How To Separate Living Room And Dining Room Areas

Your home may have an open plan with a living cum dining room. While this looks spacious and contemporary, you may have to compromise on your privacy at times.

Want to know how to separate the living room and dining room areas, at the same time preserving the open plan nature of the home? Here are some elegant ways to make sure that you do this seamlessly. Let’s see what they are.

Furniture Arrangement to Separate the Living Room and Dining Room

Mount an entertainment unit on the wall opposite the dining area. Then arrange your living room sofa set so that the back of the three-seater or two armchairs faces the dining room. That visually signals the end of the living room.

Place the dining set centred behind the sofa. Create a partition between the two spaces to carve them out into distinct rooms (See plenty of room-divider ideas below).

Using Room Dividers to Separate the Living Room and Dining Room

Another smart way to split a large living room and create a dining room is by using dividers.

You can try any of the following types of dividers:

• Display Shelf: Custom-make a tall open shelving and tastefully arranged book, and a curated set of display items like curious, photographs, travel memorabilia, and so on.

• Storage Cabinet: Custom-build a semi-open and closed cabinet to store your dinnerware. Display some of your ceramics and porcelain crockery on the open shelves as well.

• Console Table divider: Place a console table soon after your living room ends – behind the sofa set. This becomes a practical divider of space.
• Shelving on the walls: Instead of having shelves in the middle of the living room and dining room, build them on one side or both sides of the wall, separating the two rooms visually. See below:

• Permanent Room Divider: This one is made of solid materials such as wood, glass or metal. They can be decorative and are attached to the floor, ceiling, and walls. To add some interest, fix wallpaper on a permanent divider.
• Sliding Room Divider:  They are flexible enough to allow privacy when you need it or leave an open space when it comes to social gatherings.
• Folding or Accordion Divider: Keeping a folding or accordion divider wall like the one below is an easy option. They can be moved around and stacked away if not required.

• Hanging Dividers: These field pieces are made of acrylic, resin, light wood, or other solid materials. This type of divider hangs from the ceiling and is fixed to the floor.
• Curtains and Blinds: This is by far the cheapest and simplest option for a room divider. Use sheer fabric curtains, or fabric or bamboo blinds to serve your purpose.
• Semi-Permanent Room Divider: These are fixed to the wall and the floor using screws and for a semi-permanent fixture.
• Vertical Garden: If you love greenery, how about a vertical garden of indoor plants separating the two space? You can even tie several floor-to-ceiling ropes and let creepers grow on them for a quirky setup that resembles a garden or jungle café. Tend to these plants well so that they withstand the test of time, weather and indoor conditions.
•  Rope Divider: Try mounting wooden beams on the ceiling and the floor. Then thread ropes up and down between them for a rustic look. This piece will kickstart a conversation for sure.

Remember to leave enough space in and around the two rooms so that you don’t affect the function of either room.

Using Colour to Separate the Living Room and Dining Room

Colour is a great way to demarcate spaces. If your living room is neutral with blue furnishings, paint your dining room blue (or paint one accent wall blue) for a chic way to separate the areas. This will keep them under the same décor scheme without looking too jarring with a totally different, contrasting colour. Use accessories in the living room to complement this wall colour. Keep the rest of the room neutral or within a tight colour palette to tie the spaces together.

Separate the Living Room and Dining Room Using Rugs and Accessories

Create a visual distinction between the two spaces by placing different area rugs in the two rooms. Keep a console table with a mirror, artefacts, and some plants to separate the wall between the two spaces, so that it gives the appearance of two different spaces. Or place a tall, leafy plant like a palm or a fiddle-leaf fig near the wall between the two rooms.

Unique Lighting to Separate the Living Room and Dining Room

Hang a chandelier in your living room and dining area to tie up each room beautifully, to appear as if the chandelier reigns on the space below it. Create unique lighting formats in both zones- a chandelier in one, and floor lamps in the other.

So, you saw that you could easily separate your living and dining areas with solid shelving or dividers, or use nifty visual cues to demarcate them. Either way, HomeLane is here to help. Contact us and let’s draw out a plan so that you can claim your privacy in the living or dining area when you need it.