Is there anyone that DOESNT want a kitchen/diner/open plan?

[palacegirl77]

Ive posted recently about loft conversions as this is next on our list - so my youngest daughter can have a larger bedroom. However, I was speaking to my brother and his wife and they suggested we concentrate on (opening up the downstairs) first - they totally assumed that we would want to knock down the chimney, several walls, extend and have a massive kitchen/diner/family room type thing. Don't get me wrong, I think these are nice but I LOVE the downstairs in my 1930s semi. I like having separate rooms - I dont want kitchen smells in my lounge and I like the kids to have their own space, I also want to keep some of the character of the house. They were genuinely surprised as they thought everyone wants open plan nowadays - am I really the odd one out?

Have open plan living room, kitchen and dinning room. its L shaped but i have sliding doors between the livingroom and dining room so these can be closed when we want. Also the kitchen part is long and have an island in the middle with a high breakfast bar which from the dining room yo ucan not see the cooker or the sink so any mess is hidden. Its great when people are over we have loads of psce and then when we wnat we have a cosy living room, Wouldn't like a separate dining room to the kitchne as it would never be used. Keep the living room sperate though. Open plan does work if done correctly

I have a separate lounge which has doors to a dining room plus a kitchen diner set up with a sofa which dc tended to utilise

I don't like open plan particularly

I wouldn't want totally open plan. We have a big eat-in kitchen with sofa and chairs for telly watching, and then a separate sitting room with fire etc for at weekends when we put the fire on and chill.

This is my ideal

LOL at 'autopsy kitchen'!

Open kitchen diners work very well for dinner parties

Except all your guests can see the mess in your kitchen
They'd also see if something you were serving jumped off the plate and you slid it back on, etc

I don’t like open plan. I prefer to be able to close the door to the kitchen but my dream would be a huuuuuge kitchen/dining area with space for a sofa and then a separate living room too. Would just love two separate areas to chill.

I hate open plan, when we were looking for our current house it was the main thing that put me off houses. I like lots of separate spaces.

I read in a paper (several years ago) that "open plan was the new trend" and it made me unreasonably annoyed. Trends of feature walls, wallpaper, grey paint pallette, etc can all be fairly easily and reasonably cheaply changed. Erm knocking down walls is a pretty permenant thing to do in your house and not something you would do for a trend!
I'm not a big fan of completely open plan living. DH is incapable of preparing even a sandwich without using at least 15 ingredients and 37 utensils which he assumes some unseen, unpaid kitchenhand will magically clear up i don't want to look at that mess while I'm watching tv, or hear the dishwasher/washing machine droning. Also now kids are getting older they need separate space for annoying computer games homework or watching something different on tv.

Open kitchen diners work very well for dinner parties

Totally disagree with this. I remember watching an episode of Nigella cooking on her Christmas programme, with a group of guests chatting with drinks nearby while she cooked. I would hate that, both as the host and as a guest!

I wouldn’t want a separate dining room but a dinner party is the only time I can think it would be better.

Me. I like walls.

I think that in years to come open plan will become a dated, obvious trend from the 2010’s and people doing renovations will be putting walls back up.

No to open plan from me too, we did, briefly, look at new builds and virtually everyone in our price bracket had a kitchen diner and then lounge which we really didn't want.

We now have a big kitchen with space for a small table, a lounge/diner and then a conservatory. The lounge / diner were originally separate, the space is nice, but sometimes I wish for two rooms.

I like kitchen diners but I like a separate Sitting room

We’re not open plan fans, due to our cats and kids. My big thing when house hunting was a separate kitchen!

I hate open plan. I like a large kitchen with a table of some sort, but not a breakfast bar. But a separate dining room and living room.

I would love a larger kitchen/diner as we are all crammed on a tiny table in the kitchen. If an extension was on the cards, I'd want to add a dining space that was part of the kitchen, and had access to the lounge (for parties and Christmas). I'd always want the option of closing off the lounge though, so not a huge open plan space. In my fantasy kitchen/diner there might be a small easy chair for selfish solitary knitting with cat afternoons.

I love our open plan kitchen, dining, sitting area with bi-fold doors onto the garden.

I would not love it if we didn't also have a drawing room, dining room and reading room.

I prefer kitchen and dining room combined but living room has to be separate for me - I think totally open plan drives some of the family upstairs as not everyone wants to do the same thing.
I also dislike islands and en suites.

I won't view a house with the internal walls removed. I don't want a sanitised open space. I want a home, with rooms and doors and fireplaces with character.
And a front door that doesn't look like an office building or a spa entrance.
And a bathroom and toilet that doesn't look like a prison toilet and a cow trough or something made for people with a square arse.

I don't want hideous bi-fold doors on what used to be a lovely period property, in fact I don't want them on any property, neither do I want decking and fake grass.

I don't mind a bit of extra light but not at the cost of original features, character and warmth.

I want a home, not a showroom or some kind of sanitarium. I want warmth, cosy rooms, nice window frames and a real garden. Panelled doors, original ones that are in keeping with the house.

I loathe and detest what people are doing to beautiful houses. Stripping out all the nooks and crannies, historical features and bloody walls. Turning them into soulless shells of boring grey and shiny white with horrible chrome accents and battleship grey window frames and doors, even worse grey external walls.

And those hideous bright red shiny kitchens, the stuff of nightmares.

Nope don't want to get OCD in cleaning a kitchen because I have to look at it whilst watching tv or have to excuse the mess when people come round

Not a fan of open plan here. Every TV programme seems to show people who want to knock down all the walls and live in a canteen...

I have an open plan kitchen/diner/living space but also a separate living space so best of both worlds. I love open plan. I’d feel claustrophobic without it and it’s a bit old fashioned as well

😊 canteen

We rented an open plan when living abroad to see if we liked it. We didn't. The next house had separate rooms.

We've just moved back to our house in the UK, and whilst we have a kitchen diner, as the table was made for the space, we have a sitting room, a snug and a study, so there is space for me to go and read without having to listen to whatever dh is watching on the TV.

I've recently had two separate agents round to value our large family house. Both of them said that any purchaser would be looking to take out the wall dividing kitchen and dining room/living space! And put in bifold doors!

Our kitchen has a table to sit at and it's not exactly small. Separate utility room off kitchen too, and access to garden. I can also listen to the radio in the kitchen, whilst others watch TV in the sitting room. We even have two sitting rooms, both with access to garden. so not short of space. I cant imagine why a new person would come in and open it all up into something resembling an aircraft hangar.