35 Open Kitchen Ideas For the Ultimate Entertaining Home
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An open floor plan kitchen is like white walls in today’s domestic sphere—so ubiquitous that sometimes we forget there are other options. But how to maximize your open kitchen so it functions seamlessly and also reflects your style? That’s the question! Well, we have answers, a myriad of them, compiled from projects we have featured in ELLE DECOR. Some designers like to differentiate between cook space and dine space via breaks in color or pattern; some like to pull the whole open room together by sticking to one decorative scheme; and some use the kitchen as their playpen, experimenting with styles, objects, and interventions they wouldn’t be brave enough to use elsewhere in the home. Whatever your whim, we’ve got pointers on how to execute it. Read on for 35 ideas on how to decorate your open-floor-plan kitchen.
Monochrome Kitchen
One way to get explore several ideas in one room without the end effect appearing overwhelming is by color-matching each individual material. In this Los Angeles duplex by ELLE DECOR A-List designers Charlap Hyman & Herrero, the designers unified the kitchen by painting all the custom cabinetry a pale, creamy gray that matches the folding metal mesh screens that separate it from the living area. The industrial Zangra pill-shaped ceiling lights complete the “there-but-not-there” mood.
Hodgepodge Heaven
The plus when working with a lot of space is that more can truly be more! In this Milan apartment, maximalism is the rule. The kitchen and abutting areas are kept fun and cohesive with a few overarching themes: stripes, ocean blues, pinks, and purple. Knickknacks and flea market finds (like the kitchen table) abound for a bit of added flavor.
Spacious Open Concept
In this Brooklyn kitchen by design studio Civilian it seems at first that less is more. Less here in the way of furniture and color. Only one dose of strong color—red—is delightfully employed on the hood of the stove, complimenting the nearly black, teal range below. Less is also more in terms of stuff. More than enough storage space for all the kitchen necessities you could ever need is provided by the custom island and wood cabinets that cover the right wall.
Light-Filled Open Kitchen
If only part of your kitchen gets good light, USE IT! In this Park Avenue pad, designer Georgia Tapert Howe deployed light, springy tones to effervescent effect. The cabinets, just out of sight, are painted a calming tone of cream, while in the breakfast nook a light mint green rules, complemented by the poppy light blue lacquered table Tapert Howe found on 1stDibs.
Grotto Open Kitchen
If you are blessed with the opportunity, why not let magic lead in your home? Utility spaces like kitchens can be neglected in an overall design scheme, but ELLE DECOR A-List designer Bill Brockschmidt made sure the kitchen in his Sicilian palazzo had romance to spare. All that was needed was the right space—the 600 B.C. cave that makes up the home’s lower level was turned into a kitchen and dining area with just a few small adjustments. The cabinets are custom with antique Sicilian majolica tiles used as a backsplash that perfectly pair with the rough hewn walls.
Colorful Open-Concept Kitchen
The caveat of decorating a historic house, like this 16th-century row house in Paris, is that very little can (or should!) be changed in the layout. Here, French designer Eric Allart breathed new life and light into the kitchen with an unexpected color combination. Dark gray paint on the cabinets and a black tile backsplash define the cooking area, allowing it to fall into the background. Meanwhile, the pink paint on the walls reflects the bright natural light coming in at the window and honors the original terra-cotta floor tiles, while infusing the space with joy.
Multipurpose Open Kitchen
In this bite-size New York City apartment, it was crucial for architects Method Design and interior designer Nina Barnieh-Blair to maximize space. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the kitchen, where the island doubles as a workspace. With the living room sharing space, just across from the kitchen, Barnieh-Blair also touts the possibility of turning the barstools around and using them for extra seating, post-dinner.
Chock-Full Open Kitchen
If you have the space, fill it! In this Greenwich Village apartment, William Cullum approached the kitchen like he would any other room, filling it to the brim with color and antiques. The larger your kitchen is, the harder this approach might be, but the effect can be powerfully unique and inviting. Here, Cullum used a bright pink pie safe to store china, flanking it with matching bookcases for cookbooks.
Small Open-Concept Kitchen
When you have the space, use it! In this luxurious Ibiza, Spain, crash pad, the kitchen doubles as a breakfast room, with a dining nook across from the sink and stove. Casa Muñoz covered the built-in bench with striped Dedar cushions that subtly complement the blue floor tiles. The vintage Pastrana chairs are by José Luis Picardo for Darro.
Calm Open-Concept Kitchen
You can keep a space calm, neutral, and inviting while mixing different contemporary design with antiques. The secret is limiting your material palette. In this Manhattan home, interior designer Tina Ramchandani kept the kitchen’s appliances straightforward and modern. Warm-toned wood on the cabinets added warmth. And the Apparatus light provides the perfect counterpoint to the well-worn trestle table below.
