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All apartments in Khrushchev houses of any type and year of construction are very small in size. The area of u5bu6bkitchens in such houses is within 7-XNUMX-XNUMX square meters. m. When they make repairs to the kitchen in Khrushchev, the main leitmotif is to rationally use every available centimeter. And make sure that the interior is comfortable and beautiful. To fulfill this condition, you need to choose the right color palette and furniture.
Choose color and finishes
In small rooms, it is best to use light colors for wall decoration. They visually increase the volume, while the atmosphere is felt as “light”. For walls in the kitchen there are several options for finishing:
- Wallpaper. Washable or not, the choice is yours. Convenient and relatively inexpensive. Learn how to choose wallpaper for your kitchen here.
Wallpaper is one of the most popular types of kitchen decoration. - Decorative plaster. It washes well, has a long service life, but is expensive.
Decorative plaster has a different texture and color - Plastic panels. Using wall panels (not ceiling panels) you can quickly update the walls, and get a flat surface without messing with their alignment with plaster.
Plastic wall panels – an economical option for repairing a kitchen in Khrushchev and not only - Wall painting. Most often it is a water-based emulsion with an acrylic or silicone base. They can be washed many times, and their plus is that they paint over even small cracks and are not very demanding on the quality of the painted surface.
Walls to be painted must be carefully prepared
The ceiling should also be made white or light, and better – stretch glossy or semi-gloss. Due to the reflection of light, it allows you to blur the boundaries between the walls and the ceiling. Two other popular options – just a smooth putty ceiling or a suspended ceiling are calmer, but no worse. And if you make a plasterboard ceiling with lighting, it also adds volume to the room.
You can also use a light color to finish the floor. He does not “load” the space, which is far from superfluous in a small kitchen in Khrushchev. After all, in a small area you need to place a maximum of furniture.
Read about the types and choice of kitchen apron here.
What should be the furniture
The kitchen set in Khrushchev houses is made linear – along one wall or corner – by placing cabinets along two adjacent walls. At the same time, so that the furniture does not seem bulky, it can be made using light colors. A good modern option is two-tone facades: the doors of floor cabinets are made darker and the lower ones are light.
Glass doors look good in small rooms. They can be in a metal frame or without it at all, the result is the same – a lightweight design. They don’t put glass in the lower cabinets, it’s impractical, but in the upper cabinets it looks great – it glares a little, scattering the light and drawing attention to itself.
In general, the organization of work surfaces in the kitchens in Khrushchev is a whole art. On one or two small walls, you need to place a stove, sink and refrigerator. The working surfaces that remain between them are clearly not enough. For such a case, they came up with multi-level countertops.
You can also make retractable countertops. When folded, they hide under the main working area, and if necessary, they are put forward. It turns out practical and convenient.
Often in such a small area you also need to put a dining table with chairs. Since the aisles remain very small, order or find a countertop with rounded corners. The bruises of the inhabitants of the Khrushchev will be less. The dining table can also have a folding additional part that slides out from under the main one.
Another option is to buy a glass table. Such furniture even in a tiny kitchen looks great. The glass used is tempered, so with careful handling nothing will happen to it. Another design technique that allows you to push the boundaries of the room and play with light is mirror surfaces. It can be a kitchen apron made of mirror or metallized tiles, a real mirror on the wall (pictured below).
Chairs are chosen light, which, when retracted, do not clutter up the space. There are models that stack one into the other. They are light and compact.
Read more about the rules for choosing kitchen side dishes here.
Tricks to save space
The biggest problem in the kitchen in Khrushchev is finding a place for a refrigerator. Well, if there is a warmed balcony. This miracle of technology can stand there. And if not, you have to be smart. If there are few inhabitants, a small refrigerator can be identified on the “second floor” – placed on top of a floor stand.
You also need to make full use of the space in the cabinets. Best of all, various storage systems cope with this. They cost a lot, but they allow you to streamline everything and organize the space in the most convenient way.
There may be a problem with the placement of the microwave: there are not many work surfaces. It can also be raised higher by making a shelf without doors in one of the cabinets – just under the microwave.
If you have wide window sills, and you do not plan to occupy them under work surfaces, kitchen appliances can be placed there.
To fully use the few square meters of the kitchen in Khrushchev, pay attention to the windowsill. Even in panel houses with a very small wall thickness, it can be replaced with a countertop. There are many options, take your pick.
