Serving hatch in the kitchen, the open plan kitchen diner has had it's day - a new trend?

[DelightedIAm]

Just watching More4 earlier and Sarah Beany was advising homeowners to create a serving hatch. Sarah said she thinks this is going to be the new trend, a move away from the open kitchen diner.

What are these modern serving hatches looking like? The couple didn't go for the idea. I can't visualise a modern take on the old serving hatch.

Gosh, we never got round to getting rid of our serving hatch in the 22 years we've lived in this house - now we're bang on trend!

I wonder if she means something like this? use the door as somewhere to eat?

I'm so bored of open plan. Why does everyone need to see each other/all their crap all the time?

My friend has an old relic of a serving hatch in her house, she was going to knock the wall through to the dining room but after living with it for 6 months she loves it.

We were going to knock through and make a kitchen diner but on reflection are going to keep the wall with it's serving hatch.

It is amazingly useful

Love delighted's link - we have a serving hatch in our new house (60s), am quite liking it at the moment!

Ooh, our new house has a hatch, how exciting that we're on trend.

I'm not convinced. We are planning to brick ours up

Open plan is going to get less and less popular as energy prices increase.

I like to shut away the kitchen and I love my dining room. It is an oasis of calm.

I adore my serving hatch, I cooked Christmas dinner whilst lo opened his presents with me peering through. Like open plan but without the drafts and visible cooking mess.
If I was designing a house now I'd have one without a shadow of a doubt

I live our serving hatch, saves trudging round carrying plates into the dining room.

Open plan is horrible IMO.

I would love a serving hatch but my kitchen isn't next door to my dining room (bad design) so my next plan is a hostess trolley, but I just can't bring myself to actually buy one. I look at them online a lot though.

I love kitchen diners! I don't like totally open plan (we just removed one wall and rebuilt two in our downstairs but I do love being able to chat and cook and play/craft/draw in the same space. I think a well laid out and not too vast kitchen diner is just brilliant and not going out of fashion any time soon!

EA recently started talking about sliding partition type things. We have rooms and he obviously doesn't think open plan is the thing now.

I'm sticking with big kitchen and separate dining room ta.

Our old dining room is now a play room and we have an enormous window-sized hole type hatch that lets me watch the dc's whilst I'm cooking. Genius.

I like one that is quite wide, not a square one. Bottom of hatch I like to be at the top of the work surface, top must be high enough that you can look through without stooping.

You can have a hatch that folds down to use as a table top, flush with the kitchen worktop so you can slide stuff across.

I don't like cooking smells drifting around open plan.

We've got one as well. We don't use it too much at the moment as our kitchen layout is not great. However we're definitely planning to retain it when we renovate the kitchen. The stove will be moving so it will be easier to prepare and cook food and watch DC in the next room.

Several people have suggested knocking through to create a really big room but I love being able to shut off the kitchen when the dishwasher / washing machine are going. It's also good for keeping food smells in the kitchen.

The hatch is also useful as it adds increased natural light as our dining / reception room is quite big. It brings additional light into the room via the kitchen window.

PMSL over this 'new trend'. My parents have always had one in their houses for the last fifty years!

My inlaws have a serving hatch and underneath it in the diningroom is a massive built in unit with 3 large warming dishes on top. It looks like a canteen. According to the neighbours the previous people who put it in never had any visitors.

As the price of energy goes up we'll all be back to living in tiny rooms like the olden days to avoid the drafts.

Not for me. I wouldn't buy a house that didn't (or couldn't) have a large kitchen diner.

Me neither, Primal.

We have a very busy kitchen diner, homework is done here, cooking, chatting, eating. We love it.

Our living room is the oasis of calm.

We have a kitchen-family room. So a large kitchen with a seating area near the bifold doors that lead on to our garden. Having a family room / play area near the garden and place we could properly sit down and enjoy looking at the garden seemed like the best layout for us. You can eat at the kitchen island but we have a separte dining room that is connected to the kitchen but can be closed off with a sliding door. I can see into the dining room while cooking if necessary but equally can close off all the kitchen / kid mess and hang out at the front of the house which is where our dining room and lounge are. I don't think I would want a totally open space as when kids get older, one person will want to watch TV while someone else is trying to concentrate on doing homework etc. You need separate places in a house where people can do there own thing.

We have a kitchen diner. A previous owner decided it was better to have one decent sized room rather than two tiny and impractical ones (1980s house so room sizes not huge). I agree. If I had the £££ would like a separate dining room as well, or even a 'family room' but that is never going to happen with the cost of houses round here.