Do-it-yourself kitchen repair in Khrushchev with a gas pipe

In detail: DIY kitchen repair in Khrushchev with a gas pipe from a real master for the site my.housecope.com.

It would seem that in such a small area it is difficult to "roam" and come up with something original. But, we assure you, everything is not so sad and we will give a lot of examples of design solutions that will turn your kitchen into a role model!

So, in this article we will show the best options for repairing and redeveloping a kitchen in Khrushchev, tips on design, decor and a lot of photos on the topic.

The kitchens of that time have a couple of very significant disadvantages and these are:

Very modest area (only 5-6 squares)
Low ceiling (2.2 meters)
The presence of a gas water heater (why this is a minus - we will describe below)

But, in contrast to these disadvantages, there are significant advantages, in comparison with block houses, and these are:

There are no load-bearing walls in Khrushchevs (that is, you can crush and break anything at least)
It is very easy to expand the area in them due to the adjoining rooms, and this applies not only to the living room.

When you see the photos presented in the corresponding blocks, you will understand that Khrushchev is not a sentence! True, with the proper approach, it is quite possible to make a very stylish room design, and the kitchen will look miniature, but not cheap.

Few of the owners of Khrushchev leave the layout in its original form. A lot of ways to modernize such a room have already been tested, therefore, in this article we will not open America to you.

Just - let's recall the most successful solutions and provide illustrative examples.

In short, the best option in this case is a small redevelopment, with a displacement of the walls. Otherwise, however, there is practically nowhere to turn around and there can be no question of any originality.

Video (click to play).

Therefore, we will describe to you the best kitchen remodeling in Khrushchev, as well as tell you about the furniture modules that are best suited in this case.

But first, we will describe to you general recommendations that apply to absolutely any interpretations and cases.

Gas water heaters in Khrushchevs are not always installed in the kitchen. Sometimes they are in the bathroom, which is very convenient on the one hand. Why is that? And because you have no safety restrictions and you can safely demolish the partition that separates the kitchen from the living room.

In other cases, if the column is still in the kitchen, you should not choose this particular type of redevelopment. It is much more reasonable to expand the room at the expense of the pantry adjacent to the kitchen, for example, since there should be a door in any case.

No, you, of course, can not give a damn about the laws, but one day there is a risk of deeply regretting it. For example, when selling an apartment, you will be required to provide a document confirming the legality of the redevelopment. And where will you get it if the gas workers do not agree with this state of affairs?

Yes, you can dodge and bribe in some way. But do you need it? Moreover, in all honesty, a kitchen combined with a living room is not such a chic option.

This is good in one case: if you live alone in an apartment. And when there are two of you, or even more, such a layout will add inconvenience. It's not even about the smell that will spread throughout the apartment.

The main thing here is the discomfort from visiting the kitchen by family members at the moment when someone is sleeping in the living room. And for small Khrushchevs, this is a very common situation. The hall usually performs many functions, including replacing the bedroom.

So, if you have a speaker in the kitchen, start from this key point.

In the photo below you can see options for repairing a kitchen in Khrushchev, namely with a column.Doesn't it look great? And you can't say that the area is too small.

We think you already understand that the best option is a light scale. But, of course, I want something bright, interesting ... What can we offer you?

The most important thing here is the color of the walls. They are the ones who "make" the visual volume. That is, if you paint the walls white, you will definitely not go wrong.

At the same time, be very careful with the choice of an apron for the work surface. You should not choose something very colorful and bright, because the walls are white. Due to the fact that the area is small, this small segment, visually, will occupy a significant part of the room.

Then, the color of the floor is very important. If you make it dark, then even with light walls, it will "narrow" the room. Therefore, try to make the floor in light colors.

If you want a bright accent, remember the design rule: it should be only 10% of everything else. That is, some bright chandelier is enough for you, and in the colors of the curtains or some painting, you can duplicate its tone. Read more about this in the rules for combining colors in the interior of the kitchen.

If the kitchen is small, then we really do not recommend that you stop your choice on any elements of the "classics".

