Open Living Design
A family in Leidschenveen needed advice for the restyling of their open living. With 4 children, storage space is never enough. One common problem with big families is shortage of storage space in the refrigerator. If you want to add an extra fridge in your existing kitchen, you often need to re-design the whole room. In this case, the kitchen is in open connection with the dining area, so our design included a new lay out for the dining section too.
First we closed the doorways leading from the entrance hall to the kitchen and living room and replaced them with ample double doors leading straight into the dining area.
Closing the doorway to the kitchen makes it possible to fill the gap with high cabinets or a double fridge. Also, the high cabinets that were blocking the view on the corner window in the kitchen -the other unique feature of the house- have been replaced by low cabinets.
The dining is conveniently located in the middle of the living and is gifted by lots of daylight from the skylight on the small sides and above the extension niche. This is a unique feature in the house which we highlighted by bringing back the symmetry in the construction plan, by introducing the transparent double doors and by decorating the inner wall of the niche in a powerful way. We also placed a long floating bench all along the niche for lots of extra seats at the big dining table. This changes give the niche a new meaning, make the dining much more spacious and make the routing more fluid and natural.
The lighting plan consists of a rail system with spots on the ceiling, to evenly spread the light along the walls in the living room, to light up art objects and the counter top of the kitchen. The central dining room has a big suspended lamp above the table and the double doors are highlighted by wall lamps on both sides of them. A big floor lamp in the living room and some table lamps in the dark add softness to the atmosphere in the evenings.
Check the design book for more information
Location: Leidschenveen, Zuid Holland
Interior design by Stefania Rastellino
