But - and this is a big but - open plan living does have its drawbacks! This I know - having lived in open plan spaces all my adult life. One major drawback is noise - it's very difficult to run a mixmaster or fry some food without someone complaining and turning the tv up several notches - which is my pet hate!
But even worse - there's no where to hide the mess! Have a few people over for dinner, and there's bound to be a few pots and pans lying about. Particularly with the current trend to put sinks out facing towards the dining area - you see this ALL the time in Australia now. Take this example below - where the sink is right out there on show. Beautiful now, while it's clean and clutter free, but not so much when the benchtop is full of dirty dishes! The clean freak in me cringes!
So this is why I love this kitchen below. It has a bench with a high return on it, which normally screams '80s naff. But here I think it looks stylish and it hides all the kitchen mess. I think the gorgeous stone helps.
Or if you don't like the high return style - here's a good idea below - leave the bench entirely free of sinks or stovetop and tuck the sink in an incongruous spot AND make the sink very wide and deep like this gorgeous butlers style sink, to hide as many dirty dishes in there until you get a chance to tidy up completely.
My poor little blog has been rather neglected lately. Life has been getting in the way. And I haven't been visiting all my favourite blogs either!
Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things soon.
Best wishes,
