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!

I recall that we had a serving hatch from our small kitchen into the dining room or living room in all 3 of the houses that our family lived in during that era. Now that’s something you never see these days! I think that was the common set up in suburbia in the 1980s

My grandparents lived rurally and they and their friends had big kitchens with tables which were for food prep and casual dining but they also had a dining room which was used for dinner and for any entertaining. I recall them being bewildered by kitchen diners much later ‘but everyone will see the dirty dishes!’

Bought two bed semi built in 1960s. Middle class area.

Kitchen wasn’t big enough to have a permanent table but had a fold up Formica topped one that got dragged out when necessary. Whole estate was the same. Three bed had galley kitchen so no room even for a fold up table. But it had a large living come dining room instead.

Neighbour opened the top oven door to lie horizontally like a table and fed her child and me at that when I went to eat there!

Many houses had hatches from kitchen to dining room. You ate at the dining table, which was covered with a seersucker tablecloth to keep clean.

To echo what some others have said, kitchens with kitchen tables in them were common. They were called kitchens, not kitchen diners.

I lived in a Victorian house in the home counties. The kitchen was very narrow and couldn't have fitted a table. You had to walk through the dining room to get to the kitchen.

Most of my friends in the same area had the same set up, but in some the wall between the dining room and sitting room had been knocked through to make a large living room with a dining area.

Upper middle class family here, breakfast table in very large kitchen. Separate dining room for dinner for parents, guests, Sunday lunches. Supper for children in large kitchen. It depends on the size of house and economic background.

We had a small detached in the 80s and the square kitchen (smallish) had a table, bench seat against the wall and 2 proper seats opposite. We ate there with our children all the time. There was a (small, again!) dining room that had a serving hatch into thr kitchen but we only held dinner parties or Christmas in there - it had busy Laura Ashley wallpaper and matching draped curtains - very 80s. The kitchen had units on 2 sides with a built-in dishwasher and fridge (with just an ice box), a larder and a washing machine next to back door. There was a large chest freezer in the shed (half a dozen steps away). We never dreamt of knocking through as a separate dining room was seen as a bonus (though rarely used).

It would depend very much on the style/ age of house... old house.. separate dining room for sure... new build might have a kitchen diner.
The home I grew up in (very middle class area) had a kitchen big enough for a dining table, so we had a table in there where I ate breakfast, but we also had a large through living/dining room with a room divider , with the big dining table there , and would eat dinner at that. I think the house was 70s build.

We had a round kitchen table for everyday meals and a separate dining room, throughout the 80s.

I was born in the 70’s and grew up in a house that was built in 1977 (4 bed semi). The kitchen was a square flat roofed room off the back the house (built like that, not an addition). It had (green gloss) units around 2 sides of the room, the back door on another wall and we had a dining table in the middle of the room. It was an extendable table so Christmas etc we’d have maybe 10/12 people dining in there. I often look back about how stressful it was for my mum (but we knew no different) trying to keep the room looking tidyish for eating in there whilst serving a full meal for guests as well.

I grew up in Brighton in the 60s/70s in a family that was becoming middle class and our dining table was always in the kitchen (terraced house built in the 1880s). At first that was probably because it was the only space available, but later on when my parents had money to make improvements, we had a fitted kitchen that was definitely designed to be the main eating space. The sitting room was for watching telly, socialising and reading.

In the late 70s we moved to a bigger house (Edwardian end of terrace) with a kitchen/diner that had been knocked through from two rooms by a previous owner. Again there was a separate sitting room.

I don't recall any of my parents friends (left wing middle class professionals mostly) having a separate dining room.

But "kitchen-diner" wasn't a word I ever heard. It was just the kitchen.

But "kitchen-diner" wasn't a word I ever heard. It was just the kitchen.

Same

Urban or rural? I didn’t grow up in the UK, but thinking about dh’s family. They all lived on farms, so big farmhouse kitchen with dining table. In some cases, there was an additional formal dining room but I think it was a used at Christmas only sort of space. All normal meals eaten in the kitchen. These were very old houses (one in the Domesday book) or barns that had been converted to housing sometime in the mid 20th century (I’m guessing 1960s/70s). They all have space for at least 10 seated at a table in the kitchen.

We had a tiny kitchen, so no room for a table, plus a dining room and what we called a sitting room - so a kitchen plus two separate rooms. I seem to recall our neighbour had her wall knocked through so again she had a small kitchen with what we called a through lounge - a room for dining and living combined. We also had a neighbour with a totally open living space so kitchen, living and dining all combined into one space. This was rare for its time though and very impressive 😀

I grew up in the 60s/70s. My parents bought a 4 bed new build in the late 60s which had a kitchen large enough for quite a big table and chairs where the 5 of us would eat our everyday meals. It was just called the kitchen.

