bad call because it can help raise your property’s value by a considerable margin. And since it’s all the rage nowadays, you’ll find no end to the number of people who will comment and say they love the kitchen space.
- Freedom Through Design And Aesthetics: Constraints are your worst enemies when it comes to design, and nothing hits harder than being told to hold back because there’s not enough space. That’s why open-plan kitchen spaces have grown in popularity because you can reimagine your kitchen area and blend different parts of the home to make it a reality.
Don’t Fall For Trends And Decide For Yourself!
Overall, we want to remind everyone that falling for trends and blindly following the bandwagon effect is not how you should approach a kitchen renovation plan. So, before you double down on that open-plan kitchen thought bubble, be sure to evaluate the drawbacks mentioned above.