How to Organize a Kitchen in the Hallway?

Decided to turn the kitchen into a living room, but don't know where to start? Our experts answer the most common questions.

What are the main requirements for placement?

"First of all, you need to check whether your relocation affects the area of a bathroom or living room," suggest professionals from Quadro Room studio. "Otherwise, your reconfiguration will not be approved."

"The kitchen should be located in a place where it is easy for you to connect all utilities - water supply and sewage," add architects from Nota Bene studio. The room should also have natural lighting for insolation. Of course, this issue can always be solved using skylights, glass doors, partitions made of metal profiles with frosted glass and mirrors.

Design: Nota Bene Architecture & Interior

In which cases can you not move the kitchen?

• The wall between the living room and the corridor is load-bearing.
• The area of the new kitchen according to the project is less than 5 square meters.
• If the kitchen is gasified. Relocating gas is impossible: it cannot be far from the main pipe. You will have to equip the kitchen with an electric stove.
• Under your corridor is a living room of neighbors below.
• On the spot where you want to place a living room, there is a kitchen of neighbors above. By law, a room under the kitchen cannot be a living room.
• The kitchen is located under the toilet or bathroom of the apartment above. It is impossible to connect the kitchen to the corridor by removing a partition wall - you will have to isolate the toilet and bathroom.

Design: Julia Arslanova

Are there any exceptions?

"You always need to look at the context and think about neighbors below," say architects from Nota Bene studio. "If the apartment is located on lower floors or above a public establishment, you can move the kitchen to a living area."

We had an object where the clients did not want to live in a small kitchen and did not know how to use a large corridor. We removed the wall of one of the rooms to get more light. And we easily connected utilities - there was a bathroom at the end of the corridor."

Design: Nota Bene Architecture & Interior

How to get approval for relocation?

Visit an architectural firm to have specialists prepare a technical project of apartment reconfiguration. You need to submit it along with ownership documents, BTI plan, and technical conclusion from the author of the house project to the housing inspection. By the way, since 2018, you can process reconfiguration online - on the official website of the Moscow Mayor.

Design: OM Design

Is this solution convenient?

"It all depends on the needs of the apartment owners," say specialists from Nota Bene studio. "Sometimes it's impossible to equip everything necessary on the kitchen. And vice versa - a family wants to set up a small kitchen to free up an additional room."

Relocating the kitchen into the corridor requires attention to detail: in addition to the exhaust fan, we install additional exhaust grilles. For this, you need to lower the ceiling and run necessary utilities. But we still recommend hanging clothes in a wardrobe - otherwise, they will absorb odors.

Design: Ricco Interno

Professionals from Quadro Room studio suggest basing the decision on apartment size. "This solution is suitable for small apartments where the kitchen does not function fully. It can be equipped with sliding doors to avoid overloading the interior.

Now more and more people prefer to have lunch and dinner outside the home - the kitchen is only needed for a quick breakfast. Therefore, such placement is convenient, and you can expand another important area - for example, the living room."

Design: Quadro Room

Kitchen in the Corridor: Four More Successful Examples

To expand the children's room, Maria CherkaSOva moved the kitchen closer to the corridor - now it is a pass-through. And she also highlighted it with color to connect it to the hallway.

Sofya Petrukhina arranged a linear cabinet on nine square meters. Cupboards to the ceiling visually increase space. The problem of natural lighting was solved with a partition made of frosted glass.

Designers from Flatsdesign studio joined the kitchen to the living room and moved it into the corridor. A small but cozy bedroom was organized where the kitchen used to be.

Ioleta Fedotova also moved the kitchen into the hallway - to fit a living room and bedroom in 22 square meters.

On the cover: OM Design project