Do you prefer open plan or separate?

[WBWIFE]

Just got the keys to our house which is a full renovation job.

DH wants to knock kitchen and lounge wall through to create open plan living room and diner (in a few years we will be knocking down conservatory and extending across the back of the house too), where as I like the kitchen as is and would rather extend out the back of the house in a few years and have an L shape lounge/diner that looks out onto the garden. I like the thought of separate kitchen and lounge.

So, just wondering what you prefer?

Pic for reference

I don’t like open plan... so...

I don’t understand the appeal of it at all tbh, if I can’t be bothered doing the dishes after dinner I want to shut the door, not have to choose between either doing them or sitting with them.

I also want to be able to shut small children (not that I have any anymore) and pets in and out of rooms.

Basically I like doors, lol

I vote for doors also 🙂
Did the open plan thing. Looked great but as pp said you have to keep on top of dishes etc. Cooking smells linger everywhere. Expensive to heat. PITA if you want to keep a pet or small child out of a particular area. If someone is watching TV, everybody has to hear it which used to drive me nuts.
In summary I now have a traditional house with a largish kitchen, separate small dining room and separate living room where the TV is. Much happier!

I agree with tabulahrasa, exactly what she said. I hate open plan living, it would be murder with teenagers. When we built our house the architect tried to persuade us to go open plan but we insisted on traditional rooms. We've never regretted it. We are a family of introverts who can always find a quiet place downstairs without having to shut ourselves in bedrooms, it's bliss.

We have an open plan house at the moment. I loved it when we viewed, loved it for the first few weeks and then realised that actually, I hate open plan living. The noise, the smells, the mess....!! You just can’t get away from it, because it’s always there for everyone to see and hear! So we’re about to spend a small fortune reinstating walls that the previous owner demolished!

I like doors. I am a big fan of doors.

However your dining and living rooms are both really good sizes. I can see the appeal of just knocking through kitchen & lounge for your kitchen - dining - living space, but only if you then use the current dining room as a separate lounge. I would hate our main lounge space to be open plan to the kitchen.

Yes. I would knock through the kitchen and lounge, then use the dining room as a separate lounge.

Same as PP. I really like a big kitchen/diner and hate separate dining rooms but I like to have a separate lounge.

I do not like open plan AT ALL. I might be able to live with an open plan lounge, library, whatever, and an open plan kitchen and dining area can be ok, but never an open kitchen that flows into the lounge. First of all, it always looks a mess even when tidy, smells go EVERYWHERE, noise goes everywhere, it's awful. Family members or guests trying to relax in the lounge are bombarded by noise and all the faff going on in the kitchen. Hate it.

I have a mostly open-plan house, but a midcentury US one which may not be quite what people in the UK are imagining, and which still has real definition between the rooms/areas. I love it, and really don't like all these small rooms with doors (used to live in UK and they drove me crazy) and am having a hard time imagining your dining room being so far away from your kitchen, assuming you eat in the dining room most or all of the time. I had a BF when I lived in London whose dining room was the same distance/layout from the kitchen as yours and he ended up squeezing a table into the kitchen because it was ridiculous to be walking through the hall/living area all the time with food and drinks.

It's hard to properly visualise without seeing the house in person, but based on the floorplan you've provided, I'd reverse the dining and lounge rooms, move that wall (if you like having the wall) a bit and make a smaller dining room open to the kitchen, and a larger lounge area off the hall, where the current dining room is.

Thanks everyone, will show DH tomorrow to deter him! Haha.

I agree with all your reasons!

The room labelled dining room is actually going to be our bedroom, and the third bedroom is going to be a second lounge/toy room with small dining table in-
possible bedroom in future if we have a second child.

I love open plan! So much light and spaciousness! And you can talk to guests whilst cooking. (I always do "here's what I made earlier" type meals so no fuss, mess or sweaty red face.

