Kitchen-living room design in Batumi: areas, walkways and lighting

Three questions before the first layout

Kitchen-living room design in Batumi starts with three questions. How many people eat at the table every day, and how many gather when you have guests? Do you cook seriously at home, or mostly heat things up? Does anyone sleep in this room, even just a guest on a sofa bed?

The answers decide how much space the kitchen gets. A couple who cook at weekends are fine with a single run along one wall, and the living room gets almost the whole room. A family with children needs an L-shaped kitchen and a table for six, and the sofa then moves to the window. If someone sleeps in the room, we design the kitchen so that its lights can be switched off separately from the rest, and sometimes so that it can be closed off.

The position of the kitchen is set by the riser and the ventilation shaft, the living room is drawn towards the window and balcony, and the table, the walkways and the boundary between the areas are worked out in between. If a wall currently separates the kitchen from the room, the work starts with a layout change design: we only touch load-bearing walls with a design and a structural engineer's calculations.

The route from the entrance to the balcony

In Batumi new builds the balcony door is usually at the far end of the kitchen-living room, and the way to it crosses the whole room. We draw this route from the entrance first and keep it 80–90 cm wide. The main rule is that it doesn't pass through the work triangle. If the way to the balcony runs between the hob and the island, the cook spends the whole evening letting people past a hot frying pan. That is why we put the fridge at the edge of the kitchen, closer to the table or the entrance, so that nobody has to walk into the cooking area for a drink.

We also check which way the doors open: to the balcony, the bathroom and the bedroom. A hinged door that hits a chair at the table is obvious on the plan, but in the apartment it only gets noticed once the furniture has been bought.

The dining table between the kitchen and the sofa

In a kitchen-living room the table works as a boundary: cooking goes on one side of it, relaxing on the other. We put it closer to the kitchen so that plates don't have to be carried across the whole room, but not in the walkway in front of the units.

In a rental apartment there are as many places at the table as there are guests in the listing. If a bigger group than usual arrives in summer, an extending table and a couple of stools that tuck under the worktop save the day.

Island or peninsula

An island takes up more space than it seems to in pictures. In our experience it fits when there are at least 3.2–3.5 m from the wall with the units to the nearest living room furniture: the run along the wall, a 90–120 cm walkway, the island itself and a walkway behind it. In a kitchen-living room of 20–25 m² those metres more often go to the table.

A peninsula is cheaper and more modest. It joins the run along the wall, so no water or sockets have to be brought to it through the floor, and on the living room side it makes a handy place for breakfast on tall stools. A hob is rarely put in an island, and we usually advise against it: in the middle of the room its steam drifts towards the sofa, and an island hood can be seen from everywhere. If the island needs a sink, the drain route through the screed is worked out before the rough work, and how it is laid with a fall is covered on the page about kitchen renovation.

What the kitchen looks like from the sofa

The whole kitchen is in view from the living room, so in 3D we place the camera not only at the entrance but also on the sofa. From that point it is clear what needs to be out of sight. We turn the sink so that a pile of dishes can't be seen from the living room, and if the sink is in a peninsula, we raise an upstand of 10–15 cm on the room side. Tall units with the fridge and oven go to the side wall, and from the sofa you see a low, calm run.

In a shared room noise carries as easily as the dishes show. We choose the hood, dishwasher and fridge by the noise level in their specifications, and pick a dishwasher with delayed start so that it runs when nobody is at home. Where to put the hob in relation to the ventilation shaft and how to choose the type of hood is covered on the page about kitchen design. Here we will add one thing: we size the hood for the volume of the whole shared room, not just the kitchen corner, because steam and smells reach the sofa and the curtains.

Lighting by area and an evening scene

We tie the lighting circuits to the furniture, and in a shared room the main thing is that the kitchen lights switch on and off separately from the living room. The switches for the kitchen lighting go by the kitchen itself, not just at the entrance, otherwise you have to cross the whole room to reach them. If a guest sleeps on the sofa, they need a second switch next to it, so that they can turn off the kitchen lights without getting up.

We put the under-cabinet lighting on a dimmer. At full brightness it is work light, at its lowest it serves as a night light, and you don't have to switch on the whole kitchen for a glass of water. Over an extending table a linear light the full length of the extended top works better: a pendant centred over the closed table ends up to one side once guests gather round it. How we calculate illuminance and choose light fittings is covered on the page about lighting design.

The design sheets and a shared palette

We put the sheets for both areas into one set, which makes things easier for the crew. There is one ceiling plan for the whole room, with the boxing, the pendant over the table and the lighting circuits, not two that would have to be reconciled on site. The drawing of the units and the kitchen wall elevations go to the furniture maker, the plan of the sockets by the sofa, behind the TV and by the table goes to the electrician, and the 3D with views from the entrance and from the sofa stays with you for checking.

The kitchen fronts, the floor, the sofa upholstery and the curtains are all seen at once, so we put together one palette for the whole room. What we decide in the living room itself, from the TV area to the fabrics, is described on the page about living room design. The same sheets are then used for the renovation of the shared room, with its ceiling, lighting and the joint between the floor coverings.

How much kitchen-living room design costs in Batumi

Designing a kitchen-living room of 20–30 m² costs from 3,960 ₾, with the usual range up to 5,760 ₾. This is the price of the designer's work: zoning, placing the units and furniture, 3D of both areas, and drawings of the units, lighting circuits and sockets. The furniture, the kitchen and the renovation are paid for separately.

The price goes up with an island that has outlets in the floor, moving the kitchen away from the riser, a multi-level ceiling and many lighting circuits. It is lower when the kitchen stays on the developer's outlets and the living room has ready-made furniture. If you only need a space plan without 3D, it costs from 45 ₾ per m², and choosing specific light fittings with a lighting plan is priced separately, from 720 ₾. The final cost is set after the measured survey and once the scope of the design is agreed.