Squeeze in a table or breakfast bar in kitchen?

[Iggly]

We've gone back and forwards with our kitchen (planning a new one in late summer) and really want seating in there. Originally we I wanted a table but DH persuaded me to have a breakfast bar and I agreed. It means we can have a clear path to the garden. If we had a table, we'd have to walk around it to get to the back door. Or we'd have to lose a wall of cabinets and put the table there.

However, we've redone the plan (again!) to squeeze in a full height pull out larder. It'll be next to the fridge and IMO with a breakfast bar as well, it'll feel quite closed in. So am wondering if we should reconsider a table and walk around it to get to the back door.

What would you have? Table or breakfast bar?

If you have to walk round something, it makes the room feel smaller. And even if you don't happen to be going to the back door, just knowing it's in the way has a subliminal effect I think. I'd try to keep a clear path if you can.

I've been having this debate as we are starting to plan a new kitchen. Then I remembered the reason we don't currently have any seating in our kitchen is because when we moved in there was a sticky-outy breakfast bar and it drove us mad walking around it and we ripped it out after a few months.

So I think I am going to opt for a non-sticky-outy breakfast bar despite being tempted by a table.

I'm not sure I'd feel this way if I didn't have a dining room, though, as I think I would then definitely opt for a table.

I think if you have a dining table somewhere else I would get a breakfast bar, but if not then a table.

I would try and fit a table in, they are much nicer to eat at than a breakfast bar and a good, useful feature in a family kitchen.
Could you have built in seating, so your table sticks out less?
Could the wall of units go somewhere else?

Can you post your plans on your profile so we can see the options?

We have a dining room and eat all meals in there. But that's because there's no table in the kitchen. Pre DCs we used to eat in the living room.

I think having a clear path to the back door makes sense. At the moment we walk around the fridge to get to it. the breakfast bar doesn't stick out into the room - it sort of closes off the kitchen space iyswim - almost a g shape or a D shape with a gap in it!

I really want to see the planned kitchen in real life as the planners just don't quite cut it for me. I've been obsessed with other peoples kitchens but none are like ours sadly.

I can't post the plans as on my phone! Will do it tomo when I can get on the pc if anyone is still interested?!

Might be worth getting an indepdent kitchen designer to do some plans for you as they will have decent 3D CAD software, which makes it so much easier to visualise your proposed kitchen, esp if you are changing the layout.

Go for it.
I have spent the past year or two planning ours so I sympathise (ours is a tricky shape but we have got there in the end and yes we will have a table but no island/breakfast bar)....

My parents put a breakfast bar into their kitchen (and took the table out) when I was about 11. We ate all dinners in our living room where there was a dining table but everything else was at this breakfast bar. I have to say I didn't find it very sociable (especially as there were 5 of us and only 4 chairs ). It is also impossible to use it for meals where people help themselves as everything is in a long line.

I would always try to get a table in.

Table. I hate breakfast bars.

What Rhubarb said

I am convinced that breakfast bars were invented by men.

I hate breakfast bars too. It's that 'eating at a counter' feeling - I'd as soon eat off my lap in the living room. I think a proper kitchen table is a wonderful thing to have (didn't get one till I was in my 40s, so said with real fervour).

Surely there must be some design solution here? Could your table have benches so that when you're not eating you can slide the lot against the wall? I love kitchen benches - don't understand why more people don't have them.

But I'm also struck that you have a dining room that you don't seem mad keen on. Is it possible/affordable to knock through so you get a bigger kitchen?

Dining room isn't off the kitchen. We live in a maisonette with a funny layout - have a seperate dining room. Living room is next to the kitchen (it should be the dining room but isn't because the dining room doesn't have the points for the tv so can't make it the living room very easily). Dining room is at the front, kitchen at the back.

Yes I think the breakfast bar will just end up being extra worktop but we won't actually sit at it....

Will post plans later so you can all comment if you like!!

Nobody's said it yet. But breakfast bars are shite. Aspirational mince. Uncomfortable lifestyle bollocks.