Wood Open Kitchen
In kitchen of this Hamptons retreat, designer Sandra Weingort leaned into the natural woods that Bates Masi covered the ceilings, cabinets, and island with, keeping them in mind when she designed the dining table with Casey Johnson and selected the vintage Pierre Jeanneret chairs and stools. Now, thanks to a design scheme that asks to be kept in the background, the owners can congregate more than 20 people happily in the space, with conversation centered over a clunky or busy aesthetic.
Glam Open Kitchen
The kitchen might not be the first room that comes to mind when we think of where we want to put our taste on display, but when yours is centrally located and visible to every guest, you kind of have no choice but to go big! In this kitchen, created by ELLE DECOR A-List designer Hannes Peer, everything, from the brass-covered cabinets to the marble countertops, is custom and deeply glamorous. Vintage barstools by Marcel Breuer bring in a collected element.
Small Open Space
In the tiny kitchen of this Roman apartment designed by Alvisi Kirimoto, a lot was done with a little by leaning into the constraints of the space. The slanted ceiling above the stove shares traits with the slanted design of the parquet floors. Elephant’s Breath paint by Farrow & Ball defines the areas for cooking from the white areas for dining.
Unconventional Open Concept
In the quaint and colorful Victorian Oxfordshire house of Toast CEO Suzie de Rohan Willner, the kitchen was decorated with freedom of movement in mind. There is a breakfast nook, yes, but rather than tucked into a corner, it takes up one end of the room, inhabiting a generous portion of space, while allowing for movement from the adjoining rooms. Joyful pea green cabinets balance out the seriousness of the antique Windsor chairs and drop-leaf table.
Defined Open-Concept Kitchen
In this Palm Beach kitchen by ELLE DECOR A-List designer SheltonMindel, a sliding door was put in place to allow multiple possibilities. Closed, the dining area is a world of its own. Open, the chef can converse while cooking with their guests.
Cool and Warm Kitchen
When you have the freedom of movement an open floor plan kitchen allows, what better way to maximize the opportunity than mixing colors like you can't elsewhere? Cool and warm tones combine to make the kitchen in this Brooklyn apartment a visually engaging, exciting space. The backsplash is covered in green Heath tiles, and Saarinen Executive armchairs from Knoll upholstered in red Ultraleather surround the RH salvaged wood dining table.
Blurred Kitchen Lines
If your open kitchen shares sight lines with another room, consider blending the material palettes between the two. In the kitchen of this New York loft designed by ELLE DECOR A-List designer Nicholas Obeid, the vintage barstools match the credenza beyond, and the white marble island and white Allied Maker pendants tie the room together.
Patterned Open Kitchen
Another fabulous way to define the space in an open kitchen is with print. In the kitchen of this Russian home, designer Tim Veresnovsky covered the walls, cabinets, shelves, and even a side chair with the same striped eucalyptus veneer wallcovering. Tip: If you’re going in this direction, try muted tones; bold colors alongside bold patterns can be overwhelming in compact spaces.
Luxe Kitchen
If your open kitchen is visible from all angles, why not treat it to five-star finishings? In this historic Washington, D.C., home, tiled backsplash was passed over for sumptuous Calacatta marble from US Marble & Granite. The table and chairs are by Carl Hansen, the chandelier is by David Weeks, and the cabinets are by Bulthaup.
Green Lacquered Open Kitchen
In this small Los Angeles apartment, space is at a minimum. So the designers, LAUN, had to get creative. The kitchen makes up of two rectangular volumes—the island and the green lacquered box that separates the dining and living areas. Storage is available in both, plus the material choices provide a nice counterpoint to the brass-clad entryway at the left.
Angular Open Kitchen
In this dome house, renovated by Nick Fouquet, the kitchen follows the structure’s curving exterior walls. When you’re working with an irregularly shaped space, rather than trying to enforce a formulaic, right-angled layout, move with the naturally occurring curves or angles. Here, the bar pivots out of the Caesarstone countertop to allow for seamless movement between the kitchen and abutting rooms, while the rift-cut oak custom cabinets swirl around and hug the wall. The backsplash is covered in sea foam–hued Heath tiles.
Subtle Kitchen Decor
If your kitchen looks out into other parts of your home you can still define it as its own independent space in subtle ways. In this small, but smashing East Village, New York, condo, ELLE DECOR A-List designer Augusta Hoffman left the kitchen almost exactly as it was when the clients purchased it—including a glass lip that encircles the work area, distinguishing a space for cooking from a space for eating and living.
Patterned Open-Concept Kitchen
Another idea to define your kitchen as its own space is by sticking to one defining color scheme in that room and nowhere else. Orange and black take over the most real estate in this light-filled kitchen, with subtle hints of cream in the backsplash as a breath of fresh air. Tip: Using two to three colors keeps things tight!
