How do you balance conserving original features with modernising? (kitchen)

[NotAnotherNewNappy]

We are (fingers crossed) about to buy a cottage with a kitchen that hasn't been touched since the sixties (painted brick walls, larder with big marble shelf and pretty wall shelves, 4 character windows etc). After the first viewing, I was all set to rip everything out and put in an ikea kitchen - it's not a big room so I wanted to knock through to the dining room to create a big family diner with lots of storage. However, now I've seen it again I've noticed all the original features really give it character and don't want to completely destroy the feel of the original kitchen only to replace it with fake modern bits of cottage stuff. WWYD?

I think you need to get a kitchen designer or two to give you some ideas/quotes!

We have an old house and have just (nearly finished) the kitchen.

We kept all the original features we could (inc lovely brick floor) but have gone modern ish with the units. We went for a freestanding ikea kitchen (varde) as I reason that the original owners could have made those units, had they been the fashion.

I do the same for the rest of the house as we decorate it - furnish with things that could have been made in the right period. That way you don't get anything glaringly modern clashing with the old features. Except the telly, dishwasher .....

Maybe live there for a bit and see what works.
See what you can live with and how you use the kitchen. A few weeks should tell you all you need.

Fashions in kitchens come and go, but you once you've ripped out original features, there's no going back. The larder sounds lovely and would be brilliant for storage, enabling you to go for a fairly minimal look elsewhere.
Having said that, old and new look can look really good together, and big family spaces are much more sociable than small, separate rooms. Most people I know eat in the kitchen.

I agree with 7to25: you need to live in a house to know how you want it to work.

Ignore typing error above!