Apartment zoning: design ideas and tips

Modern realities are such that apartment owners can rarely afford to equip separate rooms for a hall, a bedroom, a study.

To make the room cozy and comfortable for all households, designers widely use a spectacular technique – zoning of space. You can divide the room into zones yourself. To do this, you just need to familiarize yourself with the basic rules, and see photos with the best options to choose the interior to your taste.

What is space zoning and why is it performed

Zoning of premises is a complex of techniques and design ideas aimed at creating separate functional areas inside one room. Each of them, having its own peculiarities in layout, decor and decoration, is part of a single whole, and is designed in a similar style. Many will ask: why is this necessary?

Zoning is used in a number of cases:

• The delimitation of the space of the studio apartment, in which capital concrete or brick partitions are simply not provided.
• Providing opportunities for solitary recreation, study, work and hobbies for parents and children living in a small apartment.
• To emphasize the design features of spacious houses, apartments.

This technique allows you to create a personal space for each family member without infringing on anyone’s interests.

Advantages of dividing rooms in an apartment into zones

Zoning of premises has a number of indisputable advantages:

• 2-4 functional zones can be placed in one room.
• To build 1-2 more small isolated rooms into the room, without cardinal redevelopment of the apartment.
• The children’s bedroom, combining the functions of a game, an educational and creative playground and a sports corner, needs competent zoning.
• Allows rational use of all available space, including areas under the ceiling, niches and corners, balconies.

In addition, the design techniques used in zoning can significantly save the family budget.

Ways to divide a room into zones

What can be used to divide a room into separate sections? There are basic techniques to help solve the problem. They can be used in various combinations, choosing exactly those that give the most stunning effect.

• Partitions and arches made of various materials – tempered glass and glass blocks, plywood and plasterboard structures, wooden slats, forged metal, plastic. They can be light, sliding, stationary, massive, openwork, transparent or deaf. They fence off a part of the room across, or one of the corners, mount structures in the middle of a long wall, if the area of the room allows.
• Furniture items – cabinets, shelves, countertops, bar counters, sofas and armchairs, furniture sets, dressers and elegant tables. In this case, massive furniture is placed across, end to the wall. A lighter one creates a wonderful visual effect, separating part of the area from the rest of the room.
• Curtains, light muslin, thread curtains, drapes, vertical blinds are a great budget option for dividing rooms into secluded areas, which was used by our distant ancestors. Modern manufacturers offer a wide range of materials – fabric, glass, plastic, wood, bamboo, tulle.

• Different types of flooring, for example – tile and parquet board, laminate and carpet, granite and solid boards. To further highlight one of the zones, podiums of various heights are often equipped. The same principle works with wall decoration. So, you can combine wallpaper and painting framed with gypsum or polyurethane stucco, wooden panels and rough brick, natural stone and smooth painted plaster.
• To highlight the functional area with the color of decoration, decor or furniture, no additional work is required, installation of any structures. Shades can belong to the same scale, or be contrasting. The visual effect will help to emphasize good lighting.

Zoning of the bedroom and living room in the apartment

The living room in modern apartments is often used as a marital bedroom. How to arrange a cozy corner hidden from prying eyes in a room where friends, work colleagues, casual visitors are regularly brought?

• If there is a niche, you can close it with sliding panels, curtains, partitions, and arrange a separate small bedroom.
• Another common option is to fence off part of the room (usually a third or half) with a transverse structure, curtains or a large wardrobe, shelving.
• Modern technologies allow you to equip a full-fledged bedroom with glass or wooden partitions.

If the living room area is very small, then it is very difficult to equip a separate bedroom on such an area. In this case, you can use a pull-out podium bed, which houses upholstered furniture, a work or dining area.

Zoning of the nursery and living room in the apartment

If there are children in the family, but there is no way to allocate a separate nursery for the child, you can approach the problem creatively.

In order to comfortably accommodate a small family member, various methods are used:

• Separate a third or half of the room by the window so that as much light as possible gets into the nursery.
• You can buy a comfortable and compact children’s corner, with an attic bed, a wardrobe, dressers, a workplace, shelves. Some manufacturers even offer sports equipment in the kit.
• If possible, you can convert a large loggia into a nursery. Window blocks need to be inserted, insulated, lighting and heating are carried out, finished with high-quality, environmentally friendly materials.

Zoning of the living room and kitchen in the apartment

Often owners of small-sized apartments prefer to combine a kitchen and a living room, organizing the space at their discretion.

And in the studio apartment there is simply no other way out, and you have to add the functions of the front dining room as well.

How to properly zone such a space?

• A kitchen set is an excellent material for creating partitions. You can divide the zones by a bar counter, several tables with a countertop, or purchase a “U”-shaped version by installing the back of the cabinets towards the living room. To make such a partition look like a single whole, you can mount a wall of wooden or plastic panels, frosted or mirrored glass.
• A dining group of a table and chairs or armchairs zones the space well, separating the kitchen from the living room.
• Decorative columns, arches, and lattice structures are often installed.

Zoning is an interesting tool with which you can give an apartment or house individual features, your own character. These design solutions allow owners to use all the possibilities of housing planning in full.