We had an L shaped living/dining room with the dining part separated by french doors and would use that on special occasions, the piano and sewing machine were in there too.

Most people I knew had a kitchen table, a separate dining room or a living room with dining area and another separate living room. My grandparents 30s built house had a small kitchen with separate pantry, next to that was a living/ dining room and there was another separate living room.

We had a round kitchen table for everyday meals

Thinking about we had round and so did lots of people I knew. Was a round table more popular in the 80s? You don't see so many now, I have never had round. My parents switched to rectangle in the 90s.

We lived in a regular 30s house in the 80s with a good sized dining room and galley kitchen at the back of the house.
The previous owner had closed up the doorway from the kitchen to the hall and opened up a doorway between the dining room and kitchen. Very modern! It was just a doorway though, now the whole wall would be down and it wasn't referred to or treated as a kitchen/ diner, still two distinct rooms.

My mum and dad built an extension for a kitchen diner, it was lovely. It was built in 1974 and in use throughout the rest of the 1970s and 1980s. It was oblong, the kitchen was at one end and a big dining table at the other end. I spent a large part of my childhood in it! Otherwise it wasn’t a big house but the extension was great.

Small flats and two up-two down terraces just had kitchens with a table in them. There was no space for a separate dining room but they were not called kitchen-diners.

The next level up would be an additional small but separate kitchen with a dining room. It was usually dining/living rooms knocked through if any. “Knocking through” to make a lounge diner was very common in the 70s and so still around in the 80s.

Larger houses had kichens large enough to have tables (sold as kitchen/breakfast rooms) but still with a separate dining room or lounge/diner.

Thanks so much for all the helpful replies—lots of food for thought here! Quite a few of you asked about the period of the house. I haven’t pinned that down yet, but I imagine the family lives in a middle-class village or small town somewhere in the Midlands. The house age is still up in the air, but your comments have definitely made me think more about how that might influence the layout and use of space.

On a side note, I find it quite hard to imagine having a separate dining room that only gets used a few times a year—it feels like such a luxury to have a whole room mostly sitting empty! I suppose it made more sense in a different era, but it’s interesting how modern life has shifted the way we use our homes.

In 1978 I lodged for a while in a Georgian house which had been knocked through on the ground floor so that the kitchen was at one end, the dining table was in the middle and the sitting area was at the other end. I imagine it would still be the same through the 1980s. I had a friend who lived in a 1970s house with a lounge diner, and another who lived in a small Victorian terrace where they basically lived in the 'back room' (the front room was NEVER used!) and the tiny kitchen was off the back room.

In the 80s I moved into a nearly new flat which had a galley kitchen with a wider bit at the end for the dining table. Then I moved into a house built at the same time which had a kitchen diner.

So I think it depends entirely on the age and style of the house. 80s houses were certainly being built with kitchen diners.

Our kitchen in the 1980s had a table in it....it wasn't a huge kitchen diner by today's standards....the kitchen was a medium sized room I guess...half of it had the kitchen units and oven, fridge etc and the rest was kind of free space where we had a table...which could seat 4 people. We had a separate dining room too.

@Darlingyeap It may make sense to decide on the location of your "home" and then look at the housing styles in the nice parts of that area.

I grew up in the south east, in an upper working / lower middle class area of typical London suburban semi's.
I was a teenager in the 1980's. Open plan kitchen diners were on TV and I think 'an American thing' but I didn't know anybody who had one. Some people ins smaller homes had a small kitchen table that would fit 1 or 2, where they would sit to get away from the TV or while dinner was cooking.

Some people had adjoining dining rooms /kitchens and opened the dividing wall up more to be less separate. A few people had serving hatches in the wall to pass dishes through from the kitchen to diner.

I do remember one family whose kitchen was large enough for a 4 seater table.

In my house the living room was long so the dining table was at one end, sitting area at the other.

I think if people had a lot of money for total refurbishment they might have built a kitchen diner but often there was a supporting wall between the kitchen and living space, proper internal brick walls, so it wasn't possible to open it up fully. Also people tended to want to keep the mess and noise of the kitchen in a separate room and not have to look at it while eating / chatting.

We had a kitchen-diner in the eighties.

Large (orange!) kitchen on one side, and then the room was kind of half-divided by the kitchen counters, and we had the dining table on the other (carpeted) side of the room.

Off the back of the kitchen was a utility room and then a small downstairs toilet.

On a side note, I find it quite hard to imagine having a separate dining room that only gets used a few times a year—it feels like such a luxury to have a whole room mostly sitting empty! I suppose it made more sense in a different era, but it’s interesting how modern life has shifted the way we use our homes.

Ours was locked so it was a big deal when we were given free rein in December plus the alcohol was in there 😆. We really didn't need the space though.