To consider opening my kitchen up to the dining room

[Dylaninthemovies1]

We have a bit of a fixer upper house. Finally have renovated the living room and playroom, but next on the list is the dining room.

It’s currently a separate room to the kitchen (both decent sized), but with a door between them.

I’m swithering as to whether we should keep the dining room separate or open it up to the kitchen. Opening it up to the kitchen will be expensive and I’m not sure if I could face all the work. Both rooms as very dated, so if we knock them through it would mean both rooms would need refurbished, so looking at up to £30k rather than just £1k to decorate the dining room just now, and another £20k ish in the future to do the kitchen up.

So, can I be cheeky and ask your thoughts on open plan kitchen dining; do you prefer this, or do you prefer a separate dining room.

Yanbu: open the two rooms up into one
YABU: keep them separate

How much space is there in the kitchen currently? Can you fit a table in there?

Open it up. I don’t like open plan to excess but you have a separate living room so that won’t be an issue. A kitchen diner is a must have for me now. Dining rooms always feel remote and cold whereas we live in our kitchen diner and then have the living room as a more tranquil space.

Best thing we ever did. It's a great space. Kids can make a mess, paint, cook, hang out, chat. Great for parties, dancing. Lovely to have a separate grown up living room. I'm not sure where the high cost is coming from though, although obviously your house isn't mine! It was messy. Had a new ceiling too, had to move some pipes. Couldn't recommend it more.

@Hazelnutlatteplease at the moment, despite it being a decent size, only a tiny table would fit (there are 3 of us in the house) and it would be very awkward. There is a peninsula with the sink on it which takes up a lot of room. But, I imagine someone who designs kitchens would be able to something.

Just when I look online it’s all kitchen diners with big tables. Ideally I’d like enough room for about 8 at the table

When you say decent sized, what does that mean? Do you have a table in the kitchen now?

Living room and playroom would still be completely separate (the playroom is a riot of mess, and I love having a separate lounge for us adults)

The playroom and lounge are across the hall so open plan wouldn’t work

The house we’re buying has a separate dining room off the kitchen but there’s room for a small table in the kitchen too so we’re going to keep the dining room separate. In the past I’ve had open plan and it’s great for when children are little. Now it’s just me and DH I like the idea of more formal dining for when we have guests.

Totally off topic - ‘swithering’ love that word.

Daisy, it’s about 4 meter by 6 metre (so 24m2). Dining room is a similar size. But, the kitchen is awkward layout. The sink is on a peninsula, and there are 4 doors into the kitchen, one on each wall (one from hall, one from dining room, one from lean to conservatory and one to the utility room).

I love cooking so like a lot of workspace in the kitchen

@Dreamersandwishers. I’m not sure if I’ve made that word up or used it correctly, but you get my jist

I massively preferr kitchen open to an area where people are. I had both, open plan and closed off, at various times and open is my favourite.
However, the money.
Can you for now just decorate and then when you are planning on redoing kitchen, open it up? It's not that much money to decorate and like this you could prepare for the works. I did similar thing. Just decorated and saw how it worked for me for a year and planned how best to refurb in a year.

@Finfintytint. The previous owners were
An older couple who’s kids had flown the nest. They had a tiny table in the kitchen which just looked so awkward. They used the dining room as a sitting room.

At the front of the house they used the two rooms we have as a lounge and playroom as a lounge and dining room, but told us that they were rarely used (hence why they were downsizing)

The nice thing about an open kitchen is that you can talk to people while prepping dinner (DH was determined to design a kitchen that allowed this when we knocked through, and is very glad her did)

The bad thing is that you can see all the mess , although our open kitchen is up some steps, which lessens the impact.

I think the whole thing of open kitchens reflects a sea-change in the last 30 years where it's gone from a preparation space (and a 'women's' space ) that's not supposed to be seen, to a social hub for a household. I find how attitudes change how we design our space fascinating!

@SchrodingersImmigrant. Thanks for your feedback: it’s really interesting as you have done both and prefer open plan.

We could afford to do the dining room in the next few months, but the kitchen would be more long term (ie in 5 years) as we need to save up for it. So, maybe we would be best just doing the dining room just now. At the moment the dining room is really unattractive, so it puts us off eating in it. The kitchen is dated, but not ugly and still very functional for cooking, so I’m not as desperate to get it done yet

We did this.
I did miss the big "extra" room/ dining room initially , but we use the whole space all the time. So much better.
But- we didn't entertain or use a nice dining room much.

I have a kitchen, diner, snug room through the back of my house....we live out there...summer through winter...never use my front sitting room....bet move you could make....you can cook and entertain whilst people sit around the table and if you have room put a comfy sofa out there also....maybe you could upcycle your current kitchen units possibly....whatever you choose think years ahead....your lifestyle may change...also consider resale value of the house and potential profit..good luck x

@Echobelly. I love your user name! I’m expecting great things from you!

My mum has open plan, and she prefers ours as she mentioned that you cannot see the messy kitchen. I’m known as a very messy chef!

We did things in stages when we opened out kitchen up to the next door room. Removing the wall and fitting steels wasn't that expensive. I don't understand why knocking the two rooms into one costs so much more than doing to two separately, even with the additional costs of removing the wall.

Why would it cost £9000 extra to knock down a wall? Even if you need a beam, it’s not that much. I assume by doing it now you mess up some of the kitchen but it makes sense to me to do it. It could allow you to configure the kitchen differently and dining rooms can so often be used for storage. When you open up two rooms you feel you have way more space and light.

You will of course be lucky if your dc play nicely in a playroom. Also f it’s a mess get built in toy cupboards and get dc to put toys away in the cupboards.

I hate mine.

I wish we had just extended the kitchen. It works well when dc are small. But we had 2 Millennials at home at one point. Constantly using the kitchen. Kettle on, oven on, dishwasher on. It was not restful

Do you have money to open it up now and get it finished? If yes then do it. It’s a faff bringing everything to a separate room to eat and them take it all back again. Door easy limit the number of people that can help you too! A queue will form.
If you don’t. Have money yet, I wouldn’t. Start . A building site for prolonged amounts of time are stressful, messy and miserable

Absolutely the best thing I ever did! I love cooking whilst the kids are doing their homework or chatting when friends are sat at the table

What I spent went on to the value of the house and I have now just sold it really quickly and all the interest was in the kitchen diner.

Get kitchen companies to come and quote/ design. They will have a wealth of ideas.

@foreverandalways. We’re intending this to be our forever home, so although I wouldn’t intentionally devalue the house, the impact on resale value isn’t my first consideration. It’s more having a home that we enjoy.

Obviously the last few months we haven’t been entertaining in the house. But, previously we would have family or friends staying over a few times a month, and friends over for lunch a couple of times a month. At the moment, we have a small child (DS4) with no intention to have any more. Most of the lunches with friends involve multiple children and their parents. The dining room isn’t pretty, but it’s still a fun atmosphere with all the kids

I have a kitchen diner. It's about 13 * 23 foot. I have a peninsula to break the end into a seating area that fits 2 small sofas. By the patio doors I have a dining table that seat las 4. It can just fit for it to fold out to seat 8. To be fair that's a bit of a squeeze so if you had regular dinner parties it wouldn't be the best and you would want more space.

I've just had it done and I love the new layout. The room is so much more than just a kitchen.