12 brilliant ways to separate living and dining rooms

If you reside in a space where your dining and living areas are not separated, you might be interested in distinguishing between these two spaces. For example, if you have a few friends over but still live with your family, you might want to hang out downstairs without feeling like you and your friends are interrupting the daily family activities happening there. There are many other applicable situations, but the bottom line is, what can be done about it? What brilliant creative possibilities exist to separate your living room area from your dining area in an open floor plan? You can distinguish between the two spaces in various ways, including:

1. Separation by color and color schemes.
2. Use an accent wall to differentiate one space from another.
3. Apply different textures to the walls of both areas.
4. Give each room a different layout or design.
5. Use furniture as a partition.
6. Use a decorative partition.
7. Use a rug to delineate a space.
8. Use a different flooring material.
9. Create a visual distinction with the lighting in each room.
10. Change the height of the ceiling.
11. Elevate one area higher.
12. Create a subtle pathway.

Some of these methods are on the simpler side, while implementing others may require a bit more effort on your part. For a better explanation and breakdown of how to follow one of these listed partitioning methods, continue reading!

12 Ways to Separate Living and Dining Rooms

Regardless of whether you live in a smaller apartment or a large house, you can easily separate your living and dining rooms to give them a unique look. The following list includes 12 brilliant ways to separate your living and dining room areas so that your open floor plan offers special areas for you to enjoy:

1. Divide a living room and a dining room with color

One creative way to aesthetically separate a living area from a dining area is to create a clear distinction between the two areas by giving each area a different color scheme. Paint the walls in each room in a different color and give each room different color accents in the furniture, carpet or any accessories that relate to that specific room. This way, your eye interprets each room as separate and individual. Well done, the two areas don’t clash, but complement each other.

2. Separate a living area and a dining area with an accent wall

Another option is to use accent walls to separate one of the rooms. If a room lacks a natural focal point, an accent wall can fill that gap and become the focal point of the room. You can place plants or artwork on or around the wall.

Typically, you would do this with the living room, which is generally the larger room, to highlight it and draw more attention to it than the dining area. However, you could also choose to incorporate an accent wall in the dining area instead to separate that space and highlight it as well.

3. Divide a living room and dining room with different wall textures

You could also separate the two rooms by giving a different texture to the wall in each room. It is important to note that a complex texture in one room should be complemented by a minimalist texture in the other. Otherwise, you might be overdoing it with your design and end up with an eyesore rather than a stylish division between two areas.

For example, you could apply a brick pattern to the walls in the living room and then accentuate it with a smooth-looking solid color in the dining room. Or you could paint the living room to look like it has an abnormal texture, and then paint the dining area to look like a smooth, non-textured space.

4. Separate a living room and a dining room with different designs/layouts

Choose a characteristic piece of furniture in each of the rooms you want to differentiate or divide. Center this characteristic piece of furniture and arrange the other pieces of furniture to flow around it and emphasize the first piece of furniture.
For example, in your dining area, you can have your dining table as your characteristic piece of furniture and then design the room so that the dining table is not only centered but also stands out as the central focal point of this area.
In your living room, you can choose a large coffee table or an ottoman to center the room. Place a television on one of the opposite walls and arrange the sofas around the centerpiece facing the television. The flow of attention will naturally distinguish this room from the dining area.

5. Using furniture as room dividers

One example of using furniture as a room divider is by using a modular design sofa. These sofas come in units that typically come together at 90-degree angles to form an “L” shape or a “U” shape. Take the longer section and place it so that its back faces the dining area.

There are other more obvious types of furniture that can be used to divide a living and dining area. We refer to these as more obvious because they have certain characteristics that give them a resemblance to a wall. It could be a bookshelf placed at the border between the living and dining area. It could also be a transparent display unit showcasing various memorabilia and collector’s items.

6. Using a Creative Room Divider

Another type of element that you could use to divide the two spaces is one that serves the main purpose of separating two rooms: a room divider.

A lattice room divider

Choose a lattice divider with a cool pattern. For those unfamiliar with lattice dividers, they are lightweight wooden structures that resemble doors or walls with patterned holes in them and are often used to divide two rooms. However, you can spice this up a bit by selecting a room divider with a cool design or painting it to better match your decor.

