Over the last few years, open floor plans have gained popularity. You see it marketed when looking for houses to purchase and even on hit tv shows about home purchasing or home renovations.
Many of the home renovation tv shows love knocking walls down to open up the floor plan.
Open concept isn’t only popular because it’s trendy. People love it because it makes their home feel larger, allows for light to flow through the rooms, and allows easy access, especially the refrigerator in the kitchen.
Who doesn’t want the ease of grabbing a snack while you watch your favorite movie or tv series?
The downside to the open floor plan is the smells from the cooking moving to the other parts of your home.
The best solution for dealing with smells entering other rooms in your home is to have excellent ventilation. Having a range hood with a minimum of 600 CFM is ideal, or installing an auxiliary ceiling vent to remove indoor air to the outside.
There are other tips to remedy this issue, which I will share below; since I have experience living in an open concept home.
Here are my tips on preventing the smell of cooked food from permeating into other areas of your home:
Clean Up Your Cooking Area
You’re already working hard to make a delicious meal, and here I am telling you to clean up.
We can get caught up making our meals and often want to eat and enjoy what we just made.
But, one of the best ways to ensure smell doesn’t linger is to clean up right away.
Especially if you are cooking with heavy oils and your dishes tend to make lots of splatters. In a recent article, I talk about how to cook ground beef without oil.
You should immediately wipe down any grease and food that has made its way out of your pots and pans.
Cleaning up right away ensures that residue doesn’t stick to your counters and backsplash/walls.
Also, it avoids the build-up of grease, which causes those awful smells in your home.
Use A Splatter Guard
Using splatter guards will prevent your food from making its way out of your cookware. It’s a great tool to use while you are cooking.
There are various types to choose from, ones that go right over your pots and pans and others that act as a barrier covering the area you are cooking.
Check out my set of splatter guards I use at home:
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You can also learn more about avoiding grease splatter from getting on your stove from a recent article I wrote; check it out here.
Don’t Allow Oil To Build-up
If you’re cleaning up right away after cooking, this won’t be an issue.
But, we have to keep it real. There are times when we just slaved in the kitchen and just didn’t have the energy to clean up immediately.
It’s okay. It happens to all of us. Be aware of oil building up in your kitchen area.
Not just over the stove and oven, but the surrounding areas. Look at your cabinets, over-the-range hoods, counter, backsplash, and walls.
If you tend to cook with lots of oil, it will build up in your kitchen. Once in a while, do a deep clean of your kitchen. Clean up any oil build-up attached to your appliances and surrounding environment.
Oil can be a nightmare to deal with, more so when it’s overheated, which causes oil vapor to take flight. Check out this article here that goes in-depth about all oil smoke points.
Ventilation Is Key
Having good ventilation, I would say that this is one of the most important things to help your home smell fresh and keep the cooking smells away from other rooms in your home.
An efficient venting system is vital when you live in an open concept home.
Running your range hood while cooking sucks out the air from indoors and releases it outdoors.
Implementing this one may be a little costly if your home currently has an older or less powerful range hood, but it is worth looking into and installing a more powerful range hood.
I wrote an article on the benefits of range hoods in your kitchen here.
I change the range hood in my home with one that has more powerful suction.
I chose the next level up from the ones recommended for the square footage of my kitchen.
Or at least a minimum of 400 to 600 CFM (cubic feet per minute).
Note: Any Range hood 400 to 600 CFM should be installed in a kitchen with 6″ to 8″ ductwork to reap the suction benefits.
Here’s a simple helpful chart:
| CFM Range | Minimum Duct Size | Recommended Duct Size |
| 400 – 600 | 6″ | 8″ |
| 600 – 900 | 7″ | 8″ – 10″ |
| 900 – 1200 | 8″ | 10″ – 12″ |
| 1200+ | *10″ | * |
CFM is the unit used to measure how much air the range hood exhausts every minute at full speed. The hood vents more air out of your kitchen with a higher CFM.
To learn more about selecting the right range hood, check out this article here.
There are some key things to know if you plan to install a range hood with higher CFMs.
Make sure to speak with a professional about this. You can check out this video to learn a little bit more:
Auxiliary Exhaust Vent In The Kitchen
To improve the ventilation in your home, you can consider adding an exhaust fan in your kitchen.
It will require a bit of renovation on your part, so be sure to speak to professionals about this, as it can be quite a bit of work.
Implementing this won’t be as easy and can be a bit of an expense.
It might be a bigger job since you are not simply installing a unit; there will most likely be additional work, such as adding some ductwork.
