Kitchen design living room 12 sq m - photo with a sofa
In the homes of typical kitchen buildings do not differ in large size. Owners have to solve a difficult task: how to equip their kitchen with all necessary, and at the same time leave space for life? Try to turn your 12 sq. M into a living room kitchen, where there is enough space for both pots and households.

Even a small room can be turned into a cozy living room with a kitchen area.
The rules of the kitchen-living room
In order for the combined kitchen living room to look harmonious, it is important to follow a few simple rules when designing future repairs.
- The design of the working area of the kitchen and the living room space should be made in the same style; complex areas (pop art, kitsch, eclecticism) are best left to a professional designer;
- Particular attention should be paid to textiles, large interior items, elements of kitchen sets and furnishings in the recreation area should be approximately the same in character and material (natural wood and textiles, plastic and synthetics);
- You should not make the whole room monophonic, but the color options for the walls, floor and ceiling should be in the same color scheme, differing in the degree of hue; classic is considered a combination of no more than 2-3 colors;
- The wall between the kitchen and the living room can be removed only partially, turning it into a separate piece of furniture: a table, a decorative column or a stand for indoor flowers, and non-standard shaped rooms must be visually balanced by properly arranged furniture and decorative elements.

Light shades help make the space wider.
Finish
Even with the combination of the kitchen and living room of 12 sq. M, it is not easy to fit the area for cooking, storing food, kitchen utensils and all the necessary equipment. Simple design tips will allow you to visually enlarge the room, avoid gross mistakes and embody all your ideas.
Walls
Light walls will help to visually increase the area of the room, dark colors, on the contrary, "eat up" the space. It is important to remember that cold shades (blue, gray, pale lilac, turquoise) will increase the room, but make it uncomfortable for a long stay. A small pattern on the walls visually pushes the boundaries in square rooms, but on long, elongated walls it can become monotonous. For short rooms, photo wallpapers or a fresco with a perspective are optimal (views of the garden, roads stretching into the distance, channels, panoramic views).

Fresco on the wall of the kitchen-living room in ethnic style
Vertical striped wallpaper makes the room taller, but narrow the walls. An example of a wrong kitchen design of a living room of 12 meters is shown in the photo, where a vertical picture compresses an already small room. An excessively extended room can be shortened by painting one of the walls in a dark color - it will seem closer. The same effect can be achieved by placing a large pattern or wide horizontal stripes on the desired wall.

Horizontal stripes in the interior of the kitchen-living room
Visually balances too narrow and elongated square reception with a sofa, set across the room.

Stylish sofa against the wall in the interior of a small kitchen-living room
Floor
Tiles or boards laid diagonally will help to visually push the area of the room in all directions, the same method of laying is preferable for rooms of irregular shape. For narrow and long kitchens, it is better to choose the transverse method of laying boards to balance the shape of the room. A large pattern on the floor (tile, mosaic, decorative parquet) in combination with very light walls and a ceiling increases the space, the combination of a light top with a floor covering of saturated tones (dark wood, bright linoleum or pouring) has the same effect. Light floor and wide horizontal stripes in tone on the walls of the kitchen space apart. Glossy floor will increase the area well, but not suitable for every style.

Ceramic tiles are perfect for the kitchen / living room floor.
Ceiling
The white monophonic ceiling will add to the room lightness and volume, and the glossy ceiling of light shades will make it higher and more spacious. A ceiling that is too low will help to raise the edging in the color of the walls around the perimeter (that is, the walls “come in” on the ceiling), while the width of the edge should not exceed 20 cm.

Smooth white matte stretch ceiling for the kitchen-living room
Important! if the color of the edging is different from the color of the walls, the ceiling, on the contrary, will appear lower.
You can increase the space with the help of ceiling beams. The color of the beams should be slightly lighter than the ceiling. When it is necessary to balance the size of a rectangular room, the beams are darkened and placed across the narrow part.

Cross beams on the kitchen-dining room ceiling
Lighting
Windows add space if the frames and the window sill are white and the place near the glass is not cluttered with small details (for example, a window sill lined with indoor flowers in small pots). As a curtain, it is better to choose an airy light material that easily passes light and does not create additional volume; bright curtains in the entire height of the wall visually raise the ceiling.

Light translucent curtains in the interior of the kitchen-living room
A window facing south and south-west needs shading during the daytime, and low-key black-out Roman blinds to the walls will help solve the problem. Windows facing north do not need additional curtains. Artificial lighting of a small room should be bright and bright - the more light, the more space.

To supplement the lighting in the kitchen-living room, you can use spotlights above the kitchen area
Furniture
Smooth and smooth vertical surfaces will allow your kitchen to look more spacious than it is: minimize the number of handles on the set, decorative decorations for the kitchen and bright spots on the walls. Make the kitchen more will help the rich color of the furniture and matched to the color of the floor covering; it is important that the walls are painted in neutral pastel colors, otherwise the visual background will be overloaded.

Transparent tables and chairs (if the general style allows it) will seem weightless and will not affect the size of the area. The same effect of weightlessness is created by upper cabinets, if they are colored a few tones lighter than lower pedestals. A dark tabletop in a contrasting combination with the main color of the headset will create a horizontal expansion of the space.

Ways to save space in the kitchen
The main motto of any small space design is minimalism. This rule is especially applicable in the kitchen, where each hostess holds more than a dozen cans, boxes, appliances and other utensils necessary in the household.

