Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Property/DIY

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Original poster

Separate playroom or bigger kitchen-diner-family room?

23 replies

mum2015 · 24/01/2018 16:07

We are knocking down the wall between kitchen and dining room and doing rear+side extension. The other room next to dining room is used as playroom currently and there is option of merging it to the kitchen-diner-family room.
One mind says don't join, so there is a space to store all toys and books separate from family room and other mind says join it, anyway kids will actually play in the family room itself.
What would you do?

OP posts:
SkyIsTooHigh · 24/01/2018 16:15

Double doors between the two. Best of both.

sweetheart · 24/01/2018 16:20

We used to have a play room - my kids never actually played in there - they always wanted to be with the rest of the family. It was quite nice to have a space I could close all their toys into and keep the rest of the house adult. We have a big open plan kitchen / lounge / diner now and I love it. We are all very sociable together in it but if my kids were younger I'd deffo want some kind of built in storage that let me hide all their toys.

Merryhobnobs · 24/01/2018 16:20

If it were me I think I would have the separate playroom. Somewhere to keep all the toys just now, a place to do homework as they get older and then a 2nd wee cosy lounge as everyone gets older. It's handy having a separate space. We don't have that but it would be nice to have it.

TamanTun · 24/01/2018 16:22

We've tried separate playroom and doors separating and I think it depends on the age. When they were younger it was nice having the door option as they never liked being stuck in a separate room without us around. Now they are older (8 and 10) they prefer to be away from us (the oldest more so). I'd definitely go for doors to separate the space if you can.

Cathster · 24/01/2018 16:25

We had some work done recently and got rid of a utility room and separate dining room (created a kitchen diner instead) in favour of a playroom. Best thing we ever did - toys get shut away once DD is in bed and the rest of the house is adult again. Toys inevitably do end up in the family room and she plays in there as much as the playroom but it’s nice to have it separate.

alotalotalot · 24/01/2018 16:29

The kids grow up quickly. Looking back, time goes in a flash. It won't be a playroom for long but it could be an extra tv lounge/teens hangout.

I wouldn't keep the playroom just because it is a playroom but you need to consider where people will be as they get older. Would you be happy handing over the lounge to them and living in the kitchen diner with a sofa or would they be happy in there? Would you prefer a separate den?Think how you would use the spaces longer term.

Personally I'd opt for the kitchen diner but I'd make sure there is plenty of storage for toys and make sure there is room for a sofa or two.

MissSueFlay · 24/01/2018 16:32

It was one of the things that really made me want to buy the house we're in - a separate playroom! DD has all her craft, toys, games, dress-ups and most of her books in there, along with a sofa and a tv. It's a snug room and I love spending time in there with her. I also like walking out and shutting the door on it all! Grin
I imagine that, as she gets older, it will turn into a sort of tv den. I don't think we'd ever knock the two rooms through.

ThroughThickAndThin01 · 24/01/2018 16:32

Playroom. Without doubt. My kids used it all the time. Now as mid/late teens it makes a great TV room/consule room for them too. Loads and loads of use out of it.

My tip; don't call it a playroom when they are little. We can't get out of the habit and it sounds so wrong when they are older. Call it the den or something.

Original poster
mum2015 · 24/01/2018 16:35

We can't have doors between the rooms as it makes both rooms loose a wall each. On living room we put sofa against that wall and playroom has storage put on that wall.

The playroom currently has one wall of Ikea shelving units for books and one wall of shallow pax wardrobes for toys. It is such a handy room to quickly tidy all toys etc out of sight. I don't feel like putting such large amount of storage in kitchen-dining-living room. But when I see photos of large kitchen diners, it is tempting to merge the rooms.

OP posts:
alotalotalot · 24/01/2018 16:38

Ha, yes. We call the now study, the playroom all the time. If we'd have kept it as a playroom the kids wouldn't use it now because we are separated into the adults in the large kitchen diner and kids in the lounge. They wouldn't use a separate space just for them anymore so it's evolved into the study.

Original poster
mum2015 · 24/01/2018 16:40

I have two kids with different age. My DS is 12years old and DD is a baby. Currently playroom is mostly DS's stuff but in coming years I think DS will have less stuff and his things will move to his bedroom, though DD will acquire loads of toys and books.

