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Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

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Property/DIY

kitchen-diner or lounge-diner?

17 replies

IceCreamCastles · 03/10/2011 20:29

Ooh - my first (of many probably) posts on the property boards.

We've just moved into a new house which currently has a reasonably sized L shaped lounge diner.

The kitchen is accessed from the dining room and is an acceptable size for a kitchen but not really big enough to fit a table for 4 comfortably.

I've always loved the idea of a kitchen diner but wouldn't want to be completely open plan so this would mean separating the living room area.

Any experience or ideas - I am prone to making the wring decision on a whim so need to have considered all angles before informing consulting DH on the matter!

We also have a conservatory and utility room if that makes any difference.

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IceCreamCastles · 03/10/2011 20:30

Oh and when I say new, I mean new for us, Actual house is about 40 years old.

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thisisyesterday · 03/10/2011 20:32

kitchen diner. definitely

i hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE our lounge diner

IceCreamCastles · 03/10/2011 20:34

Out of interest why do you hate it?

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nondomesticgoddess · 03/10/2011 20:35

Our house is on the market but not getting anywhere and it has an L-shaped lounge diner and separate kitchen. I keep thinking that if nothing happens with it I would knock the kitchen through to the diner bit of the other room and separate off the living room with double doors (so could be more open plan if needs be).
I am desperate for a large kitchen diner so in your shoes, would definitely do it!

IceCreamCastles · 03/10/2011 20:39

Yes, we've considered the double doors too.

Other consideration is that lounge is north facing so quite dark and separating it off would mean that we lost the light coming from the south facing dining room.

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thisisyesterday · 03/10/2011 20:45

because food just gets everywhere. I hate sitting there in the evening and seeing the dining table and chairs.. they take up too much space (there are 5 of us so it's quite big)
but mainly it's the food. the kids are forever dropping bits and it gets walked into the carpet and i just hate it! lol

someone else asked the same question on here a while ago and I think it was (amazingly, for mumsnet) unanimous in favour of kitchen diners lol

RandomMess · 03/10/2011 20:48

We've got L shaped lounge diner in a small 1960's house, we've altered the kitchen to make it more of a kitchen diner, sadly can't seperate off the lounge - would if I could!!

Absolutely kitchen diner is a must, life has improved 1,000% just by opening up the kitchen access to the dining area.

Amaris · 03/10/2011 21:00

Kitchen diner because then I assume that you have two separate living spaces for people to be doing different things in. We have living room and dining room separated by doors at the moment, but one of my criteria for a new house is that there are separate dining and living rooms so that DD and I can be together or separate. But then it depends on your family and the house!

I wonder if it would be possible to put some sort of window or even glass bricks in a partition wall to deal with the light issue, like doors off hallways often have. Not sure if that would look odd though, or if glass bricks are hopelessly dated!

Amaris · 03/10/2011 21:01

Oh and congratulations on the new house!

Mokemum · 03/10/2011 21:02

We've just done a massive extension to get a kitchen diner - we went a step further and have a lounge - kitchen - diner with a separate living room and utility - I love it! Hate lounge-diners, I even hate dining rooms, I want the eating and the cooking in the same room!

uggmum · 03/10/2011 21:05

I had a thru lounge/diner with double doors between them. I had a tiny kitchen.

I had an extension a few years ago. Added a large dining kitchen. So big I can have a sofa in there as well as an island and large dining table. It's a great family space. With French doors out to the garden.

The old dining room is now a second lounge/tv room. Mainly for the dc and it keeps the main lounge as a tidy adult space.

thisisyesterday · 03/10/2011 21:08

also I hate that we basically live in one room the entire time.
we only have a small hallway, the kitchen and the lounge/diner downstairs.
so when weather is bad and the kids don't play outside so much we basically spend the entire day sitting in one room. we play there, watch tv there, eat there, do homework... it's fairly soul destroying! lol

that said, you have other rooms so would probably be less of a problem for you in that aspect

IceCreamCastles · 03/10/2011 21:17

Right, you are swaying me back to kitchen diner (had a friend round earlier who voted to keep the lounge diner)

Another complication is that the stairs are off the lounge part of the current living area (leading to gallery landing). Would it be awkward to have to go through 2 doors (hall ->kitchen diner, kitchen diner -> upstairs) to get upstairs?

Don't think glass bricks would work but might look into the double doors to see if I could get some that were partly glazed.

Can see why that would be a bit of a pain tiy - it was a bit like that in our old house which didn't really even have a 'dining area' - just a table in the corner of the living room.

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SparklePrincess · 03/10/2011 23:13

I love my through lounge diner. We are moving to a smaller house with a kitchen diner & separate (small) lounge... It's not what im used to. Seems so small! :( Think we'll have to extend out from the dining area to make a large lounge dining kitchen. :)

vonnyh · 04/10/2011 16:11

Another vote for kitchen diner, Last year we reinstated the wall between the lounge and the diner, so we now have kitchen diner we "live" in during the day, and the lounge is kept nice for us to relax in, in the evenings.

Mamathulu · 05/10/2011 00:51

Yep, another vote for kitchen diner here - we have a lounge diner and I DESPISE it - as TIY says, food gets everywhere, it seems much more sensible to have it all in one room, ESPECIALLY if you have carpets in your lounge. I have laminate, so it's not too bad, just a sweep and a mop, but due to lack of space, we have to get the bloody table leaves out EVERY bloody meal time, and it ends up with us rearranging the front room! I HATE it, and can't wait to move.

MrsDistinctlyMintyMonetarism · 05/10/2011 01:25

We had this too and when we built our kitchen extension we used the previous kitchen area as the new dining area IYSWIM. Not explaining this terribly well!

As our living room is also north facing we put in folding glass doors like those ones you normally see on GD. You know the ones, they all concertina so that it is totally open or close flush to create a 'wall'. Anyway, I wanted those but they were about 3 grand so I bought full glass doors and got a joiner to engineer them.

Everyone likes our doors, and it is lovely to ignore the washing up be cosy when watching tv.

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