Read also: DIY autonomous siren repair

Experienced designers insist that:

the repair of the kitchen room must begin with taking measurements of the space, creating a sketch that will depict the future layout of the room, calculating the actual amount of building and finishing materials;
if the future interior requires redevelopment, including the transfer of the unit for heating water or pipes from it, the budget for repairs will have to be increased. In addition, changes to the interior will have to be legalized in special authorities;
when moving a gas powered column, do not neglect the advice of a fire safety specialist. Repair of the Khrushchev kitchen should be carried out taking into account his recommendations. If it involves the transfer of the unit or communication elements, a permit from the utilities will be required;
despite the fact that in such houses the walls are rather thin, it is worth insulating the kitchen exclusively from the outside. Internal insulation will eat up valuable floor space.

The design of a small Khrushchev kitchen with a gas water heater should first of all pursue the goal of increasing the narrow space without losing its functional purpose. That is, the renovation should bring space here without thereby creating any inconvenience.

Here are proven ways to help visually expand the Khrushchev kitchen space with a column and make it more comfortable:

give up standard base cabinets with heavy fronts and large handles, do not choose standard, straight-shaped headsets, preferring modular options with glass or glossy doors. Such furniture does not look bulky, and glossy surfaces reflect light, expanding the space;
if the door opens to the inside of the kitchen, dismantle it by making the opening in the form of an arch. This will save valuable floor space;
use the niche space under the windowsill for storing dishes or installing compact appliances. If such an opportunity arises, take the refrigerator out of the kitchen or pick up a compact model of such a unit;
choose only light translucent textiles for windows or replace standard tulle with roman blinds;
when choosing a color for decorating a small kitchen with a gas water heater, it should be borne in mind that experienced designers recommend using light natural tones on the walls for such a space. This technique fills the room with light, visually making it more spacious. It is worth abandoning large drawings on furniture and walls, they will only visually narrow the kitchen.

There are also ways to expand the space of the Khrushchev kitchen by assembly or dismantling work. The ideal option would be to carry out redevelopment.

Such measures will require you to make more impressive investments and legitimize perestroika in government bodies.

If the column has a modern design, it is successfully combined with the rest of the interior elements, does not bother you with its aesthetics, it can be left on the wall in its original form. If it is characterized by an unsightly appearance or its location is extremely inconvenient, use the advice of designers with experience about the rules for transferring and how to mask such an assembly. It can be moved to a different location if the original layout does not suit you. Indeed, often such a unit is located right above the sink, where it is worth hanging a cabinet with a dish dryer. Then the column should be moved, and with it the pipes. It seems to many that this idea is not difficult to implement. But there are certain nuances that need to be taken into account.

Options for a new placement of the unit:

to the bathroom, if the area of the room exceeds 7.5 sq m and there is a ventilation duct;
into the corridor, if the layout of the space is free enough;
to another place in the kitchen, just not over a stove or other open source of fire, and also not close to the cabinet wall.

If you do not need to transfer the column, then it can be beaten in different ways, disguised as a hanging cabinet, performing smart repairs. If such a decision is made, then the cabinet should be wide, with walls of at least 3 cm, and many ventilation holes. The walls of the gas column must be insulated with high quality using heat-reflecting material. Also make holes in it for a corrugation, a gas pipe. To make sure how wonderful a Khrushchev kitchen with a gas water heater looks, take a look at the photo below.

An equally problematic problem in a small kitchen is unsightly gas pipes and a chimney. Repair should be carried out using ideas for disguising them, then the interior will look holistic.

You can purchase a set of equipment for the gas water heater that helps to veil the pipes. It can include special boxes and panels that are mounted directly on pipes. Dismantling these elements, if necessary, is easy to carry out, and the design becomes attractive and neat, as in the photo below.

If you cannot buy a suitable box that hides the pipes, you can build it yourself from drywall or plywood. To do this, connect the side and front walls to each other, and then attach the structure to the wall and fix it with self-tapping screws. The pipes should hide behind the box without difficulty. At the end, you need to decorate the box with the same building material as the walls.So with a minimum of effort and investment, unsightly pipes and column boxes can be disguised.

To create the most comfortable, cozy and functional kitchen interior with a gas water heater on a meager area, experienced designers have prepared a lot of ideas. The photo below is proof that small kitchen spaces with a speaker can be made cozy and stylish.

The limited space of a small kitchen affects the size of the working area. We'll have to think about how to carry out the repair as efficiently as possible in order to organize a full-fledged working area on meager meters.

This problem can be solved by using multilevel or retractable countertops, which will be equipped with a furniture set. You can also use another trick: make the window sill a continuation of the working area, use it for cooking food, covering it with a countertop, as is done in the next photo. Instead of a standard stove, select a hob, and replace the oven with a microwave oven with an airfryer.