Sit at a table.

Get points to make the dining room a TV room. Cheaper in the long run.

Its easy to put tv sockets inm any electrician can do it.

But am glad I;m not the only one who thinks have a table and no breakfast bar.

Would this kind of seating help with space
<a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=www.mikejonesfurniture.com/hpbimg//Banquette%2520Seating%25201_1.jpg&imgrefurl=mikejonesfurniture.com/productslink.html&usg=__T6OEmxNQV42qGxmhYd5EtlJ1HQc=&h=275&w=416&sz=26&hl=en&start=2&sig2=NoYDm-Xv4ycMcvD8NCrDlA&zoom=1&itbs=1&tbnid=aAilFYWx2_KSXM:&tbnh=83&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbanquette%2Bseating%2Bkitchen%2Bphotos%26hl%3Den%26cr%3DcountryUK%257CcountryGB%26sa%3DX%26tbs%3Dctr:countryUK%257CcountryGB%26tbm%3Disch%26prmd%3Divns&ei=z6OUTe30EouPswaC2qG1CA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=www.mikejonesfurniture.com/hpbimgBanquette%2520Seating%25201_1.jpg&imgrefurl=mikejonesfurniture.com/productslink.html&usg=__T6OEmxNQV42qGxmhYd5EtlJ1HQc=&h=275&w=416&sz=26&hl=en&start=2&sig2=NoYDm-Xv4ycMcvD8NCrDlA&zoom=1&itbs=1&tbnid=aAilFYWx2_KSXM:&tbnh=83&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbanquette%2Bseating%2Bkitchen%2Bphotos%26hl%3Den%26cr%3DcountryUK%257CcountryGB%26sa%3DX%26tbs%3Dctr:countryUK%257CcountryGB%26tbm%3Disch%26prmd%3Divns&ei=z6OUTe30EouPswaC2qG1CA

Hate breakfast bars and horrible wobbly stools. Go for a nice little cafe style table and chairs.

No to breakfast bar. Could you go with bench/pew style seating against wall at back of table so don't waste space behind for pulling out chairs -make sense?

See Pannac did it so much better with a visual

Table in the kitchen is essential in my book - I've rejected many a house where this isn't a possibility.

We moved into this house about 2 years ago and there was no seating in the kitchen (we are a family of 5 with 3 small children). We put a breakfast bar in originally as it was fairly compact and although it did stick out a little bit, it didn't really feel like it was something that had to be walked around.

However, it just drove me mad. Was always weary of the children sitting on bar stools, having to help them get up and down constantly and just felt a bit 80s (I like island units by the way but breakfast bars just seem a bit old fashioned). We took it out and got a small table which abutts one wall (so we sit around 3 sides of it) and stools stack underneath it when we're not eating. So much better for us.

Yes I like that seating Pannac

Have tried to upload the pics - not very good! But let me know what you think. If you look at the 3D version, the external door is on the left. Door into kitchen is immediately on the right.

we've just opted for a large breakfast bar/island and ditched the table.

I love it as I have a clearer view of the kids in the garden sat up on a stool and there is the added bonus of storage in the cabinets underneath. We don't have a separate dining room so it definitely gets used.

I would definitely look at moving the living room and dining room. There are so many options re tv points or wireless av senders that I would move these two rooms first and then look at the kitchen requirements.

Sorry can you explain again where the doors are and what the brown units on the 3D plan are?

Brown units is a freestanding unit. It's going - have changed our minds.

The doors - door into kitchen (from hallway) is on right. So on the 3D plan, the wall you're looking through is how you enter the kitchen, but from the right. Door into garden is on the same wall as the cooker, in the left hand corner.

So the "corridor" to the garden is along the wall with the brown unit. If you were walking from the hallway, through kitchen to garden, the breakfast bar would be on your right.

I hope that makes sense!

Thanks everyone for your comments by the way. Very helpful!!

Feel free to critique the plans too. I've been fiddling and might change them again anyway!