Laser-cut metal screen

To create a unique paraphrase, I will need a thin, lightweight metal screen. You can either purchase a precut one or have a beautiful design cut into it, such as a floral pattern. Place the metal room divider between the dining area and the living room area, and you will have a functional partition. Ensure that the edges of the screen that someone could touch are coated with rubber or plastic to prevent accidental brushing.
Glass Partition
You can also use a glass partition to separate the two spaces. While this may be a more expensive option, there are some advantages that make it a trendy choice. The glass partition doesn’t interfere with the lighting in the room, which is helpful if the room doesn’t receive much light. It also looks very cool!
Opaque Sliding Door
Alternatively, you could install an opaque sliding door between the two rooms. You can compete for this option if you don’t want the two rooms to visually merge. Sliding doors have the additional advantage of being easy to install. It is important that you look for one that is easy to install but difficult to break in case of an accident.
Wooden sliding door
In a room with lots of natural light, a wooden sliding door can separate the rooms without blocking the light and making one room darker than the other. A darker wood stain can add a warm touch to a room with a cool color scheme, and a lighter stain can brighten a room with a darker color scheme.
Creative Columns
You could also introduce columns into the room. They can be stone and mortar columns, but there are a few other creative materials that can be used for the columns. Wooden columns can be used in a smaller space to reproduce the effect of separation without blocking the flow of light and air between the two rooms.
Additionally, you could have plant columns, for example, that separate the two rooms. For this, you would set up metal frames. Then, you could wrap the frames with real or artificial vines and decorative flowers to create the illusion of a vine column. Or arrange potted plants vertically inside the frames you have made to create the illusion of a plant column.
Bead curtain

Bead curtains are highly functional and not just for a 70s vibe look in your space. There are many types of bead curtain designs that can be used to separate living and dining areas without compromising the designs in each room.

7. Separate a living room and dining room with a rug

Adding a floor mat or rug is a stylish and unique way to separate your living and dining room area. You can use one or multiple rugs if you have a larger living area.

Even if both rooms have the same color scheme and aesthetic, the presence of a different flooring element in one room will distinguish the living area and dining area with a lot of class when entering the open space.

<p>You can experiment with solid-colored carpets or mats with special patterns. You can try out a piece that complements the color scheme of the room or stands in direct contrast to it. In this situation, there is a lot of leeway to find the carpet that best suits the room you are redesigning.</p>

<p>The chosen floor mat/carpet/rug should be placed together with the furniture in the center of the room. So if it is in the living room, it can be placed under a coffee table, and then the remaining furniture can be placed around it.</p>

<h4>8. Separate a living room and a dining room with different floors</h4>

In line with the idea of using a floor piece to separate your two spaces, the actual floor is used to distinguish the two rooms. For example, the floor in the dining area could consist of wooden floorboards, while the floor in the living area is carpeted. Granted, this idea sounds most ideal for someone who owns and doesn’t rent out the space like an apartment. So how can you implement the same idea in a rental space? You can create the illusion of different floors in your dining area by placing a rug or mat on the floor that covers the entire area. Different textures will stand out better, and here is where you can play with bold colors or different designs.

9. Separate a living room and a dining room through lighting

The lighting can give a room a different tone, so changing the lighting between the living room and the dining room serves the purpose of separating these two spaces. This can be done in various ways; you could position a striking piece like a chandelier in the dining area and then give a different ambiance to the living area to differentiate it.
You could use a light in the dining area that focuses on the center of the room or the table. Then, in contrast, you would have lighting in the living room that spreads across this space and illuminates the entire area. The focus at one location and the abundance of light in the other contribute to giving each room a different feeling and making them appear as separate places.

10. Separate a living room and a dining room with different ceiling heights

If the room you are dealing with has a double-height ceiling (perhaps because a staircase leads up in one part of the room, and the staircase causes one side of the room to have a lower ceiling height than the rest of the room), then you can elevate your dining room in the area with the lower height. At the same time, your living room can occupy the rest of the space.

Even if this is not the case directly, you can visually bring down the height of the dining area by introducing a ceiling element. Again, a large chandelier, pendant ceiling lights, other accents hanging down from the ceiling can have this effect.

A real break in the ceiling can be introduced if neither of the first two methods works. A lower ceiling is introduced into a part of the room; note that this is a fix that requires some construction work.

11. Separate a living room and a dining room by raising one side

On the other end of the spectrum, you can raise the floor of a section of the room higher than the rest of the floor in the combined space. For example, you could raise your dining area on a wooden platform and then cover it with carpet or place small steps between the living and dining areas. So your dining room would be slightly higher than your living room and effectively stand out from it.

12. Separate a living room and a dining room by introducing a pathway

If there is enough space between the two rooms, you can introduce a hallway between the two areas with different flooring. It could be a long strip of brightly colored carpet between the two rooms. It could also be a pattern, or you could change the flooring of just this pathway to make it stand out between the two rooms. Keep in mind that this is not an ideal alternative if the distance between the living and dining area is not very large.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be said that there are many cool design options for a partition between a living and dining area when it comes to an open floor plan. Depending on the type of accommodation you have, such as whether you live in a house, condo, or apartment, there are some solutions where you have more freedom than others. Regardless of the area or areas you want to redesign, the ideal solution for separating your living and dining rooms can be found in one of the methods mentioned above. So, which of these cool ideas would you like to try?