Avoid a large-scale sink, opting for a deep model in a compact size. Nowhere to put the dishes for water to drain from it? It is better to use a special dryer installed in a hanging cabinet for these purposes. But the space of the work surface will be more spacious.

The interior of the small kitchen of the Khrushchev will not be able to accommodate a large number of furniture and appliances, but the most necessary things will still have to be placed here. How to do it as efficiently as possible? Use exclusively functional items in order to equip the space and interior with everything you need. Experienced experts insist that the design of such a room needs to be created using some tricks:

it is better to choose a corner furniture set, it allows you to use the corner space as efficiently as possible. Such an interior is shown in the following photo. It is good if the headset is equipped with drawers, in which it is convenient to store kitchen utensils. A kitchen set with compartment doors is no less convenient to use;
use the full height of the wall of a small kitchen by installing wall-mounted bunk modules. They are spacious and functional. It is also worth picking up a pencil case for storing kitchen utensils for the entire height of the wall;
the window sill should be used as a table by installing a tabletop instead. If there are more than two people in the family, all the people will not fit at the table sill. The photo below shows a design made using a similar solution;
the dining table of a standard plan can be replaced with a folding option that does not take up much free space. Choose folding chairs for him, light;
select household appliances of a compact size and built-in type. Then unsightly units will not take up much space, spoil the design, hiding behind furniture facades.

The photo below shows the interior with the successful application of these rules for decorating small kitchen spaces in Khrushchev.

Khrushchevkas were built at a time when there was a need to provide housing for as many people as possible in a short time, and have a number of disadvantages, one of which is their small area. Therefore, the renovation of the kitchen in Khrushchev is an urgent problem for a fairly large number of people who still live in these wonderful apartments today.

To answer the question of how to repair a kitchen in Khrushchev so that it looks according to your requirements, you should determine the main features of this room and the main problems that will have to be solved in the course of work.

The main and main feature of the kitchens in Khrushchev is their small area - 5-7 m2, and high, from 2.48 to 2.7 m, ceilings. More often than not, ceilings in older homes require leveling, as do walls. In addition, the kitchen in Khrushchev may have a number of disadvantages:

Inconveniently located communications that require the intervention of specialists to reinstall them;
The presence of a gas column;
Poor external wall insulation;
Thin interior walls, most often made of wood, gypsum - or foam concrete, with a small layer of plaster;
The floors in Khrushchevs are most often even, but the floors are thin enough, so there is a problem with poor sound, heat and waterproofing. Also, given the weak floors, heavy floor screeds cannot be used in Khrushchev;
A window niche, as a rule, requires leveling, replacing old frames with new wooden or plastic double-glazed windows. You should also provide for the installation of a convenient window sill - in panel Khrushchev, most often there are no window sills, or rather narrow;
A characteristic feature that the kitchen in Khrushchev still possesses is the mezzanine. It can be removed, but with proper repair, this niche can serve as an additional place for storing seasonal kitchen utensils - for example, a juicer and cans for making jam, cans for preservation.

In addition to the listed disadvantages, apartments in Khrushchevs have their own advantages, which can be used for renovation:

Despite the fact that the interior partitions are quite thin, they have the necessary strength and practically do not deform;
Most often, the wall separating the kitchen from the living room is not load-bearing, so if you want to make a studio in the apartment, you can remove it, having secured the appropriate permissions;
Khrushchev houses usually have large windows, and this is a great bonus for a kitchen, where there should always be a lot of light;
The presence of a balcony is not excluded;
Repair of a small room does not require a lot of expensive materials.

All these features should be taken into account when planning future repairs. Only a reasonable approach, taking into account the smallest details, will solve the problem of how to repair the kitchen in Khrushchev so that it looks modern and does not lose such a scarce centimeters of area.

Where to start renovating a kitchen in Khrushchev? In order to answer this question, you need to decide what result you want to get in the end. There are several renovation options that can be applied when renovating small apartments.

Expansion of space using functional solutions - for example, replacing hinged doors with sliding doors;
Using part of the corridor or bathroom (if conditions permit) for a niche in which a refrigerator can be placed. Thus, the interior space of the kitchen will increase significantly;
Using the space under the window to increase the working surface;
A radical increase in the area of \ u200b \ u200bthe kitchen by redeveloping an apartment.

