Open plan is..not very cosy of an evening, neither is it quiet

[Lelivre]

...especially if the kitchen is open and the dishwasher/fan oven/washing machine/extractor is going.

What do you think?

I've gone from an open plan home to all.separate.rooms. And I think I like it.

Do we go ahead and take a the odd wall down or leave it as it is. The rooms are all decent sizes. OK we can't sit down and eat in the kitchen but next to it there is room for 7.5ft dining table plus sofa and two toy chests in the dining room. Then a good sized living room with double doors connecting.

It's decision time you see.

Open plan kitchen and dining is good imo. But def a separate living room.

I'd only have open plan for kitchen, dining and a sitting or homework area, opening onto a garden.

If I didn't have a separate living space/tv room/cosy bolthole, I wouldn't go open plan.

We've got open plan at the moment and hate it.

The house is on the market though so there is light at the end of the tunnel.. The next house is going to have rooms and actual doors that shut!

What Humphrey says. I love retreating to our separate living room at night - spend all day in the big kitchen/dining/play/sitting space and the sitting room is usually toy free and calming in the evening.

It also means people can split up and have their own space a bit if somebody else is being noisy or annoying. Reckon this will be more critical as our DCs get older.

Yeah you definitely need a cozy contained space for the evening to relax, away from the dishes and the washing machine.

Kippers. Do you like kippers? I don't. DH looooves them Separate living areas!!!

I much prefer lots of small rooms with defined purpose.

I love our house which has an unchanged 1930s plan. Separate kitchen and sitting room and dining room. We do have room for a table in the kitchen, big enough for breakfast, and very informal eating, otherwise we use the dining room. We've only been in this house for a couple of years and I thought I'd hate it, but it's great.

I actually love open plan but I think it is better suited to warm climates than cool ones.

We have the best of both worlds - three vast reception rooms with glass doors that can be left open (summer) or shut (winter). The kitchen and utility room are shut off, however.

Just left open plan kitchen living dinning an sep lounge. Would have again but would only kitchen dinner with room for a sofa rather tgan living separate living room. Nothing worse than cooking away to radio four and a sherry an some bugger coming home an putting Jeremy kyle on while you cook. No more tvs in my kitchen ever again.

Oncemore - sometimes, just sometimes, I fancy some smoked mackerel. Never kippers no.

That's the thing, there's something so civilised and comfortingly old fashioned about rooms with a defined purpose. Rooms that can be, shut off.

But I can spy on the tiny ones with open plan.

Bonsoir = jealous

Mine I mean

We are moving to open plan kitchen/dining/family room but with a completely separate additional sitting room. I like the open plan living for getting cooking done whilst DS is playing so I can see/interact with him but need a separate space too. Also, washing machine will be in utility room so not drowning out the radio/TV/conversation when on.

We have kitchen/diner, and it's fab. Have tv, sofa and table in there. Never has issues with washer or dishwasher.

We have a separate living room which is a nice escape

TalkingTree2 Unchanged plan here too. Nothing has been knocked through and we love it. It also helps the heating bills.

We have open plan kitchen, living and breakfast area, separate dining room and study. However we live in the USA (open plan is the norm in Texas, never seen a separate kitchen) and have a covered patio outside that we use 9 months of the year, dh and I often spend time out there in the evenings, also a separate garden / pool house for rowdy Xbox games for the kids. In our living room, the tv is at one end with the sofa and the kitchen is at the other end, it's perfectly possible for kids to watch tv and adults to sit round the table chatting without one disturbing the other. It works well but if this was our only space iyswim I don't know if it would.

We specifically bought our 1930's house because it was one of the very few we could find that still had a sitting room, living room, dining room and kitchen all separate with doors into the hall. We looked at so many that had been made open plan and they just didn't have that cosy feeling about them, or any of the original style of the house.

I am really glad we did because we have three children, and as they get older, separate living areas are invaluable - particularly when they are teenagers and want to have girlfriends/boyfriends round... It's also very nice having a sitting room of my own to disappear into when the football's on

We have an open plan living room, dining and kitchen which has two glass walls which open up to front and back patios. We love it and would never go back to separate main living areas but we also have a soundproofed playroom for the kids and a separate living room with a wood burner which is for adults only.

Kitchen diner with separate sitting room would be best.

However that is what we have but hardly ever use the sitting room. We seem to spend all our time in kitchen even once dc are in bed. It is by far the cosiest and relaxed room and also the warmest as has been full of bodies warming it up! We do have sofas and tv in there along with table etc.

I am so pleased we took the wall down to knock it into one. I use the sitting room when my friends are over without the dc but other than that we just stay in kitchen.

I wish we still had the front room :( we have a typical thirties semi with the typical knock through and a big kitchen diner across the back, so it's a giant loop basically. We looked at reinstating the wall and the door into the front room but it would have meant losing some quite expensive built in cupboards and we ran out of money. It's still on my list of things to do, but probably not for a few years.

We knocked through between our kitchen and dining room and also added an extension last year. It has given us the most amazing open plan kitchen/diner/study/snug (with the open fire that used to be in the dining room) and separate utility room and loo. We also have a separate large sitting room at the front with a woodburner. The plan was that we would decamp to the sitting room in the evening, but so far we can't bring ourselves to leave our gorgeous and cosy new space. The dining area also has bifold doors onto the deck which in summer is like another room. Can't wait for spring as it was all only finished last summer so haven't had the full enjoyment yet

I don't like lots of small rooms and it's just husband and I. We once stayed in my in laws 5000 sqf Victorian house alone and kept losing each other. I thought I wanted a big house until then.

I've opted for open plan kitchen/dining/living room, as I don't like cooking alone, don't eat in dining room without guests and I'd never go to the living room if it was colder than the kitchen. Noisy machines get to stay shut in the utility though!

Yes I agree. Kitchen/diner is great and sociable but add a tv and sofa and it becomes a series of spaces/sounds competing with each other. We recently moved and originally I thought I wanted open plan but after viewing many houses with huge open plan extensions they all seemed a bit cavernous and noisy. Now moved into a house with separate lounge, tv room, dining room and kitchen. I do, however, eventually want to make a nice kitchen/diner but definitely no sofas and televisions.

We've got big double doors between our kitchen and our dining room (which has a sofa in it). Our living room is on a different floor. That works really well for us. The doors are permanently open, but we could shut them if we wanted to.