Open-plan kitchens in Tenerife

Open-plan kitchens are a very common renovation in 1970s and 1980s flats in Santa Cruz and La Laguna, where the kitchen is a closed, dark room at the end of the corridor. Opening it up brings light into the living room and stops the kitchen being a place apart. But a kitchen on show shares the room with the sofa and the TV, and that changes what you need from it.

How to divide the kitchen from the living room

How you divide the kitchen from the living room depends on the space and on how you will use it. These are the usual options:

• Breakfast bar. Part of the wall is kept at half height, or a unit with a raised worktop is fitted (in Spain this is what people call a cocina americana). It is the most economical solution and the one that best hides worktop clutter from the sofa.
• Peninsula. It extends one side of the kitchen and acts as a boundary. It suits medium-sized spaces and gives you worktop and somewhere for breakfast. We cover it in detail on our peninsula kitchens page.
• Island. It is the most open option, but it needs clear space all round. If in doubt, our island kitchens page has the minimum sizes.
• No divide. A single-wall kitchen against the wall with a dining table in front. It works in very long, narrow spaces.

Smoke and smells: the extractor

The extractor is the most important item in an open-plan kitchen, because any smoke and smell it does not remove goes straight to the sofa and the curtains. Wherever the building allows, it should vent outside; recirculating hoods with a carbon filter trap some of the smells, but not the steam or all of the smoke.

The airflow is calculated on the volume of the whole open space, not only the kitchen. Noise matters too: an extractor that goes above about 55 decibels at medium speed means raising your voice in the living room while you cook. Our guide to cooker hoods explains how to calculate the airflow and which types suit each kitchen.

Appliance noise

Noise in an open-plan kitchen is kept down by choosing quiet appliances and building them into the cabinetry, because the dishwasher and the fridge can be heard from the living room. A dishwasher rated at 44 decibels or less can run at night without disturbing anyone. Putting the fridge in an integrated tall housing also helps, as it muffles the hum of the compressor, and so do soft-close drawers.

Lighting by zone

Lighting in an open-plan kitchen has to work in two modes: strong task light over the worktop and ambient light when the kitchen becomes part of the living room. The practical answer is separate circuits: LED strips under the wall units, pendants over the breakfast bar or island and dimmable general lighting. Keep the same colour temperature in the kitchen and living room so they do not look like two different spaces.

A continuous floor

A floor that runs uninterrupted from kitchen to living room does more than anything else to make the space read as one. Porcelain tile is the usual choice because it copes with water, grease and knocks in the kitchen and looks good in the living area. If the living room has a wooden floor you want to keep, you can make a straight transition in line with the breakfast bar or the peninsula.

Making the floor continuous means either lifting the old one or laying over it, and that affects doors and skirting boards. We handle it within the same kitchen renovation project, coordinating the building work and the fitting of the units.