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

Wow and myomy. That was just a guess at how much it would cost; I was thinking it would be very expensive! But, maybe not!

Thankfully my DS does manage to play nicely in the playroom a lot of the
Time. But while WFH I have came downstairs on more than one occasion to find hotwheels track stretching down the stairs into the hall and the downstairs rooms!

We viewed a house with a separate kitchen and dining room next to each other. I tapped the wall to see if it was supporting and the agent said “Yes, everyone’s done that’s”. It may be because we’ve all been seduced by all the property programmes but it seems that a big kitchen diner is top priority of most people’s wish lists now.

Do you do many formal dinners? My PIL have lots of dinner parties and a seperate dining room is nice for that as you cant see kitchen mess and with a big group you dont end up with someone sitting in front of the fridge or by the sink.
If you mainly just eat as a family or a small group then a kitchen diner is really nice. I love my kitchen diner and we use the table so much more than our lounge diner at our previous house.

We are in the same position as you, but a year or so further ahead, with separate dining room and kitchen. Can't afford to knock through right now, should be able to do it in around 18mths.
I definitely want ours open as we just don't use the dining room as it is. The kids stand in the kitchen and eat their breakfast in the morning rather than walk through the door to sit at the table!
We have painted the dining room and changed the chair upholstery. It cost us about £150. We are making do with the carpet, as I want wood throughout.
I hate living in a house with rooms I don't like, so although it might be a false economy in the long run, I tend to make all rooms liveable for a little bit of money, so I can live with them whilst I wait to do the 'proper' renovation.

I think we need a drawing!

I have an open plan kitchen diner and we basically live in it!

Depends if you need your dining room really? We considered it but couldn’t really lose the 2nd reception as DH works from home and TV are where he works from. I need to be able to close the door on that for my own mental wellbeing.

We went the other way and converted our garage which gave us a large L shaped kitchen diner which was completely changed our house. I love it!

It worked for us.
We opened the dining room to kitchen around 15 years ago, and it has made a huge difference. We use the dining room (area) much more, and the entire room, is now much more like a family living room.

They are both quite big rooms, knocked through would it be 6x8m or 4x12m? That would influence my decision.

Could you widen the dining room door to make them seem more together but still be separate rooms when needed.

If your kitchen was better designed would it work for you as an individual space with an informal eating area?

@wagtailred I wouldn’t say we have formal dinner parties or anything. Often have my mum up to stay, or my two best friends (a couple), but no standing on ceremony with them. Also, we have friends and family with children over a few times a month for lunch, but it’s very informal (bearing in mind most of the children are under 5!). At this stage in our lives, formal dinners aren’t really part of our lifestyle. In our previous houses the dining table was part of the lounge. And, while it was good when guests we’re over, it wasn’t ideal

Different rooms but when the kids were small we had the lounge and dining room knocked into one and it was great.
Fast forward 20 years and I want the wall put back as we actually need two TV rooms now, so we don’t all have to watch the same thing and sit together.

I'd keep them separate. It's a good place to hide when the guests (relatives or kid's friends) are getting annoying and you want a 5 min breather from them without appearing rude.

I don't see why it would cost anywhere near that much! And depending on how high spec a kitchen you want £20k also seems way too high.

Open them up. I love ours, it’s one big space where you can sit, chat and cook. The kids play around us. We have a big island where the hob sits. We also have a sofa in here.

We have a separate living room too, I don’t like completely open plan.

@Dylaninthemovies1 you used it perfectly. It was one of my mum’s often used words. NE Scotland 😁

Do it 100%. It's just more sociable and practical.

If there is already enough room in your kitchen for a decent size table, then I would keep separate. But you said there's only room for a small table so I would open it up. I'd love a kitchen diner, I really don't like all open plan so kitchen, dining and living room all in one.

Why £20k to fix up your current kitchen? That's very high!
We made the decision to keep ours separate as I don't like being bothered when I'm cooking. We've compromised and kept the door off into the dining room though.
Our living room and dining room is already knocked through which I like as it gives a lovely view to the end of the garden from the sofa.
Plus if you lost the kitchen/dining room wall imagine how much storage wall space you'd lose. It's significant in our kitchen as it's very small so that is the wall with all of the cupboards and worktop on.
If you're on a budget I wouldn't personally.

OP, I demolished the dividing wall to make a kitchen/diner 4 years ago. The wall was non load bearing, and the builder’s bill was £2000. That included removing and rerouting a radiator and piping, and an electric cable, from a concrete floor.
He said if it had been load bearing, I would have needed an additional £3,000 for an RSJ to support the ceiling. The structural engineer’s report, to confirm non load bearing, was £600. So although expensive, it’s nowhere near the £9000 you feared.

I think it best opened up for entertaining and cooking with family members, given you have a separate living room and play room for privacy,

It depends if you are planning to stay long term, or move elsewhere. If you think of this place as your forever home (or at least 10 years going forward), an open plan kitchen would be a good option. If you want to sell, you may wish to think if losing the extra room by integrating a kitchen and diner would impact on the selling price. Some people (like me) use the former dining room as an extra bedroom. It makes the kitchen a smaller area, but we have maximised use of the area by having tables that fold into the wall and lots of shelving and pans hanging from the ceiling. We had a rubbish 1960's kitchen in here when I bought it, and lino with a date stamp of 1974. I got kitchen cabinet doors made by a factory to size, and their sparkling white exterior makes the kitchen look a lot bigger. Matching plank flooring also helps to open the area. You should browse different kitchen layouts online and see if you can get your pricing down.

My neighbours did this. We live in a semi. It looks great but from our point of view it’s a lot noisier because the space is so echoey. They are a loud noisy family but it’s worse since they knocked through.

@Dreamersandwishers I’m in dundee! But not a native (from the west coast)

A very badly drawn floor plan. Not to scale!

I wish we'd done this in our old house. We had a dining room we hardly ever used - such a waste. Our kitchen was big enough for the family to eat in comfortably, though. If it hadn't been then we would have done it for sure.

There are obviously upsides and downsides, but unless you or your DH need a separate office-type space to WFH in the long term (lockdown etc) then I would do it.

Always opened up if possible, for me. I'd do it now and get the mess and expense over with. Unfortunately we can't do it here as we've got big old beams and a fireplace in the way but I'd love to if we could.