The abundance of small parts can turn an already small 12 meters into a tiny untidy little box, clogged with trash. For the kitchen of the living room, the untidiness of the working area is doubly unacceptable. Everything in a regular kitchen can be hidden behind a closed door, in the kitchen of the living room put on display.
What techniques will help make the kitchen design living room of 12 square meters ergonomic and roomy?

Hidden storage space
A popular place for storage in kitchens is an angular sofa, under the seat of which there are spacious drawers; in this way, you can equip the space under the tables, volumetric stools and bar counters; The photo shows a typical kitchen living room of 12 square meters with a sofa. Put magnetic strips on the internal doors of the wall cabinets, and get a place to store knives, threaded metal covers and other small parts made of iron. In the corner cabinets of the headset, as a rule, there are “blind” zones, which take up a lot of space, but are inconvenient for storage due to limited access to them; equip such a zone with rotating shelves on the vertical axis.

The cabinet under the sink is often empty, although there is enough space for shelves and hanging drawers. Equip the partition between the former kitchen and the living room as a storage rack; as containers, use decorative textile or wicker boxes, selected in size and color. In the houses of the old construction there are often niches in the walls, which serve as an excellent place for shelves; outside the niche can be covered with a decorative panel or a Roman curtain to match the main colors of the kitchen; On the photo is an example of the interior of the kitchen of the living room of 12 sq m with the use of niches as additional storage places.

Horizontal gaps between the refrigerator, stove and set can be turned into vertical drawers for storing cutting boards, lids of saucepans and jars with spices. If space permits, the lower walls of the wall cabinets can be equipped with additional drawers with spices and cutlery. Also, if there is enough space, you can increase the area of the window sill by placing a small storage area under it.

Built-in appliances
For a living room kitchen of 12 sq. M, it is better to choose compact household appliances that can be easily integrated into the furniture. A volume refrigerator or a stand-alone monolithic stove are unlikely to organically fit into a small space. They are more likely to create an effect of piling up and heterogeneity.

In the combined kitchen living room built-in appliances plays a special role. The less it attracts attention, the more harmonious the whole room will look, which is already overloaded with interior items. If possible, the equipment should be removed for the facades of the kitchen. The open parts (front panels of the oven, microwave ovens, electrical appliances) should be the same in color and style. The range of built-in appliances in stores today is so wide that it will allow to implement any ideas for the kitchen. Examples of built-in appliances in the interior of the living room kitchen are 12 square meters, see the photo below.

Ergonomic way of placing built-in appliances in a small kitchen is a separate case where the oven, microwave and coffee maker are vertically located. Modern hobs are built into the countertop, without taking up extra space beneath; cupboard with a hob is used as a regular cabinet, equipped with shelves or drawers. If for a conventional refrigerator there is not enough space against the wall, you should think about non-standard models that are placed in wall cabinets or in the pedestals under the table top. If as a result of combining the kitchen and living room there is an opportunity to make a niche next to the cooking zone, do not miss this opportunity; most often the refrigerator fits in perfectly, without occupying too much space in the open areas of the kitchen.

Important! Have built-in equipment must be in strict accordance with the instructions for use. This will save your home from an accident and extend the life of your appliances, since replacing the built-in equipment is costly and time consuming.

Multifunctional zones and transforming furniture
For a studio apartment, the multifunctionality of all items of furniture is particularly important, because in such an apartment the kitchen-living room serves both as a bedroom, a study, and a dressing room. Furniture-transformer in this case will be a real salvation.

A common variant of the transformer - folding tables that are attached to the walls and sides of the cabinets. A small coffee table, if necessary, is transformed into a large and roomy dining table. Folding can also be an additional sofa for guests, which, when assembled, disguises itself as a wardrobe door. It is easy to build in a kitchen set a sliding dining table or a working surface if to leave a small gap between a table-top, lateral walls and a curbstone with drawers.

Whatever the design of the kitchen-living room, the main rule is one: it must be in harmony with the character of the owner. Lovers of classic colors and shapes are unlikely to be eclectic. Provence and Chebbi-chic are absolutely contraindicated for dynamic natures who keep up with the times.

Typical mistakes
- For the wall, on which there are decorative accessories (photos, clocks, souvenirs), only a monochromatic version of coloring will be suitable; on a motley colored background, such objects will create unnecessary visual noise;
- You should be careful when combining the rich color of the furniture and the pattern on the wallpaper, one thing may be catchy: either the walls or the furniture;
- Lack of visual accents is one of the most common mistakes, in any interior a “point of focus” is necessary - a key piece of furniture on which attention is concentrated, and kitchen design must be “diluted” with small color spots (cushions, medium-sized paintings, bright floor vases);
- In the kitchen of the living room, you need to use only one way of zoning: color or volume (podiums, mounted parts on the ceiling), or materials; if several methods are used simultaneously, the interior will be overloaded;
- When all the objects in the room are located at a right angle to each other, the situation seems too strict and uncomfortable, it is necessary to dilute the interior with an asymmetrical detail: a diagonal stripe on the floor, a round dining table, an oval carpet;
- The use of red in kitchen design often leads to unsuccessful decisions, in large quantities red is the color of aggression, which kills comfort and tranquility in the house, if you use it as bright spots, you should be very attentive to the rest of the palette, as it attracts a lot of attention and can easily upset the proportions of the room.

When designing a room design, it is important first of all to build on your own ideas and ideas about comfort.

























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