Open-plan living and dining: zones without walls

Rugs draw the boundaries

The most effective tool lies on the floor. A rug marks out a zone clearly without blocking anything.

What matters is that each zone gets its own and that visible floor remains between the rugs – this strip is the actual separation. Two rugs that butt up against each other look like one large rug that has gone wrong.

Size also plays a part. In the seating area, a rug should be at least as wide as the front of the sofa and take in the front feet of the surrounding furniture. If it lies loose in front of the sofa without touching any piece of furniture, it looks like a picture that is too small for a large wall. Under the dining table it needs about 60–70 cm (23.6–27.6 in) of overhang beyond the edge of the table all round, so that the chairs stay on the rug with all four legs even when pushed back. If a chair tips over the edge, the rug is too small.

The rugs do not have to look the same, but they should be related: the same colour family, a different texture.

Furniture backs as a wall

A sofa with its back to the dining area separates two zones as clearly as a half-height wall – and blocks no light.

A low sideboard placed across the room or an open shelf does the same. The height is decisive: anything below about 90 cm (35.4 in) separates without interrupting the view. Anything above it turns the open room back into two small ones.

Furniture standing freely in the room inevitably shows a back. A sideboard that shows only a raw back panel from behind should therefore not stand in the middle of the field of view. Shelves that are open on both sides solve this more elegantly: they separate, but let light and the view through. If you use them, it is better to keep them loosely filled – a shelf filled to the last gap becomes a wall again.

Plan the walkways first

In an open room, more paths cross than in separate rooms: from the door to the kitchen, from the kitchen to the table, from the table to the sofa, plus the way outside. If you draw in these lines before the furniture is in place, you quickly see which arrangement works at all.

The planning values are: main walkways need a width of at least 80 cm (31.5 in), 100–120 cm (39.4–47.2 in) is comfortable. Around the dining table, about 80 cm (31.5 in) should remain free to the nearest wall or the nearest piece of furniture so that a chair can be pulled out; where someone should also be able to walk past behind the chairs, it is around 100 cm (39.4 in). Between sofa and coffee table, about 40 cm (15.7 in) is enough – close enough to put things down, far enough for the legs.

Just as important is where the paths run. A walkway that divides the seating group or leads across the rug of the dining area cancels out any separation. It is better to lead the paths along the zones and to use the backs of the furniture as a guide line. If only a narrow strip remains between a zone and the wall, it usually makes more sense to give up this strip entirely and move the furniture against the wall than to force a passage that is too narrow.

Light for each zone

Even ceiling lighting across the whole room is the surest way to undo any zoning.

Each area needs its own light source: a pendant light above the dining table, a floor or table lamp in the seating area, task light in the kitchen. In the evening this creates three islands of light with darkness in between – and that is exactly what makes a large room homely.

For the island of light above the dining table to work, hang the light low enough: about 60–70 cm (23.6–27.6 in) above the tabletop. Hung higher, it lights the room instead of the table; lower, it obstructs the view of the person opposite. In the seating area, on the other hand, the number of light points counts more than their strength – two or three small lights at different heights shape a zone better than one bright one.

All light sources in the same light colour, otherwise the zones look like different flats. Separate switches or dimmers are more important than the lights themselves: only when each zone can be controlled individually do genuinely different moods arise in the same room in the evening.

One material that runs throughout

To keep the zones from falling apart, you need a link – a material or a colour that appears in every area.

This can be the same wood: on the dining table, on the coffee table, on a kitchen detail. Or a natural stone that appears once as a bowl, once as a tabletop and once as an object. The eye reads this repetition as connection.

One link is usually enough, two is the maximum. If you introduce a different material in each area, you do not get a coherent room, but a collection. Conversely, the repetition should not tip over into a matching set: a wood tone that appears in three zones, each time on a different piece of furniture, connects better than a complete range from the same series. Textiles also work as a link – a linen, a wool tone or a colour that recurs on curtain, cushions and seat upholstery.

The kitchen is the most difficult zone

It is the only area that is visible even when it is not in use – and the only one that brings appliances, cables and traces of work with it.

What helps: closed fronts instead of open shelves, as little as possible on the worktop, and one deliberately placed item that holds the eye. A stone bowl with fruit or a single beautiful object on the island visually ties the kitchen to the living area instead of showing it as a functional zone.

Handles, plinths and fronts in a calm tone make the kitchen run look more like a piece of furniture than a fitted kitchen. A second point is often underestimated: sound and smell. In an open room both spread unhindered, so a powerful, quiet extractor hood and sound-absorbing surfaces – rugs, curtains, upholstery – are not decoration here, but part of the planning. Where a kitchen island also serves as a counter, it should be clear which side faces the living space: the working side belongs to the kitchen, the open side to the living area.