Open-plan kitchen diner in the 1980s – how typical?

[Darlingyeap]

Hi everyone,
I’m writing a novel set in 1980s UK, and I have a slightly odd question – but it’s important for the setting, so I hope you don’t mind!
I’m curious about how common it was for a middle-class home in the 1980s to have an open-plan kitchen diner — not with a kitchen island, but just a regular dining table placed in the middle of the kitchen space where the family would eat. Was that a thing back then, or is it more of a modern trend?
And if a family did have a kitchen diner, would they also usually have a separate dining room — maybe one reserved for guests or special occasions?
I didn’t grow up in the UK, so I’m trying to make sure the details feel realistic for the time. I’ve also heard that people used to be more particular about keeping food smells out of dining areas — is that something that influenced home layouts back then?
Thanks in advance for any memories or insights you can share — they’d really help!

Lots of variables here. Depends on income level, age of house, age of home owners.

I knew a middle-class couple in their 30s who bought a terraced 3-bed Victorian house in the 1970s in West London. Not sure if they did the alterations or if they'd been done before they moved in, but when I was there in 1979 they had a big kitchen with a table and chairs at one end. No separate dining room. They had a separate living room. From my knowledge of similar houses over the years, I would say the Victorians would have built that back part of the house as two separate rooms (kitchen and scullery, I suppose) but in the last few decades most people with houses like that have preferred to open the space up and put in RSJs to replace the retaining walls. Every house I was in like that in the 1980s either had been converted or was about to be.

Meanwhile my parents (born early 1930s, lower to middle middle class, I'd say, going by occupations, but far from affluent) were living in a 3-bed semi-detached house they'd bought new from the builders in 1971 in Leeds. Large living room, small kitchenette next door, serving hatch between them. The end of the dining room nearest the hatch was laid out as a dining area. Our next door neighbours there had done much the same, but they were younger and had much more modern furniture. We had moved many times in my childhood and my parents lugged round the hideous French polished dining room furniture they bought new (on hire purchase) when they got married (still sitting in their dining room now in the house they moved to when they retired).

Kitchen diners existed but lounge diners were more usual. A lot of small new builds had tiny kitchens. Kitchen islands weren't a thing.

Open plan kitchen dining as we know it today wasn't a thing in the 80s. Those with lower incomes had very small kitchens and there wouldn't have been room. Those on higher incomes would have had a dining room and wouldn't have eaten in a kitchen. The kitchen being the 'heart of the home' wasn't a concept people had.

I think it depends on the age of the house, as much as the times.

We had a 1970s house - small separate kitchen, then lounge/dining room with a serving hatch thru to the kitchen. I think lounge/diners were more typical.

Then mid 80s we moved to a victorian house. Sitting room one side of the front door, dining room the other. Original small kitchen at the back had been extended, so room for a table there. We mostly ate in the kitchen and only in the dining room for Sunday lunch/Christmas/etc.

It wasn't called a "kitchen-diner" it was just a kitchen with a table in it where family meals would be taken.

There would be a separate dining room for entertaining and major meals like Xmas dinner.

The modern "kitchen-diner" was virtually unknown (I only ever saw one) and it was NOT regarded as a desirable thing. The couple who had the one I saw only had it because their flat was too small for a separate kitchen and dining room.

All my friends and family in the 70s/80s had small kitchens with no room for a table. They either had a separate dining room (sometimes with a hatch to the kitchen, or a lounge diner, with the sitting room at one end and the dining table at the other. The only family I knew with a dining table in the kitchen lived in a big, old stone farmhouse.

Yes it was a thing in the 1980's. We had a big kitchen/diner family room plus a separate living room. It was what most younger people wanted I never bothered about cooking smells and they weren't an issue. I used a fan over the hob to get rid of smells.

We had an older house with a table in the kitchen (not huge) where we ate most of our family meals, plus a separate dining room for formal dinners/guests. Most of my friends had lounge/diners, sometimes with a hatch through from the kitchen, or separate dining rooms.

From memory and experience of taking on a few London houses last 'done' in the 80s, knocking the sitting and dining rooms together was the main innovation. Side-return extensions not really a thing yet, and kitchens were often still quite functional and small. I can remember an 'eat-in kitchen' being a major estate-agent selling point in Fulham in the early 90s, but this would often just mean you could fit a small table and chairs in the corner.

