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 owned a house that was built in the eighties. It was built with a kitchen/diner. The previous owners had put up a stud wall to make a seperate dinning room and a smaller kitchen. We took the wall back down when we bought it and put in a larger kitchen and an island. That was in 2001 approx.

So yes in the eighties our house was built with a kitchen/diner.

Grew up in what would probably be described as a "lower middle class" household. Moat people lived in 1960s built houses. I think I had one or two more affluent friends who had a breakfast table in the kitchen but they also had a main dining table elsewhere. Almost everyone had a lounge/diner (ours had sliding wooden doors between them) or a lounge and separate dining room. We had an extension built in the late 1980s off the kitchen and had the dining table moved into there but I don't know anyone else who had this sort of set up.

Have remembered that my grandparents had a bungalow and the only table was a tiny one in the kitchen.

I lived in two houses in the 80s, middle class family. Both houses were 1960s builds.

first one was a kitchen/diner. No island but had a peninsula unit sort of separating the two. But no wall at all. No separate dining room.

then we moved to a bigger house and the kitchen was one room but the dining room was immediately adjacent and there was a double Louvre door type arrangement, the doors were kept open 99% of the time to make one big room. But distinct areas.

in the early 90s I moved into a student house with a massive kitchen with a big dining room table in the middle of the kitchen. Was a period property which would originally have had a separate dining room but had been converted into a bedroom.

My bf at the time lived in a big farmhouse with his parents. Again big dining table in the middle of the kitchen, all meals were eaten in there. There was a dining room but that was only used on Xmas day or for dinner parties.

We had a fairly large kitchen so we had a table where we’d always eat our meals. I thought breakfast bars were big in the 80s?

This. Knocking an arch through from back room through to front room was a 'thing'. As was a sandstone fireplace. Serving hatches were a thing and a couple of my dad's friends installed a bar in the lounge/dining room. 3 bedroom semi in a 'middle class' street-also extended with a bedroom above the garage - loft conversions were not seen in the 80s. Colour wise, browns were popular. Good luck with the book!

Never called it a kitchen-diner but we ate at the kitchen table as did all my friends. We had a room called the dining room but only ate in it if family were over and at xams the rest of the year it was used for everything and anything, drying washing, homework etc. My grandparents had a dining table in their sitting room and a hatch as did my auntie and uncle. Most people didn't have dining rooms or if they did we (teens) never used or saw them.

We had a kitchen diner in our council house in the 80s. So did my grandma.

80’s family (my recollection would be later 80’s though) in an affluent London suburb which was mostly developed in the post war boom.
most houses were starting to be rejigged from the original plans. So the centre wall knocked out between the dining and the living room - I’ve a feeling a big part of those was the love to watch tv whilst eating as well as having bigger entertaining space.
The galley kitchens were being extended, very few had tables in the kitchen though. Not sure why. I do remember some really posh friends in slightly older houses having breakfast rooms, which were kitchen diners.

If you're writing a novel, what is the background of your protags? Would they be fairly well off and living in a 'new' house (which might well have open plan) or a farmhouse style house (which wouldn't) or an old workers' terraced house (which also wouldn't).

My Dad knocked the wall down between the kitchen and dining room in our 1950's house in the very early 70's but it was, and still is a distinctly separate room ie. carpeted and a big proper dining table and chairs, not a kitchen table.
We bought our 1930's semi in 1985 and opened the whole downstairs.
Still love the layout now although I did miss having a separate living room when I had a teenager at home but it is just too small for that.

I grew up in an old farmhouse in a middle class village in the Midlands.

Most meals were taken at the kitchen table, but there was a separate dining room, used only for Christmas and dinner parties. This was the setup in many of my friends houses too.

If kitchens were too small for a table there would usually be a table in the living room. The exception being Victorian terraces, where the back reception leading onto the kitchen would be used as a dining room.

As others had said though, a kitchen large enough to eat in was just called a kitchen.

So much depends on the lifestyle you want your protagonists to have on what would be a realistic set up.

My grandparents lived in an end of terrace house built in the 1930s. It had a large 'parlour' which ran front to back and a smaller kitchen with a table and chairs in it. The table was used for everything as well as eating. There was a table in the parlour with fold out leaves which was used at Christmas but folded away the rest of the year. One toilet in the only bathroom upstairs with the cistern up high - as a child I had to stand on the toilet seat lid to reach the chain to flush it!

My parents bought a new build in the mid 60s - it had 3 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs (although the bath and sink were in one room and the toilet in a separate one but no sink?!) Downstairs you came into the hall and then door into the 'sitting room' with a door into the kitchen and dining room - they were definitely marked areas with lino on the floor at the kitchen end and carpet at the dining end. No downstairs toilet. Their next house was a 70s build with a tiny kitchen, separate dining room and a huge 'lounge' which stretched from front to back of the house. Did have downstairs toilet!

I live in a house built in 1982 - it has a separate kitchen and dining room and although the kitchen is a decent size there isn't any room for a table of any size in there. The houses were described as 'executive villas' in the original paperwork 😂

The house I was a small child in, during the mid-late 80s was an old Edwardian (I think!!) house. The kitchen had been extended before my parents moved there in the mid 80s. Where the kitchen had been extended we had a dining table (varnished pine with pine benches!). We ate breakfast and lunch there and the kids had dinner at it.