OP posts:
Original poster
mum2015 · 24/01/2018 16:43

On ground floor I will have three rooms, a lounge, a playroom (I better start calling it study Wink) and a kitchen-diner-family room. Question is whether to merge this study to kitchen-diner-family room

OP posts:
minipie · 24/01/2018 20:50

I had exactly this dilemma. I even had a mumsnet thread about it, I'll see if I can find it. We've decided to have the separate lounge plus big kitchen/dining/sitting room (which will have lots of storage). We are not going to try to cut off a separate playroom as well. Mainly because we realised the DC would end up playing in the family room anyway. Haven't actually done the work yet so I can't tell you how it's worked out sorry.

Original poster
mum2015 · 24/01/2018 21:38

Monique, what kind of storage are you planning to put. The basic Ikea ones, which we have in study won't go well with rest of the furniture in the kitchen-diner. Also, after we merge rooms, we loose walls to put storage against. Also there are always some toys which are too big to store in a cupboard.

OP posts:
Original poster
mum2015 · 24/01/2018 21:40

I really like the images of large kitchen-dining-living rooms but how do people keep it looking like that.

OP posts:
Tatapie · 24/01/2018 22:01

I'd go for three rooms. A different space for tv / pc / games console is valuable now ours are 14 and 12 and the Lego and books have gone in the loft

minipie · 24/01/2018 23:02

We'll be putting in built in storage all around the edges of the dining and sitting space. basically wherever there is free wall space there will be some kind of cupboard or shelves or dresser. Some of it will be for dining roomy stuff like wine glasses but for the next few years it will mostly be for kids stuff. We may also have a long low storage unit of some kind along the back or side of the sofa.

Our DC will be 6 and 4 so hopefully most very large toys (ride ons, duplo etc) will be gone by then. I aim to have some larger storage spaces for eg dressing up clothes. The DC have decent size bedrooms so things that don't fit (eg dolls house) can live there.

Realistically there will be mess but hopefully masses of storage means it can be tidied away quite easily. And if I cba to tidy I will go hide in the separate sitting room.

Original poster
mum2015 · 25/01/2018 21:12

Thanks tatapie and minipie. Still can't decide. I am working on layout, how to fit all furniture and storage.

OP posts:
BubblesBuddy · 25/01/2018 21:44

We had a whole wall of built in cupboards. There were three cupboards at the lower level with book shelves above and above that open boxes. Each box had a basket in it. Admittedly the children couldn’t reach the baskets but they took a lot of toys at clear away time when I took down a box or two. We got a local joiner to built it and we painted it.

We have now remodelled the house but it worked at the time DC were young. It was a sitting area at the end of the kitchen.

Blankscreen · 25/01/2018 22:16

We've got a large 9m x 6 m kitchen diner which is open plan onto our family room which is about 6m x4m. It's a big L shape.

Kids toys are in there and I spend my whole life In this part of the house it's the heart of the home.
We could.potentially put doors on here but at the moment I like it open. I would say it's easier to out the steels in now and spearate later than the other way round.

We also have a separate reception room which is my child free space.
Computers are in the open plan bit and the separate room is my sanctuary.

I think it's nice to have the option of a separate room so I would.

Mosaic123 · 26/01/2018 17:40

It's good to think you'll use the house when they are teenagers. If you have a separate room then they can always bring friends back. At least you'll know where they are then.

another20 · 26/01/2018 21:19

With kids of your ages I would go for the one open plan room with good storage (and tightly curated toys) - you have at least another 5-6 years of your LO wanting to play under your feet, otherwise you will just be carting stuff back to the playroom all the time. However I would try to zone the play area. I would also be encouraging your teen to be part of the family dynamic - so again the one big room works rather than him dominating the existing playroom or trying to share that with a toddler. Obviously when he has friends they can drift off to his room and you should be able to eradicate most of his stuff at his age right now.

Original poster
mum2015 · 26/01/2018 22:39

Thank you for all your comments.looks like in our situation, a bigger family room would work better as long as I can get enough storage set up.
Next thing to work on is how to get this done without introducing another column!

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page