We've just completed an extension so we now have a large open plan kitchen/diner/seating area. I love it.
However our rooms are in an 'n' shape around the hall. The open plan part is the bridge of the n, we have a separate play room and separate sitting room at the far ends, both with doors.
In our previous house the kitchen, dining room and sitting room were all in a row. I found it a pain as the kids naturally spent a lot of time in the lounge where as I am often in the kitchen. We were disconnected and the house was noisier as there was a lot of shouting from room to room. Now the kids are in the same room or the playroom, I can see and hear them but can also retreat to the lounge and shut everything out.

I'm another one saying no to open plan. I have lived in a house with open plan and I found that unless you are very tidy and quite minimalist, it looks very messy most of the time.

Just recently bought a open plan house wasn't keen at first as we love our own space at times. Luckily the loft room was converted so we've turned that room into a chill out room away from any noise. So yes open living works for us as long as you have separate room to escape to 😉

We have recently downsized and now have a large open plan kitchen, dining and living space with a separate study and sitting room. I love it but do think it would be difficult if you had children or were not able to tidy immediately. DH and I are neat freaks so it works well for us.

We live in an open plan 60s house. You come through the porch to an L shape that runs the whole ground floor. It goes living room, kitchen and dining room. It is awful with noise from cooking bothering deaf ds1, washing machine bothering me and then there is the heat problem. All heat goes up. There are no walls or doors to trap it. So downstairs is cool and upstairs hot.
Never again

I would knock through the current lounge, kitchen, bathroom and bed 3 and make one large kitchen dining & family space. I'd relocate the bathroom between the existing lounge and dining room.

Mainly because I think it's weird to have to walk through the kitchen to get to the bathroom but also because that would give you a demarcated living space away from the sleeping spaces.

Alternatively, knock the kitchen and lounge into one kitchen diner family room and knock the bathroom and bed 3 into a sitting room.

Don't like open plan! Open plan kitchen diner is okay, but definitely have a separate sitting room. Otherwise there is no escape from the noise/smells of the kitchen. Also very hard to heat

I dont like open plan either. I like having the radio on in the kitchen. I don’t really want to compete with the tv.
I also don’t want to hear the washing machine or dryer if I want to watch tv in the evening.
Plus the cooking smells. I make lots of food requiring frying onions first. That smell gets everywhere. The extractor fan is noisy and if the window is open, I don’t want to hear moans of ‘it’s cold!’ Coming from the living area.
I like to read and have a cup of tea in the kitchen and would rather not hear the tv at the same time.

I’ve thought about this a lot

Love very modern open plan but also much prefer period houses (unless we could afford to build a completely one way glass new house, which we can’t)!. The real
trick is getting the mix right. You need the right architect who completely gets what you want. We e got it horribly wrong in the past and it was a very costly mistake.

We extended our house to create an open plan kitchen/diner/living space that opens onto the garden and I absolutely love it. Have a young family and it is great being able to supervise them playing while I am cooking etc, it is a proper ‘heart of the home’.

We do still have a separate smallish living room which is essentially a TV room now (no TV in the open plan) - although we don’t even use it that much I would be much less happy with the arrangement without it.

We designed from scratch so factored in things like a powerful kitchen extractor to deal with cooking smells, quiet dishwasher/washing machine, loads of storage to keep it uncluttered.

There are some drawbacks - having the kids main play space next to the dining table means it can be hard to delineate mealtimes (there would be a benefit from having toys ‘out of sight out of mind’ while they are eating) and we do have to keep pretty on top of keeping the place tidy (but the storage helps - massive floor to ceiling cupboards contain all the toys).

Open plan is great for parties and when the kids need supervision.
Open plan isn’t great in the summer.

We have teenagers.
Thank goodness we have some separate rooms where we can all individually retreat.
Warm and cosy

I like a living/dining room, but prefer a separate kitchen.

Old house had big kitchen / diner and separate really large living area which was perfect for us.

Here its grade II listed so separate dining room, kitchen and living room.