There was then a small step up into the open plan living and dining room, which held a dining table. We had Christmas dinner there etc… I think my parents may have eaten dinner in there too- once the kids were in bed, but I’m not 100% sure.

Being nosey I saw the house sold last year- pm me and I can send you the link to describe it better if you like? There was a large space for the dining table, with a display cupboard/ cabinet, and then the ‘living side’ of the room had sofas, opposite a gas fire and a tv.

At that point my parents were middle class but fairly early in their careers so not a huge amount of spare money. This was in a Home Counties town, commutable to London.

Thinking about other family homes of that era that I remember, most had a small table or similar in the kitchen and possibly a dining room for more formal meals.

I grew up on a 60s estate in a midlands city in the 80s in a semi detached house. From a (lower?) middle class family (parents were from working class families but were both teachers).

The 2 types of semis built on our estate were either with a through lounge diner and separate small kitchen with no room
to eat (which seemed more common) or the one I lived in which had an open plan dining room and kitchen at the back and then a separate lounge at the front. Don’t think anyone referred to it as a kitchen diner though.

My parents extended the kitchen in the mid eighties and installed a breakfast bar with stools and put glass doors in between the kitchen and dining room - mainly because of the cooking smells which my dad was (and still is) fussy about getting into the rest of the house.

My parents bought a new build in the 1970s, I think we moved in in 1973.

They had the option of a kitchen diner or a dining area in the Lounge. They went for the latter.

Our next door neighbour went for the kitchen diner.

I have actually found the next door neighbour's house https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/details/3fad9144-48f9-4d30-8680-5255084ff9b5

My first place I lived independently was a Victorian terrace and the kitchen was big but the living room was tiny so I had a table and chairs in the kitchen. The kitchen also had a gas fire.

My grandparents had similar.

So how old is the house they are living in? Are they wealthy or not?

We had a galley kitchen which opened on to an extension with a table in it. Late 80s, Edwardian terrace in London.

We had a medium sized kitchen with a small table, separate dining room with a hatch from the kitchen. 5 bed house. The kitchen would have seem remarkably small by today’s standards. Remember my dad sitting at the table getting in mums way!
Dining room and kitchen was knocked through to make a big open plan room in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s

My parents bought a post war semi detached which had been extended and had a proper kitchen diner but previously our terraced house had a big enough kitchen for a table where we ate every day. It also had a second room which was used as a dining room on special occasions like visitors or Christmas.

I'd say my parents were upper working class.

Ps mid 80s

My first house was built in the early 70s and we bought it in the mid 80s. One of the reasons we loved it was it had a decent size kitchen, not really big enough to be a proper kitchen diner but we did have a small table at one end. We didn’t have a separate dining room. The lounge was like the kitchen, not quite big enough to be a lounge diner but a very good size lounge, so it was a case of choosing whether to have a small dining table in the kitchen or in the lounge. Our next door neighbours chose to have their small table in the living room. These were modern for the time terraced houses, on an estate.

My inlaws had a large kitchen with a round table in one corner where day to day eating took place. It seated six, but was quite snug. It was just called the kitchen. Kitchen-diner is not a term I heard. They also had a large and very formal dining room that was only used on high days and holidays. They were near the Midlands, a well to do and on the up family with a big house and extensive gardens.

Through the 80s I lived in a little terrace where you came into the living room straight off the pavement. En route to the next room there were steps behind a door to the cellar and then the dining room and it had stairs behind a door up to the next floor. The kitchen was a galley shape and no room to eat. Then I lived in a 30s semi, again with a small kitchen but the two living rooms had been knocked into one lounge/dining room, all just accessed off the hall.

Next, in 1986,was a new build for an 'upwardly mobile' family. You went through the living room to a separate dining room, which had a serving hatch to the kitchen. The kitchen was just 'the kitchen' but had room for a small table and chairs to fit two people. You accessed the kitchen from the hall and the living room off the hall, but the dining room only via the living room and the only access to the garden was via the kitchen 'back door' This was my first experience of a house where the main bedroom had an ensuite.

The next house was also a new build, through living/dining room and a separate kitchen with a breakfast bar and doors to the hall and the rear garden. This dining area had a door into the kitchen and sliding patio doors through to the garden.

There's so much variety, I think you have to decide where the characters sit both socially and financially, factor in lifestyle, work out what kind of home they'd live in and then research the finer details.

We had both - normal table in kitchen divided from the cooking area by a kind of peninsula ;I suppose it would be called today). And a nicer table in the dining room

My family home built in 1985 had a kitchen diner and then a separate formal dining room. A hatch between kitchen and formal dining room.
kitchen / diner was rectangular with U shaped kitchen facing garden and 6 seater breakfast table at other end. Separate utility room also.

I lived in a small newbuild (1984) that had a kitchen diner and separate lounge. Not particularly middle class though.

Growing up in the 60s we ate at the kitchen table on weekdays and in the dining room (actually an open plan living/dining area in a spacious 50s house). The kitchen was compact by today's standards but most of our friends and neighbours ate at their kitchen tables.

The expression you use kitchen/diner is probably not one I recall being used in the 80s or before.

Lots of people still had serving hatches through from kitchen to dining room in mid to late 20th century. We didn't, because the door from kitchen to dining rm was very close by layout wise.