Until the pandemic rolled around in 2020 and we all spent so long locked in our houses that we really started to look at how we live again, it was the norm (and still is) to knock down as many walls as possible and create open plan living spaces. In these, kitchens and dining rooms jostle together, and often the living room join forces too. We ultimately spend most of our time at home in one giant space, so how best to zone it out in separate areas that feel distinct?

A change in flooring

One simple way to mark out different parts of an open plan room for individual uses is with a subtle but effective change in flooring. In both examples below, a rug has been added to what is effectively the ‘living area,’ bringing a sense of comfort and disrupting the flow. It marks out that area as somewhere to hunker down.

open plan living, design ideas, small apartment ideas — Photography by Elsa Young.

Use natural materials and the architecture of a room to draw boundaries between the living areas. The (grand or smaller) proportions of a space can support bold design statements, such as a fireplace, striking pendant lights, or a kitchen worktop.

Zoning a small space

Small spaces are undoubtedly hardest to zone, as there's not much room to do so. Beata Heuman has provided a masterclass in this London flat, managing to cram a kitchen, dining area and sitting room into one fairly tiny space. The key was creating a sense of different areas and moods ‘so the owners didn’t get bored with the one main room they have’, Beata says. Here, as the kitchen, dining space and sitting room converge as one, Beata and Fosca’s design scheme needed to satisfy the varied demands of cooking, relaxing, working and entertaining.

Beata Heuman, open plan living, design ideas, small apartment ideas

The trick they used was to differentiate between the cooking and sitting areas – previously all found in the one space – by installing a U-shaped kitchen. This immediately created an additional surface on which to serve food or use as a bar. ‘It also provided a wall against which to place a banquette, which was something the owners really wanted,’ says Beata. The living space then occupies the opposite corner of the room, with two sofas at a perpendicular angle to one another. A custom TV cabinet decorated with Fornasetti’s ‘Nuvolette’ wallpaper from Cole & Son hides the TV from sight and sits neatly in the alcove.

Cabinets as dividers

interior design, Hubert Zandberg, open plan living, design ideas, — In this open-plan home, Hubert Zandberg uses a wide, freestanding unit, topped with forged-iron shelving, gives the impression of separation from the dining area. Image: Supplied.

Most commonly, when dividing a kitchen area from the rest of an open-plan room, you'll find a breakfast bar as a divider. What Hubert Zandberg has done here is much more appealing. A wide, freestanding unit, topped with forged-iron shelving, gives the impression of separation from the dining area without carving up the space into rooms. The cabinet clearly marks out the kitchen from the dining space, meaning you can pile up unsightly dishes in the kitchen when you have guests round and they won't essentially be sitting amongst them.

This story originally appeared on our sister publication House & Garden UK.