Dividing up an open-plan kitchen

Sunset, May, 1995 by Bill Crosby

Varied ceiling planes and built-in cabinetry separate rooms

Even when an open plan is exactly what you wanted, at times you might wish the three parts of a common kitchen, dining, and family room felt more separate. For instance, when you're sitting down to a nice dinner, do you really want to see that pile of dirty dishes you'll have to face when the meal is over?

A novel solution took shape in architects Celia Karian and Jim Novosel's kitchen in Berkeley. Through careful variation of both ceiling planes and cabinetry, they created partial dividers that differ markedly depending on the room one faces from the kitchen. Toward the casual family more, the division is almost nonexistent, but toward the formal dining worn, cabinets were added to provide separation by obscuring direct views between the rooms.

Between the kitchen and the family room, counters run 40 inches deep, creating an informal seating area on the family room side for casual meals or for the guests who invariably congregate around the kitchen. Above this counter, a 6-inch-wide ceiling section drops down 2 feet to draw a line between the two rooms.

The separation between the kitchen and the dining room is more distinct. The architects widened the dropped section of ceiling to 18 inches to match the depth of the new cabinets below; as a bonus, this depth permitted them to install recessed lighting above the counters that flank the portal. The natural-stain mahogany cabinetry reaches up to the dropped ceiling on the sides of the doorway; a mahogany cornice links the tops of the cabinets. Essentially, the doorway composition appears as a furniture-like element, assisted by the contrasting natural-finish cherry of the cabinets in the rest of the kitchen.

Save for the cornice, no part of the mahogany construction goes unused. Drawers, glass-door cabinets, and granite countertops create sideboards on the dining room side; shelves and appliance garages fill the kitchen side.

"The shape of the arch was an unconscious design decision," Karian confesses. Coincidentally, the curve matches the arched top of the shield-back Hepplewhite chairs in the dining room, as well as the backs of the stools used at the counter.