3 things that make open-plan kitchens feel unwelcoming – and pro-backed advice for avoiding a clinical space

Kitchen with terracotta painted walls, wooden floor cabinets and red painted island, with terracotta chequerboard tiles.

Open-plan kitchens are one of the most desirable layouts for a cooking space, favoured for their sociable format that encourages connection between those cooking, dining and socialising. While these things are true, the vast nature of open plan kitchen ideas can also make them feel stark and unwelcoming without employing the right design tricks.

If an open-plan kitchen acts as your main, if not sole, living space too then you need it to be as inviting as possible. Naturally, in a kitchen, practical surfaces and design choices tend to come first, but these can simultaneously be cold and lacking in depth.