seperate kitchen or openplan to lounge?

[pippala]

for our rental property we would like to change the kitchen before we put in on the rental market.
The lounge is 14 x11 with door going into kitchen of 14x8.
We thought about knocking the middle of the wall down leaving 3ft of wall either side so the kitchen and lounge are open plan.
The rental agent told us bad idea as ppl dont want cooking smells in the lounge.
I would like the idea of seeing guests in the lounge whilst cooking but I'm not going to be living there.
We would have space up one end for a table and four chairs. if the wall remains the kitchen is quite closed in as long and thin but still room for small table.
opinions please.

Bad idea. I'd consider it a pita, unsafe and it'd probably knock some value off your property too.

Separate

Leave it as it is. My older children are all young profs renting and they hate the kitchen in the lounge

We're open-plan and I love it, but I think thats a minority view. You do get cooking smells, and its hard to just leave the dishes as you can't close the door on them.

If it was for yourself, because you liked open-plan I'd say go for it. But not for a rental, as you want to appeal to many different people.

Leave as is. BUT put a glass door between the kitchen and lounge (so person in kitchen is not as cut off).

This is exactly what we had in my old flat - kitchen was off the lounge with a glass door between. Small table in kitchen, then larger table for guests in the lounge. It worked perfectly and I would definitely not have wanted them to be more open plan.

Thanks for the advice, we thought all the younger generation wanted open plan!
Been watching to many property programmes!
The agent did say to keep it a seperate kitchen but it seems so closed in to me!

Personally I prefer open plan, but it depends on your target rental market...if you expect it to be a family moving in then open plan likely to appeal more IMO.

Taking minipie's glass door suggestion a bit further, would a sliding panel be worth considering? Best of both worlds?

in a rental definately keep them seperate

don't understand open plan kitchens, all your soft furnishings end up smelling and cooking is noisy when someone is trying to watch tv etc

who's idea was open plan anyway? lol

separate, because of cooking smells, also it's nice to shut the door on a mess and dirty dishes sometimes.

Both your rooms are a reasonable size, if they were very small, open-plan might make them feel more spacious.

remember safety glass in any glazed doors.

Separate definitely. We've two small children and I love being able to shut the kitchen door so DS doesn't push the dishwasher buttons whilst it's on. Keeps noise down in the evenings with the washing machine on.

Separate - I would not rent a house without a separate kitchen.

I wouldn't want cooking smells in the sitting room, and I am a messy cook.

I am the lone voice of a person living in a rented property with an open plan kitchen/living room I think . I like it - makes me feel part of things all the time. There is another living room as well though which I suppose makes a difference (although we tend to use the kitchen/living room more.

Separate. Otherwise you have no way of shutting out cooking smells, washing machine noise etc

leave it like it is.
cooking smells, noise from washing mashine, noise from diswasher

Just a thought: there was a craze in the 1970s for open-plan living. Then the price of fuel went through the roof and people wanted smaller, easy to heat rooms.
Deja vu anyone?

I love open plan - but we have a separate utility for all the noisy stuff and an extra reception room for people to retreat to when open plan doesn't suit them - for TV, reading etc.

Mostly I love cooking in an open plan area and I do a lot of cooking - I feel part of what's going on instead of being closed off in a room by myself. I have never noticed the whole cooking smell thing - what do you guys eat? We consume vast quantities of garlic but the openplan room smells fine.