Themed Kitchen
In an open but narrow kitchen, sometimes it behooves you to look outside the domestic sphere for decorative inspiration. In the Milan apartment of ELLE DECOR A-List designer Emiliano Salci of Dimorestudio, Salci kept his kitchen streamlined like a steam trunk. The uplight sconces highlight decorative Asian plaques, with a higher than usual black chair rail painted beneath them, both lengthening and heightening the space. The cabinets are custom and painted green to contrast with steel. The stools are by Dimoremilano.
Visually Balanced Kitchen
When your kitchen is situated in one corner of the house, it can be great for movement but hard to balance visually. In this Canadian lake house, designer Sabrina Albanese creates a satisfying balance in the space by bringing in pairs. Instead of one Urban Electric Co. pendant light, there are two. And instead of three barstools, a pair was put in place. Unifying everything is Benjamin Moore’s Van Deusen Blue on all the cabinets and complementary Saltillo-tile backsplash.
Green Open-Concept Kitchen
Looking for color inspiration for your open, airy kitchen? Look in your pantry! A tomato red, banana yellow, or soothing buttermilk will always work in a room dedicated to food. In the kitchen of this Greek dwelling, all the cabinets and doors were painted a welcoming hue of pistachio cream (or olive green if we’re talking location!).
High-Contrast Kitchen
If your kitchen looks into other rooms, why not keep the theme going in both or all? A seamless transition from one space to the next brings harmony into the home and invites guests to wander with confidence. In this Portugal home, ELLE DECOR A-List designer Jacques Grange uses blue and white with hints of antique Portuguese ceramics that sew the rooms together.
Minimal Open Concept
One decorative strategy that does not fail is minimalism. But if you’re going to strip away, you must strip it all away. In this sharp Stockholm apartment, Anton Wikner used only two materials in the kitchen: stainless steel on the cabinets and countertops and white paint on the walls.
Open-Concept Kitchen Decor
If your kitchen connects two rooms, treat it like a hallway—hanging art, displaying objets that have no use but to please the eye, and keeping furniture to a considered minimum. In the kitchen of this Roman palazzo designed by starchitect Achille Salvagni, an 18th-century Venetian portrait of a sober gentleman gives the room museum-worthy gravitas, balancing out the modern brass light fixture above the island.
Black Open-Concept Kitchen
Traditional design wisdom tells us to stay away from black, especially large quantities of it, especially in small spaces. But once in a blue domestic moon, black is just what a room needs. In this bite-size Brazilian kitchen, black is what keeps the room together, from the lacquered cabinets to the floor tiles to the door and furniture. A pair of 19th-century English chairs was finished in the color, which also appears in the glassware and on the top of the mini Kartell dining table.
Indoor-Outdoor Open-Concept Kitchen
For an open floor plan kitchen in a ranch or active home with animals, consider bringing the outside in, in a new way. There are many ways to do this: If you are lucky to have an above-sink window, incorporate a ledge large enough for your pies to cool or berries to ripen. In this Woodstock, New York, home the kitchen window sits at the perfect height for pony play. Custom beadboard cabinets continue the ye olde ranch theme, as does the white Rohl sink.
Functional Decorating in the Kitchen
If the bounty of your kitchen utensils and tools outweigh the space of your actual kitchen, consider displaying those plates and pots as design. After all, what you can’t hide, you must celebrate. In author Michelle Mason’s kitchen, her beloved collection of vintage plates decorates the walls while cramming the glass-doored cabinet sand spoons hang from the ceiling above the dining table. A unifying palette of blue and white holds it all together.
Kitchen Ledge Storage
To keep your kitchen from looking barren or unloved, make sure it’s decorated up to its absolute edges. In this case, that means displaying pots and pans on the top of the kitchen cabinets. Fashion executive Robert Duffy keeps his own pot proliferation chic by sticking to one material: copper.
Kitchen Ceiling Storage
If you have a surplus of space (or a mind to utilize the usually ignored), why not use those lost few feet below your ceiling as a wine cellar? What usually goes below works perfectly above in this lavender-hued kitchen by Krantz Designs.
Bare Bones Open Concept
Most kitchens get a techy treatment few other rooms receive, but if you can bear the bare-bones efficiency of an industrial or old kitchen, the resulting aesthetic could pay you dividends. In photographer William Waldron’s own Hudson Valley farmhouse, the kitchen followed the same aesthetic as every other room: paired back, historically informed hodgepodge. “Brand-new appliances would look ridiculous,” Waldron explains, and so he went with an old stove and industrial sink, and of course he sets the table with mismatched china at dinnertime.
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