I grew up in the 80s in a very standard middle class family in Manchester. We ate our family meals at the kitchen table. We also had a separate dining room for dinner parties and holidays and so on. My friends parents mainly had large enough kitchens to have a table in, plus a dining room and mainly lived in Edwardian or late Victorian mock Tudor, or Arts and Crafts, as that was the housing stock in Didsbury.

The layouts were broadly similar. It was never called a kitchen diner. It was the kitchen, or breakfast room, and usually another dining room separately.

We were more working class living in an 70’s or 80’s built bungalow on a large purpose built housing estate (shops, school etc)

we had an open plan kitchen/diner, it was a long/thin room with u shaped kitchen in one half and dining room table in the other. The rest of the layout consisted of 3 bedrooms, a
bathroom and living room. From recollection the 2 storey houses were built with dining room separate to the kitchen but with a service hatch between the two.

Our house had a large kitchen with a dining table. Dd had a kitchen diner with an island divider thing. Grandparents had a separate dining room, a narrow kitchen and a 'wash house' a bit like a utility room.
Just like today there was huge variety and differences depending on size age of houses and a million other things.

We had a large kitchen which fit in the table where we would eat. I think it would be normal for houses with a big enough kitchen? Our dining room was only used for special occasions eg Christmas or parents dinner parties.

Smaller victorian houses would have had galley kitchens. Ours was arts & crafts.

My parents added a massive full width extension with glass doors which definitely was not the norm!

My parents built an extension on the back of their house in the early-mid 1980s. It turned a smallish kitchen (no room for a table) into a L shaped kitchen diner. The old dining room became a playroom.

We bought 2 new builds in the 1980s (1983 and 1985) and both had a kitchen diner, so I don't know why people are saying they didn't exist.

You had the option with both the 2 bed and the 3 bed to have either a kitchen diner and a lounge, or a larger lounge-diner with a tiny kitchen. We preferred to have the table in the kitchen and not eat in the living-room.

My parents house, where I lived until 1983, was a 1930s terrace with separate lounge and dining rooms and a tiny pokey kitchen, which I would say was more typical until fairly recently.

Almost every house I knew (middle class professionals on the whole) had a kitchen with dining table that would be used day-to-day and a separate dining room for special meals. Ours doubled up as a sewing/craft space. Nobody called it a kitchen diner - it was a kitchen. Some were more spacious than others.
My cousin’s house (probably built 1850ish) had a tiny kitchen space so they had a separate dining room for all meals, then a separate room again for a sitting room. Really posh people would have a vast kitchen with vast kitchen table then separate dining room with vast dining table.

As PPs have said depends very much on the age of the house. I knew people with council houses with quite large kitchens which had space for a very small table. 30s semis had small kitchens and the dining table was often in the long living area. I had friend with a very large 60s/70s house with a dining room and a little nook off the kitchen for the breakfast table and a friend with the same set up but theirs was an Edwardian house. I think in the 80s most people were bricking up their serving hatch things between the kitchen and dining room.

You need to decide what house they live in then decide. Would not be called a kitchen diner though.

A friend had a hatch and I used to love the food getting passed through!

I’ve lived in houses built in the 60s through to 2010s and none have had a kitchen-diner. One had a large kitchen, three had a galley kitchen. All of them had a separate dining room and one had a breakfast room.

Unusual ime.

I grew up in Manchester, small 3 bed semi. We had a tiny table with benches squashed into the kitchen, but it wasn’t an open plan kitchen-diner as such. Then a dining room/sitting room that was 2 rooms knocked into one. Lots of friends had the same set up with an arch or glass doors that could be opened between the two rooms.

Interesting to see the differences in different areas. I was born mid 80s and grew up in an averagely middle class area (one parent worked as was more normal then, mostly as teachers, doctors, in business etc) and all my friends lived in a house with a kitchen that fitted a decent kitchen table to seat 6. It was just called the kitchen. Most people also had a dining room that was never used. In a lot of houses, these have now been knocked together.

This was my experience too

I grew up in a 1930s terraced house in South London and all those houses had tiny galley kitchens with separate dining room and living room. If any rooms were knocked through it would have been dining/living room.
Some of my friends who lived in larger semis or detached houses did have a kitchen large enough for a table but they weren't called kitchen-diners as such.

My current 1930s home would have had a galley kitchen and separate dining room but they have been combined/extended.

A few houses on the street still have the galley kitchen but have knocked through the living room & the dining room for a long space. I don't really understand why people do that tbh but it seemed more popular some years ago.

We lived in a small inner terrace where the original pantry was knocked out to create space for a small dining table to one side. There was no room for a table in the living room. Friends used to ask why we didn't have a dining room.