kitchen/diner or living room/diner?

[lostinparis]

Which of the following do you think is the best both for living in + with a view to resale in a few years:
(a) kitchen (with enough room for a small table (to sit 2 or 3) separate from, but with a door leading to, living room with a dining area (big enough for a table to sit 6-8); OR
(b) kitchen (with lots of room for table i.e. taking the space which would have been used for a dining area in (a) above) separate from, but with a door leading to, living room (with no dining area i.e. we'd always have to eat in the kitchen).
Hopefully this makes sense!

depends on your lifestyle and whether you like to have lots of dinner parties I suppose. I have room in my kitchen to seat 4 but also a separate dining room but with double doors onto my lounge so i'd go for option (a)

Are you moving or thinking of extending?

btw, I live in a new house and most of the homes have (a) so assume that's what people want

I think b is best especially if it goes out to the garden

I'd go for a) too. Don't really like eating in other people's kitchens.... Unless you can really splash out and make it so that everything in the kitchen is absolutley beautiful and always spotless, that is!

We have kitchen with arch to area with computer and small settee and then there is a step down to dining area which also has doors onto the garden and we love it. I never go in living room in the day. There is no tv allowed in this area either so it keeps the kids out(grin)

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We have the whole lot open

Our house started as 3 room, kitchen, living room, dining room. The last people knocked living/dining into one, it made a long thin room and we never used the space

So we knocked the kitchen into the other room and now have huge L shaped room - kitchen is round the corner so you can't see from living room bit.

It's much better. And one of our neighbours who is trying to sell at the moment said that everyone who had come round had wanted the whole lot open. So I guess the trend at the mo is towards open spaces.

I think the trick is to do these things but don't put big obstacles in the way to other people putting walls back if they want to.

Thanks for your views. We have a new house which has one enormous, high-ceilinged room on the ground floor (at the moment the kitchen is on the first floor but we want it on the ground floor). So, we are going to convert the ground floor room to use the space for a kitchen and living room. CountessDracula, do you not find that the cooking smells get into the living room (even with a decent extractor?) - I considered doing this but we have this in our current flat and I am currently banned from cooking anything smelly or smokey as it drives dh mad and as I love cooking this drives me mad!

In a house I prefer a kitchen/diner to a lounge/dine.

We have open plan too though now and have lounge, dining space and kitchen in one large room. It all works really well. Cooking spells aren't a problem really as we have a really good extracor fan built intot he ceiling in addition to the one on the hob. I love my open plan living space and would really miss it if and when we move.

We had this dilema with our previous house, it depends much in the area, if your possible buyers may feel a bit put off by the idea of entertaining dinners with a view of the kitchen then is wise to keep the dining room, but if you are going to be at that house for a while and you find this will improve your life as a family, I would forget about the dining room. We took the second option and we really miss it. (buyers were very impressed by the kitchn dinner BTW)

I would go for b - in our house the whole lot is open plan and it drives me mad if I'm relaxing in the sitting room and dh decides to make a smoothie in the blender - so noisy! Also means you can run the dishwasher (and laundry stuff if you're in the UK) and not spoil the ambiance in the sitting room. I also like having a kithen/dining room as you can talk to/see your guests when you're entertaining. Good idea to have either a breakfast bar or cabinets to form a partial wall - so all your cooking mess is slightly concealed.
mit x

dh loves to cook, but the kitchen usually looks like a bomb has hit it after he's finished, so option (a) for me - I would hate guests to be seated in all that debris.

Also the kitchen can get very steamy/smelly when the master is creating, despite extractor fan and open windows - but then he does cook fish and spicy food.....

We have always had b in both the houses we have lived in and it works really well. Pre-children I used to do a lot of entertaining and I found it was much easier with everyone in one room, but you do have to be quite tidy when cooking otherwise it can be a bit of a put off. If you do a lot of formal dining then I wouldn't think it would be a good idea for this reason. Most of our friends have said they love our kitchen/dining room as it means they get to chat to me when I'm cooking. Everyone always seems to gravitate towards the kitchen esp. in summer as it leads out on to the garden, which is where I send the smokers . Also with kids it is much easier to clean up one space only.

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kitchen diner with optional extra in the living room..
deffo...
I would never again have a kitchen with no space to sit at least 4 down in...

I always, always wanted a kitchen big enough to fit a table - and it was one of the things I was looking out for when we were house-hunting.

We moved into this house 5 years ago - and the thing that sold it to me was the 29' kitchen - complete with table that seated 8/10 people. Table had to stay as it is fixed to the floor tiles plus we have under-floor heating in the kitchen so would have been a nightmare to remove it.

We eat all our meals at the table (including guests) then I dump everything in the dishwasher and then we go into the tidyish! lounge

My childhood home had a smallish kitchen which then went through to the lounge/diner and my mum was always moaning about it. She wanted to knock through the kitchen to make a kitchen/diner, then block off the lounge to make a separate room - never got around to it though

I love my kitchen - when friends pop in for coffee we always end up sitting in the kitchen, the kids do their homework at the table and the table is ideal for baking when the kids are helping out as it's just the right height for them.

I have seen some gorgeous houses around here but as soon as I realise their kitchens don't match my "29-footer" then I'm not interested

I'd go for a kitchen/diner, every time. Our first house had a lounge/diner but I never really liked it, esp being able to smell food smells in there next morning. In a kitchen/diner you can always have some sort of 'barrier' between the eating and working areas, galley cupboards, a high breakfast bar or half wall.