Quick poll - do you like your kitchen to be open-plan?

[bimbabirba]

Just asking because at the moment we have a traditional layout with kitchen and separate dining/living area but all the houses around here seem to have an open plan kitchen so I'm wondering whether open plan is indeed better? We're planning an extension next year and one option would be to link the kitchen and dining/living area at the back by making them open plan. I do have DCs and our house is a typical 1920s layout at the moment.
Thanks!

We had open plan, is heavenly now we have the option of seperating the rooms!!!

Kitchen/diner yes
Seperate kitchen ok
Open plan kitchen/diner/lounge - nope, too noisy, too smelly and the mess/toys etc just travel across the whole of the downstairs!

Ive got a fully open plan downstairs but would prefer the livingroom was separate from the kitchen diner. The kitchen is noisy so if you're trying to watch TV the volume has to go up HIGH. Also I dont like the cooking smells wafting round the house. DDs bedroom stank of salmon the other day!

If you can I think wide double doors are the answer. You can separate rooms easily or open everything up for parties.

Yes open plan is fab

kitchen + dining is ok ime, but kitchen + living = hell
I don't wantto hear the washing mashine or see the dinner mess when I want to snuggle up on the sofa in the evening.

We're doing exactly that at the moment Newblueshoestoo. We're having our kitchen and dining room knocked through as I want to be able to be with the family whilst I'm (or DH is) doing a meal but we want to be able to close the room off if DS is doing homework and doesn't want to hear the clatter or if one of us wants to watch a programme when the other one has the radio on in the kitchen area. And, when DS gets to the stage of having mates back to watch footie with DH, I can retreat into the dining room to watch my programme - and be close enough to shout for a cuppa to be brought to me when they get the half time beers ha ha!

We're getting full size glass paned doors put in to match our other doors and the doors will fold back 180° so we have maximum floor space. Hopefully it'll work. We don't finish til mid December but I'll let you know how it goes.

We have an open plan downstairs in what used to be a two up/two down terrace. There's a small utility room in the back with appliances and ugly things so we can close the door on the washing machine. I like it because it makes the space seem bigger. There's only two of us and so far the need to hide from each other hasn't come up. We're only expecting our first baby now but I would expect to need more space as the family got older and bigger.

Our friend said it was more like an apartment layout, which is actually a good description. Our house is an obvious "first time buyer" house so when we sell it we probably would get people coming from apartments who are used to this type of layout.

Just building an extension to create one. Of course I never cook fish, because it is rank, so won't have a food smell problem....it would be quite easy to add folding sliding doors at a later date if we decided we wanted the living room to be a bit more closed off, but our two are still small and it drives me nuts not being able to see them while I cook. We are also creating an extra bedroom, so our box room will become an office/sewing room for working in and we will have a separate utility for the noisy washing machine and tumble dryer.

It will be worth it she said, sitting next to the plywood wall where her French windows used to be, freezing her tits off

we have a 1930s house and I love having separate kitchen and dining room. One neighbour has knocked the chimney out to make their open plan, another wants to do the same but I prefer separate rooms (and the original fireplaces) and if it had been open plan it would have put me off.

Mummytomog - I currently have a delightful plywood wall too!

They're so lovely aren't they! Nothing better in the wintertime than a plywood wall.

It was raining in my bathroom this morning. I hate my builders.

I would not buy another house that didn't have (or couldn't have without resorting to a long drawn out process) a large kitchen diner. We had to move the kitchen from one end of the house to the other and knock down a double supporting wall. It took 18 months and I hated a small pokey kitchen and having to transport food from one room to another. Now our kitchen is huge and I love it.

Mummymog and Helliecoptor - I feel your pain (and I forgot how painful cold can be!) We've also got plywood windows. Luckily our builder have put up a false wall in our hall to keep the dust at bay (the dust, of course, doss not know that it is supposed to stay on the other side of the wall...) But we have a door in the false wall which takes us to the garage where my makeshift kitchen is. You never realise how long pasta takes to cook until you stand in a dusty garage, freezing cold on a rainy night willing the pan on a silly little hob to just keep boiling!

Open plan would be a deal breaker for me. Walls and doors are a must imho.

No kitchen smells through house
No kitchen mess on permanent display
No kitchen noise vs no living room noise
No lack of hiding place
No lack of peace to cook in

Seems that there are some that love everywhere being open and some that love 'rooms', so the best plan is not to worry too much about pleasing some mythical future buyers, but to choose what will suit you and your family for the next 10 years or so and do it that way.

I'm just about to move my downstairs around no not like that so I will have an open kitchen/family room with a separate dining room (and a separate proper sitting room). My architect thinks I am insane and that nobody has a separate dining room, but I don't always want to sit in my cooking mess while we are eating.

I would only have a kitchen diner if I had room for a separate dining room as well. Otherwise I like kitchen, dining and living room all to be separate but realise I am in the minority with that.

Seperate for me. Our tiny house is open plan and I can barely hear the tv when the washing machine is on. We hate it.

I have a small kitchen which has been knocked through to the dining room and I love it. You can lay or the dining room table whilst keeping an eye on food cooking. In a bigger house, I'd rather there was an option of doors to close too. I also wouldn't want an open plan layout if the dining room was the only living/reception room. The washing machine is in a porch just beyond the kitchen with a door between them so noise is reduced.

We have a kitchen/diner open plan, a separate living room and a playroom (which used to be the dining room). The kitchen was extended so a large table fits into it and we love it. The kids can sit and do their homework while we cook and tidy, it's great for when we have guests and they can sit at the table and chat while we're cooking, we can get on with stuff while the kids are eating if they are eating separately to us. We love it and it was one of our top priorities when we bought our house. I do also love being able to close the door and keep the smells and washing machine noise away from the rest of the house. The only downside is that I have to time putting the washing machine on when we are not imminently about to eat.

We have a separate kitchen and enormous family room..... I prefer to cook with no interruptions (and I make an awful mess!) so like the two to be apart!