Help! Open plan kitchen/ diner/living

[edam]

We are extending our house and one option is to make the whole ground floor open plan - kitchen/ diner/ living. I can't decide whether to put the kitchen in the middle or at the front in the old garage.
The space will be:
At the front, old garage - 8ft wide x 17/ ft long / 2.43m x 5.18m
Behind, making an L shape - 17 long x 14ft 10" wide / 5.18m x 4.3m

We rented with open plan kitchen diner, sitting room and small TV room off, but with no doors apart from external to garden and from the kitchen to the hall and utility room. I would never do this again.

Whilst it looks great, you have to keep it tidy all the bloody time, you can't just close a door on the mess. If dh is watching something I don't want to watch, I either have to listen to it whilst reading, go and hide in the study and still hear the TV, or go upstairs. You get all the cooking smells all the time. There isn't an option for me to pookle around the kitchen with Classic FM on whilst he is watching TV.

I also think 100% open plan is a bad idea.

One 'super room' with kitchen / diner / living space PLUS a second totally separate sitting room is the ideal I think.

Failing that I would go for a big kitchen diner + separate sitting room.

I'd have a separate utility room and a separate living space. This works much better in my house, where we have a big kitchen /diner with a couple of comfy chairs and a TV as well so we can all hang out together as a family. The separate living room is fab for studying, a quiet area, for someone else to watch something different on TV and as a space to put visitors - both to hang out in a toy free space and also to sleep as we have a sofa bed in there.

Previously in another open plan house we had the washing machine and tumble dryer stacked on top of each other in a bathroom so we could close a door on them and their noise. Utility room is better!

I second a separate room downstairs. Our house is currently totally open plan downstairs apart from a cloakroom. We are just going through planning to build a separate sitting room and block off the existing sitting area to turn it into a playroom which should leave a large kitchen dining room in the front.

Nothing had stressed me out like open sodding plan! It's quite frankly been a nightmare. No privacy, the whole place has to be pristine, can hear the hum of fridge, washing machine, dishwasher, people at the door can see the whole house etc, difficult for guests to be over.

In fact we put it up for sale last year (we decided to extend and reconfigure in the end) and the open plan was a big massive no-no from nearly everyone, despite being in a very desirable area.

Thanks everyone thats so useful, especially the negatives. I was leaning towards putting the kitchen in the old garage so we can close it off if we like, but then was swayed by looking at pics of fancy kitchens, which really need to be in the big bit.

You are also persuading me that the old first floor sitting room should stay - or, at least, be turned into a snug/bed 4.

So

Sorry to throw something else into the frame but we have a similar layout to you and have made the garage into a kitchen with double glass doors open to the big living/dining room. We have a breakfast bar in the kitchen with very comfortable stools. We can shut the doors to insulate the living room from kitchen noise and smells.
We love it and so does the estate agent when we got a valuation.
In an ideal world we would have made the current living room into a big kitchen/living/dining room but then the converted garage was not of good proportions for a living room, I don't mind a small living room but not a long narrow one!

It's great to hear from people who have been there, done that, before we make any expensive mistakes. I just can't quite let go of my statement kitchen in the middle!