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?

Absolutely Felina - that would be vandalism in my opinion. I think to a certain extent there's a lot of conformism going on at the moment. Our new (to us) house was chosen for a separate lounge, snug/reading room with access to the garden and reasonable size kitchen diner. (But no room for a sofa etc. in the kitchen as is the 'fashion'.) It is practical and totally suits the way we live, as we are retired and don't want to always be together all the time. A large, soulless space doesn't cut it for me!!!!

I hate totally open plan. A spacious kitchen diner with a separate living area is good. If you have young children/a lot of teens, two extra separate living spaces is good (adult living room + playroom/teenage den). It’s also good if you have an older adult living with you but haven’t got the space for a full blown annexe situation, gives them a bit of space without resorting to hiding in their bedroom all the time.

I now have hope that someone will actually buy our house

@Felina your house sounds lovely!

We have a sitting room as well as a kitchen-diner. DH is currently sitting on the sofa in the kitchen-diner watching the rugby on the small crappy tv there rather than on the bigger, HD TV in the living room. Clearly he is a fan of open plan! Meanwhile I am listening to the radio in the sitting room and scrolling though Mumsnet. Best of both worlds!

and I love banishing the dog to the kitchen when he's been naughty! (Not for long)! How does that work with open plan?

Open plan is a nightmare with toddlers. We spent a fortune on Babydan room fences and gates when ds was young and had open lounge/dining area/kitchen. Now we have a kitchen-diner but the units come round to separate the kitchen end.

Smells have never been a problem - we don't fry much and have a good extractor fan. I don't really care about people seeing dirty dishes but the worst is hidden in the dishwasher or sink by the time we eat. I like that people can do things at the table while I cook or vice versa.

A separate living room is wonderful though. If I had another hundred grand, a second living/dining room would be great, but we went for location and bedrooms instead.

I have a huge open plan kitchen living dining space with an island and I absolutely love it. However, I also have a separate living room and office so it’s a bit broken up. We got rid of our dining room a couple of years ago and it’s the best thing we did. I entertain a lot and having the open space means that o can have 20 people easily sitting down to dinner which was a problem with the dining room. We never use the table unless entertaining, all life happens at the island

It's been open plan for going on 15/20 years now. As those spaces get worn and change hands I think people will return to separate spaces. Not least because environmentally it is more economical to heat smaller spaces.

Our 1930s house has an open plan living / dining room and a seperate kitchen. Dining room has french doors to a conservatory. Owners in the 70s blocked up living room access from the hall. We like sitting on the living room sofa and seeing all the way to the end of the garden (it's quite long) however heat loss is abysmal.
We are planning to add some doors between living and dining room to essentially make it 'broken plan' which feels like the best of both worlds.
The recently renovated houses round here have all knocked through kitchen to dining room and while they look ok in the estate agent brochures having seen friends houses they are really difficult to keep tidy and organised. I am clinging on to our kitchen/diner seperating wall as it is where the majority of our storage is - making everything open plan is really very impractical.

I'm quite keen on the idea generally but like you we have a 1930s house and it's not worth the hassle and wouldn't really work with the style of the house.
Our kitchen is always a mess, our lounge is generally ok and I hate the idea of mess(and kitchen smells) invading the lounge too IYSWIM

Mine is open plan at the back with an informal dining bit and I don't particularly want to see or chat to people when I'm cooking or them seeing the mess. The formal dining room is round the corner.

Next house (dreams) wouldn't mind a kitchen with a small table but to definitely shut the door

I don't like open plan. I wouldn't mind an open plan kitchen/diner but definitely need a separate living room. Unless you have a really, really good extractor fan, you end up with the living room stinking of food all night and that gets into your fabrics like sofas and curtains. I've lived in open plan before and having the sofa stinking of spag bol wasn't pleasant!

I think that open plan feels more casual -I like that I can be chopping veg, see kids playing in living room or at dining table. I like chatting to visitors at the breakfast bar too and passing food over to go on the table.
In our previous home I was often stuck in the kitchen, missing out on the conversation .
Houses with seperate dining rooms can feel a bit too formal - as if they’re for dinner parties.