This may not be the best option, but it is something that you can think about if you are planning on doing some kitchen remodeling.
Since I’ve added extra exhaust fans into some of my rental unit kitchens, I’ve noticed the air quality is much better, even with tenants who cook dishes that are more potent.
In a recent article, I talk about dealing with strong cooking smells in the kitchen. Check it out here!
Open Windows
Opening your windows and turning on your venting fan allow the air to move and, therefore, not get trapped indoors.
Even if you live where you experience cold winter months, opening your window just for a short period will be helpful.
The opened windows allow air to flow and bring fresh air in from the outdoor, therefore circulating the area to remove smells.
It’s good to use this if you find that the venting of your range hood is weaker, you cannot install a more powerful range hood, or your kitchen doesn’t have a range hood installed.
Cross Ventilation
Related to the last two points I’ve made is having your range hood running, in addition to opening a couple of windows.
Again, getting the air moving allows for the air not to remain stagnant.
Stagnant air in your home causes the smell because the air with the oil particles remains and linger into other rooms in your home.
Check out this hack for using your windows and a fan to create cross-ventilation: Prevent The Cooking Smell From Traveling Through House Vents
Use An Air Purifier
Air purifiers are great because they have a few benefits for ensuring smell doesn’t stay in your home.
First of all, they typically have an activated carbon filter. What’s so special about this?
Activated carbon neutralizes odors. Carbon filters trap gas molecules on a bed of charcoal.
They were designed to remove gasses but are often used to remove odors from the air.
Another feature is the HEPA filter. HEPA stands for high-efficiency particulate air and can filter out even the smallest air particles with a size of 0.3 microns.
Combining both HEPA and Carbon filters makes air purifiers efficient in removing smells from your home.
Finally, air purifiers have built-in fans with different speeds, so you can also use them to move the air around.
Boil vinegar
An inexpensive solution is to boil some vinegar and water. Vinegar is an odor absorber. Boil 1 part vinegar to 1 part water and allow it to simmer for 15 minutes.
You may be concerned that vinegar has a smell that many of us don’t enjoy. The good thing is the smell goes away, and along with it, the odors of the food you cooked.
So it’s a temporary inconvenience to combat the more significant inconvenience of cooking smells permeating into other rooms in your home.
Boil Citrus
Another inexpensive alternative is to take some lemon and orange peels and bring a pot of water to a boil, then allow it to simmer for about an hour.
Burn A Scented Candle
Although it is much better to get rid of smells rather than mask them, burning a scented candle is still a good option.
Choosing a scent that you enjoy will hide the other odors and will be pleasing to you. But, keep in mind, once the candle finishes burning, the smells may come back, so it’s always better to eliminate the odor than mask it.
Use An Essential Oil Diffuser
An option that offers a strong scent to mask other odors is an essential oil diffuser.
One thing to look out for is to make sure that it is powerful enough to cover the certain square footage. Keep in mind that there aren’t diffusers that will cover extensive square footage, such as covering your entire household or more than one room.
Diffusers are typically small and made for just one room. Just make sure that the product covers specific square footage that meets the area you want to use it in.
Try Other Ways Of Cooking
Trying new foods and recipes has always been fun for me. I get tired of making the same dishes week after week.
Trying other cooking styles could give you new dishes to make and help prevent those pesky smells if you tend to cook with heavy oils and aromatic seasonings.
One way of making meals is using the Instant Pot. I recently wrote a beginner’s guide article here if you haven’t heard of the Instant Pot and never used one. Check it out here.
What’s great about using the Instant Pot is that the appliance is sealed as the food is being cooked and keeps the smell trapped inside.
It is mostly used as a pressure cooker; therefore, the smell gets out from the top, especially when the pressure is released.
A good tip is to place the Instant Pot right beneath your range hood and get the fan going, and it will suck the air right up and out right away.
Another unique way of cooking is using an air fryer. It’s a good option for those of you who enjoy making fried food.
You can use a stand-alone air fryer, or you can use an air fryer lid on your multi-cooker, like the Instant Pot. Check out this recent article I wrote about air fryer lids here.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are plenty of things you can implement to ensure you enjoy your open concept home.
You don’t have to worry about food smells making their way into other areas of your home.
Some of the tips may be more work, but I would say that it’s worth it. At the end of the day, it’s all personal preference.
Do you love open floor plans enough to put in a little extra work? The way I look at it, I would be implementing these tips even if I didn’t have an open floor plan since I wouldn’t want my kitchen to have any funky smells either.
