Renting an apartment in the Czech Republic might be completely different than renting an apartment in your home country or country/ies you had lived before. Anything from where and how to look for an apartment, to the cost involved, to lease agreements. In today’s article we focus on the part you face as soon as you start looking – what the heck is 2+kk?!?
Most typical apartment layouts in the Czech Republic
Before we get in to details of what each of these mean, let’s list the most common apartment layouts below, from the smallest to the biggest.
- studio/1+kk
- 2+kk,
- 2+1, 3+kk,
- 3+1, 4+kk,
- 4+1.
You can potentially find apartments (or houses) bigger than this and/or having two or more bathrooms but that is not really so common to have it reflected in the above layouts.
So, what do these mean?
Let’s now dive a bit deeper into what each of the above mentioned layouts mean!
A general rule here is that the first part of the equation 1+kk, 2+1 etc.) refers to the general number of rooms other than kitchen. The second part of the equation (+kk, +1) refers to the set up of your kitchen.
Bathrooms are generally separated from all the other rooms so they are not mentioned anywhere in the equation.
Studio apartments
Studio and 1+kk are two different names for the same set up – the whole apartment is just one room. Studios in Czech Republic typically look like this:
Basically one big room combines kitchen, kind of a living room/dining area, your bed etc. Some studios might have really clever design so they are actually great for living, some one them not so much.
Although as mentioned above, generally bathrooms are always separated, we have seen studios where the shower was part of the kitchen part for example.
As for the 1+kk description, as explained, number 1 refers to the general number of rooms (1), +kk refers to the set up of the kitchen. KK (translated directly meaning “kitchen corner” or “kitchenette”) means that the kitchen is part of one of the rooms, not separated.
In case of a studio then, there is 1 room and kitchen is part of that room.
1+1, 2+kk in Czech real estate
The next in the list is 1+1 and/or 2+kk. Even though, these are two different layouts, they are very close to each other so we list them together. All the bigger layouts also follow the same structure so once you understand this one, all the bigger ones will be clear as well.
The main difference between 1+1 and 2+kk is in the size of the kitchen.
Following the structure of the formula described above – 1 means there is one room which is not a kitchen, the +1 part means that there is a separate kitchen in the flat. So, 1+1 means there is one room which is not a kitchen and one separated kitchen. It can generally look like this:
The kitchen in 1+1 layout is separated from the main room (living room/bedroom combo, often with foldable bed) but it is typically not big enough to accommodate a sofa or any other “relax” equipment.
2+kk means that there are two rooms but one of them includes the kitchenette. The difference from 1+1 layout is that the kitchen is bigger and can accommodate for example a sofa, a dining table etc. In daily life then, the room with the kitchenette is usually used as a living room and the other room is used as a bedroom.
A typical layout could look like this:
2+1, 3+kk, and bigger layouts follow the same structure
The same structure as in case of 1+1 and 2+kk is followed in case of bigger apartments.
2+1 means there are three rooms in total, two of which are not a kitchen (usually one is used as a living room, the other one as a bedroom) + a separated kitchen which is though usually not big enough to accommodate any bigger pieces of furniture to be used as a living room.
3+kk also means that there are three rooms in total. One of the rooms though includes the kitchenette. This would typically be used as one master bedroom, one child room/guest room/home office, and a living room (which includes the kitchenette).
The same goes for 3+1 a 4+kk and potentially bigger, even though it is not too common to see flats as big as 5+kk or 5+1. These are more of layouts for family houses, where it could potentially also go to more than one kitchens such as 6+2 for example.
We hope we helped explaining the topic of different Czech apartment layouts well. If there is still something that is not clear or you have some additional questions, contact us.
The same applies if you’d appreciate help with finding a place to live in Prague or the rest of the Czech Republic.
Move To Prague – your experts in apartment rentals in the Czech Republic