When renovating a kitchen in Khrushchev, not everyone decides to close the heating radiators, which are usually located under the window. But not everyone today is heated by traditional radiators. There is underfloor heating, there is baseboard heating. If desired, the radiators can be moved to another wall. Where they won’t interfere. So this problem is solved, albeit at a substantial cost.
Read about all the intricacies of organizing space in a small kitchen here.
Light and ventilation
Lighting in the kitchen needs multi-zone, especially in a small room. Usually, work surfaces are illuminated by attaching tubular lamps to the bottom of the upper cabinets. It’s comfortable and functional.
The dining area is lit separately. A few small lamps above the table look more organic than a large chandelier. It seems to emphasize the small size of the kitchen.
When renovating a kitchen in Khrushchev, do not forget about ventilation. In order to breathe comfortably in a small space and odors do not spread throughout the apartment, good ventilation is necessary. Previously, odors and excessive moisture came out through the cracks in the windows, steam came out through the walls too – they were vapor-permeable. Energy savings have led to the fact that wooden windows are being replaced with plastic ones, and they are almost completely airtight, the walls are insulated from the outside with foam plastic, which absolutely does not conduct steam. Therefore, to ensure normal humidity in the apartment, a good hood is necessary. It is usually connected to existing ventilation ducts. If ventilation ducts are not provided in the house, they make a conclusion to the wall.
The order of repair in the kitchen
Any more or less serious repair begins with destruction. Remove old furniture, remove trim. Modern requirements for the quality of finishing are such that, in theory, it is necessary to knock down the plaster to the main wall, and then level them, plastering on the lighthouses.
Replacement of communications and engineering systems
But before the start of plastering work, it is necessary to replace all communications and engineering systems. At this stage, the electrical wiring is replaced, the wires are brought to the places where it is planned to install household appliances, turn on the lamps. Electric wires are laid in strobes – grooves hollowed out in the wall, which are then covered with plaster.
Be sure to change the water and sewer pipes. If, when repairing a kitchen in Khrushchev, you transfer the sink to another place, this cannot be avoided. But even if it remains in the old place, it is necessary to change the pipes up to the tie-in to the riser. At the same stage, you can change the heating radiators and pipes going to them, if you plan such work.
How to change the faucet in the kitchen, read here.
Ceiling, walls, floor
After the communications are laid, the walls are leveled. For this, plaster or drywall can be used (read how to level the walls here). A kitchen apron is mounted on the aligned walls or decorative plaster is applied. (How to lay tiles on the walls, read here).
Then you need to solve one of the main tasks – to put the ceiling in order. There are several options:
- remove the old whitewash / paint and putty to an even state for painting;
- make suspended plasterboard ceilings;
- order and install stretch ceilings.
Different options for finishing the ceiling suggest a different sequence of repairs in the kitchen. If you are going to whitewash or paint the ceilings with a water-based emulsion, you need to putty the ceiling together with the plaster walls. Plasterboard is assembled before the walls are leveled, and tension is installed after the walls are leveled and all dirty work is completed. Sometimes even after the walls are finished.
Popular in recent years underfloor heating. In apartments, the most convenient is electric heating. It is more convenient to put cable mats under the tile, carbon films under the laminate or linoleum. If there is individual heating, you can make a water heated floor. The use of central heating for floor heating is prohibited. It has a very high hydraulic resistance and simply blocks the movement of the coolant through the riser. Also, from the exit of the warm floor, the water leaves almost cold and the neighbors will freeze.
A good quality tile or laminate is usually laid on the floor in the kitchen. Economy option – linoleum. Under any type of coating, a surface with height differences of no more than 5 mm per square meter is required. For large differences, alignment is required. The most common option is a concrete screed device. Its minimum thickness is 3 cm. With this thickness, it will not crack. Just keep in mind that not all Khrushchevs can pour ordinary concrete. Houses were built a long time ago and the bearing capacity of the walls may be insufficient. You need to clarify with the operating organization what the margin of safety of your house is. If heavy concrete weighs too much, you can pour light concrete or make a dry screed – a fine fraction expanded clay is laid on the floor, two layers of drywall are on it.
After the floor is made, the final stage in the decoration of the walls begins, if wallpaper is chosen for this. How to glue wallpaper correctly read here. The last stage of the kitchen renovation in Khrushchev is the installation of sockets and switches. At this stage, furniture is brought in and installed. We can assume that the renovation of the kitchen in Khrushchev is over.
Photo ideas for repairing a kitchen in Khrushchev
