The recent trend with home design is to have as open a floor plan as possible. Walls have become the enemy; after all, they just take up space and make a given area feel more cramped and claustrophobic. In some cases, the open floor plan has become so extreme the resulting look is that of a racquetball court with some furniture.
Kitchens were the tip of the spear in this open floor plan charge, as in 2010, the average kitchen accounted for 8 percent of the total square footage of a typical apartment, up 2 percent from 2000. This is due in large part to kitchens being combined with living rooms and dining rooms to create one large living space for families to stay connected or to help whoever is doing the cooking to remain a part of the action during dinner parties or holiday meals.
According to the New York Times, however, the closed kitchen is beginning to make a bit of a comeback. For many apartments, the ability to have a closed kitchen depends on space. A studio apartment, for example, isn’t going to offer a separate kitchen, but if there is more space, more opportunities are opened up. One of the benefits of enclosing a kitchen is that it opens up more design options. There is more wall space for kitchen-specific designs. Closed kitchens are also good for anyone who entertains a lot and hires a private chef or a caterer to take care of dinner.
And for anyone who is on the fence about whether they want a kitchen with a closed or open floor plan, pocket doors are a great solution. Pocket doors offer the best of both worlds, creating a closed off look when desired, but also offering the benefits of an open kitchen when the doors are opened. According to a recent survey by the National Kitchen and bath Association, about 70 percent of the roughly 450 respondents said they used pocket doors as part of a kitchen remodeling or new construction project in 2015.
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