It is very important to remember that the kitchen is a special room in any apartment: there is a difficult microclimate here. Therefore, when choosing materials for repair, it is necessary to be guided by the requirements for their reliability, strength and moisture resistance.

Whatever design you choose for kitchen renovation in Khrushchev, it should be remembered that furniture in a small room should be of light colors and not contrast with the walls.

With low ceilings, you can make the kitchen visually taller using vertical elements - such as a pencil case;
In the dining area, it is appropriate to place corner upholstered furniture with a table without sharp corners;
For a small room, furniture that can be easily transformed is well suited - these are folding or folding tables, swivel sections in kitchen cabinets and drawers.

Even a small kitchen in Khrushchev requires zoning of space and high-quality lighting for each zone. Most often, the work area in a small kitchen requires additional lighting, which can be arranged using stand-alone lamps attached to the bottom of the wall cabinets.

To illuminate the entire room, spotlights mounted in a suspended or suspended ceiling, as well as several lamps on the wall in the dining area, are best suited. Large chandeliers are inappropriate in a small kitchen - they visually reduce the already small kitchen space.

Good day to all!

I will continue the story of our repair, the end of which is already looming on the horizon)

When installing the floor in the hall, the screws creaked wildly when tightened. They put a lot of pressure on the psyche. Googling found one way to deal with it. They rubbed them with ordinary dry soap and the creak disappeared. Therefore, the corridor and the kitchen were made in relative silence.

In the kitchen, from the old owners, there is an old mirror on the wall. Due to its age, it did not look very good, so they decided to take it off too.

How easy it sounds and what kind of hemorrhoids actually turned out to be. As it turned out, the mirror was hung at the time when the tiles were being made in the kitchen. Behind the mirror, the tiles were sawn off along the contour thereof. Part of the tile was better glued to the mirror, and not to the wall, so it came off along with the mirror. There were no tiles behind the wall cabinets either. A very dull look appeared before us. The work has increased, now also to re-glue the tiles in the kitchen.

We decided to leave the tile on the bottom (the one that fits well), and remove the top and re-glue it. The old tiles were just disgusting. I tore it off with my bare hands, the feeling that I was simply planted on liquid nails. The large tile lower was already on tile glue and to dismantle it I used a perforator with a special nozzle.

In Leroy we bought the usual white tiles. In color, it came up almost perfectly. I also purchased leveling crosses, glue and notched trowels. I have little experience in gluing tiles, so I was guided by YouTube and Google. It was going slowly, but it seemed to be smooth, I don’t feel it by tapping the voids inside.

He did not glue it all the way to the ceiling, because after consulting with his wife, they decided to make a stretch ceiling in the kitchen. Soundproofing, I repeat, in the kitchen is not so important, and, frankly, drywall does not inspire confidence in the kitchen, where there will be high humidity during cooking. Here are some before and after pictures.

After installing the ceiling, I glued the tiles to the joint

In the process, we went shopping, picked up linoleum. The priority would be to find from scraps (at a discount), because the kitchen is only 2x2.5m. As a result, we found a chic version 2.05x3m, even a little with a margin.

Then there was the epic with the kitchen. My wife really wanted a bar counter, but it was very difficult to shove it into our kitchen. We went shopping for a very long time, did all sorts of projects in order to cram something unproductive. As a result, we settled on an option from the same Leroy (don't count it as an advertisement). And in terms of money it was cheaper than similar projects in other stores, and in terms of color, texture, countertop, the spouse was satisfied.

The project was chosen, but the money had already run out, I had to get into a loan (yes, a mortgage + a loan is not the best solution, but there is nowhere to go).

Here we ran into another problem. The branch of the gas pipe runs at a height of about one meter, i.e. above the level of the intended countertop. She looks, frankly, horrible, and she didn't really want to cut the tabletop under it. Also, after disassembling the old kitchen, the smell of gas in the kitchen began to be felt. Not strong, but presses on the nervous system. He cut off the gas and called the gas workers. Having smeared the pipes with some kind of mixture (I would even say with mucus), they determined that there was a siphonite from all joints. We decided to kill two birds with one stone, and update the pipes and move the connection below, under the kitchen set. I went to Gorgaz. It turns out that this is not so easy to do. I had to go through a whole quest with documents so that they could digest the pipe for me, but in the end I agreed everything and waited for the brigade. A yellow gas truck arrived and in a couple of hours they digested everything for me and connected new rubber tubes to connect all the gas units (I don't remember exactly how they are called).