Should we knock the dining room & kitchen together?

[FourArms]

We have a 4/5 bedroom house - bed 5 accessed via bed 4, nothing old & rambly, just a poorly thought out over garage extension.

The house feels much smaller downstairs due to the integral garage. Lounge, dining room & small-ish kitchen.

DH would like to knock the kitchen and dining room together. I don't think it would work well for our lifestyle (I like to work in the dining room although DH would like to knock the back of the garage into a study). However, I also think it would devalue the house only having 1 reception room.

Any thoughts?

I'm going to go against the grain and say don't do it!

I had an open plan house and it was a nightmare. I want the radio on when I'm cooking but I couldn't when the children had the tv on. You could hear the washing machine in the living room because it was in thd kitchen.

If you cook anything smelly it goes right through the house. You have to wash up unless you want your dirty dishes on display to any visitors. And there's no where to go if you have an argument.

Give me walls and doors every time.

I've done it and love it. One big living space downstairs and a study upstairs. No cooking smells (good extractor), dishwasher loaded after a meal and kitchen is a beautiful room now so I don't see the issue with 'seeing' it. Room is L shaped so affords a degree of privacy. Noise isn't an issue for me because the upside is ageing able to share more time together

Sorry OP the way I read your op it sounded like the living room was seperate.
I like oyr kitchen diner but would not want it open onto the living room.
Nor would i buy an open plan kitchen without another seperate living space.

Vintagebeads - We currently have a kitchen, dining room & lounge. The lounge and dining room are adjoined by glass doors.

If you imagine the house as a square, looking at it the front would be (from left to right) garage, hall & kitchen and the back is lounge and dining room. The downstairs loo is at the front off the hall to the right of the garage. Does that make sense?

I wouldn't buy a 4 bed house with a small kitchen. Knock down the wall.

Can you put up a summer house type thing in your garden as a study? Take it with you if you move?

I would keep separate spaces tbh.
I've thought about it as I'm planning a new kitchen and could knock through to dining room. However, I have 3 teenaged DCs and we do use each space for different things.
Kitchen - cooking
Dining room - home PC & large table for homework
Living room - TV

Also we have what's laughingly called a conservatory off the dining room, but again, this has a separate use - it houses the exercise bike and is a great sun trap.

So by knocking through we would lose that separateness that allows us to do our thing in relative privacy

Turn the dining/living room into an open plan kitchen/diner and the kitchen to become a living room?

All new builds tend to have open plan kitchen diners.

Most people prioritise a decent sized kitchen that they can eat in and socalise. Formal dining rooms are seen as old fashioned.

Another option is to have an extension to the back of the house to create more space/another room.

4 bed house and small kitchen is no good. Only a family would buy a 4 bed and most families want a large kitchen diner. Very few people entertain formally and require a separate dining room.

We enlarged our kitchen by knocking down the wall into an adjacent small bedroom ( I know, weird layout ) .best thing we ever did. We have a kitchen table and large island, so plenty cupboard space . Island has small sink, recycling bins underneath, large pan drawers on end , large cupboard on other side and breakfast bar in the end .

Dining room is hardly ever used now, guests don't want to leave the kitchen . We do have a separate living room though, so usually the kids all congregate around the wii /TV and the adults hide out in the kitchen with the wine

OP -do you out your car in your garage? If not I'd consider converting it into another room .

personally I like having our dining room separate from our kitchen, some of our neighbours have knocked them through and others want to but haven't yet. we have friends though who have bought houses knocked through who are now trying to put the walls back again! I think you have to do what works for you, everyone has different ideas of what they want and require from a house, someone might need a separate room due to small children being kept out of the kitchen area/playroom/home office/musical instruments/occasional bedroom and so on and someone else might be quite happy to have the whole downstairs open and one big light space allowing wheelchair access or something. you can't live your life worrying what someone else might want from your house in 15 years time.

Kitchen isn't that small, just not that big.

We do use our dining room for eating in daily, but would a kitchen-diner too I suppose.

We have a side alley that is converted and we're planning to put matching units up in there as a sort of utility. Our big fridge-freezer & tumble drier are out there and we use it to store stocks of tins and cleaning stuff.

Garage only used to store camping equipment and the freezer! It's got a water supply in there (next to downstairs loo) so wondered if we could make a small laundry room in there too? We've already knocked a door through to the garage from the hallway. We could knock through to the garage from the lounge and have two separate rooms.

We do plan to be here for the foreseeable future, although it's not our forever house.

That's a lot of space to devote to storing camping equipment and a freezer! Why don't you extend into garage with French doors onto garden.

Put a shed in garden for storage. Have a large separate utility room, for washing machine, clothes drying, ironing , cleaning stuff , vacuum cleaner, outdoor clothes, boots, shoes. Your kitchen will be more attractive, with all the crap out of sight. And quieter with no washing machine. And you will need fewer cupboards so more space to live .

We have a lot of camping equipment!

But yes, there is room to improve the garage storage.

I think you have to do what works best for your family.

I have just been going through the same dilemma and decided to keep our dining/kitchen separate. Our children are in their teens and we want the different rooms and spaces. If they were toddlers, maybe I would want a different layout and go for the open plan space.

While ever you have a separate dining room, it can always be used for other things, ie. an office, den.

We are just about to do this builder starts on Monday! I agree that it depends on your family dynamic and how sociable you are. The kitchen is a decent size 13.5' x 10' but slightly odd lay out due to chimney breast / pillars etc, double windows and 2 doors. We are a family of 5 (8, 8 and 4) and we can only fit a small table in there pushed up against one wall (with stools that go underneath the table). When we have friends over, it is just really unsociable and horribly formal asking people to go and sit in the dining room, I feel like a waitress ducking back into the kitchen all the time, and when the children have friends over for tea, its a bit of a squash.

We have a separate (large) lounge and a separate utility room.

I appreciate that we may need a different layout by the time the children are teenagers but thats at least 5 years away we might extend by then, we might put a den up in the loft, you never know what is around the corner. Whats important for us, certainly at this stage of our lives, is that it works as a sociable space where we can spend more time with friends / family. I actually find I'm reluctant to ask friends round / have friends for dinner because its such an awkward space / just not family friendly so hoping it will put a stop to that or else we'll end up with no friends.

I would love to do this, our kitchen is badly designed, our dining room is currently full of wet washing. Making a big room with direct access to the garden is my dream.

We had a lounge diner in our old house which was messy with babies but i've realised how impractical this layout is.

DH remains to be convinced but we need to save up the money first so i'll have talked him round within the next 10 years