Hate open plan! We have a sitting room, dining room and kitchen at the back and another larger sitting room at the front. All separate.
They're all big rooms though.

A lot of people make small rooms into one big room. Where do you escape to? What do you do with teens & their friends? Do they just take over the whole of the downstairs?

Another one here who hates open plan and would be put off buying an open plan home. Our holiday home when I was a child was open plan and I'd constantly end up in my bedroom to escape the noise, smells etc.

My current home has a kitchen diner (no island, as I also hate these!) and a separate living room although with glass double doors that could be opened up if I wanted to. It's easy enough to observe children in either the lounge or the conservatory through the glass without having to be open plan.

I like the atmosphere of a separate dining room. It's peaceful and a bit special.

Ideal for me would be kitchen / dining room together and a separate cosy living room. I like the kids to come in and lounge around / chat to me while I’m making dinner etc. When they’re grown and gone I might feel differently but equally I’d prefer not to be shut away in the kitchen and to feel a part of proceedings when we’re entertaining etc so who knows.

I’m in my small OAP house now but when I had 3 boys at home, I found having separate area really useful. One wanted to play the piano whilst another wanted to watch the tv ( back in the old days when children didn’t have their own TVs etc in their bedrooms) and another wanted to spread the train set out.
Especially as they became teens.
I do miss my larger kitchen though and having a table for sitting at having a cup of tea chatting to someone whilst cooking and baking. Would definitely not have been without that when my children were little.

Friends with children who have a completely separate dining room dont seem to use it daily, preferring to eat in the cosy kitchen!

Friends with children who have a completely separate dining room dont seem to use it daily, preferring to eat in the cosy kitchen!

We don't 'dine' in the dining room very often. We have a table that can sit 6 in the kitchen for daily use but it is still an invaluable space - for example that is where the piano is. Over the years we've had the x-box in there. We've had the family computer in there. dh has used it for when he works in the evenings. I've used it for when I work t home. It has changed as the dc have grown, but it has been invaluable having the space to do that.

I also like my cosy 1930s rooms. However, although my kitchen is big the layout of doors asunder windows means I can't have a table in there since I would much prefer a kitchen diner to a separate dining room. My dining room is problematic as it's an under used space due to its location and breaking through that wall isn't an option.

When we bought our current house we actually borrowed more money to knock down the wall dividing the kitchen and dining room to make a large kitchen diner as that was what we were used to. However after living in the house for a few months we loved the separate rooms and paid the money back that we borrowed!

It’s great to be able to close the door on the mess and smells in the kitchen when we have friends round and our dining room is used a lot (I’m in it now!) We would also have lost wall space too.

When there’s been a bit too much ‘quality family time’ we can all sit in separate places too.

@Felina from your description I would totally want to knock through the kitchen and dining room into one, especially as you have two other separate reception rooms anyway. I think you've missed a trick not doing it.

I have a 1930's house which we've just 'whacked' a big extension on the back of. We have a large open plan kitchen/ diner/sofa area (with an island and bifold doors- nemesis of Mumsnetters 😳). Off this we also have a cosy snug area. Separate utility and then another reception room at the front of the house. I love it and it's totally changed how we live as a family. Separate reception never gets used now.

Mummyshark, that's interesting and I'm sure some people would like that layout! I didn't explain properly- if we knocked through, we would combine existing kitchen/diner, with the sitting room which has a separate dining area but is still in the same sitting room IYSWIM. Then theres another separate sitting room.

We have a London terrace Victorian that has been knocked into open-plan, but both of the floors devoted to living space are 'zoned'.

Lower ground has dining room/window seat in front, kitchen in the middle and a cosy reading nook/coffee bar in back. All demarcated by counters/furniture.

Upper ground has formal sitting area in front, cosy TV snug in back.

I have a friend whose house is about the same size, but fewer floors. Her kitchen is so big it just swallows everything - you need quite a lot of money and ingenuity to make such a space feel like something other than an airplane hanger as someone put ti above.