Why do most houses I see have one living room or open plan kitchen?

[ohhfiddlesticks]

I'm looking at houses around 200k.

It seems that recently every house I see on the market has one living room and open plan kitchen. What happened to the two living rooms and separate kitchen?

Is this necessarily a bad thing? Or could it be that is what you can get for 200k?

Thanks in advance

Dunno. You couldn’t get a studio flat for 200k here.

My house has a large living room and an open plan kitchen diner and family room and it cost three times that much. It’s a new build but in our old post war semi we were pretty much the only house in the street with a separate dining room still. Fashion, innit.

Round here the size of house available for that sort of money feels tight and dark with the kitchen, dining room and living room all boxed off. Each space isn't quite big enough so most families tend to do the obvious and knock down a wall which makes everything feel lighter and brighter.

I don’t know where you are, but where I am I don’t even think you’d get a studio/1 bed for that price. A house in 2020 for 200k that is liveable would be quite an achievement in my humble opinion!

Sounds like you need to up your budget if you want more!

Maybe the types of houses? Our Victorian terrace was just under 200k and we have living room, separate dining room and then kitchen but old houses aren't for everyone's tastes

Where are you that you want two living rooms and a kitchen for £200k?!

I far prefer the dining area to be in the kitchen than a pokey kitchen and separate area. Unless a huge house with a kitchen table. I dont "get" galley kitchens with separate living areas.

Thanks for your replies.

I'm in the Derbyshire area. Thing is, I've seen houses around October last year around this price and they had two living rooms and a kitchen, three bedrooms, a bathroom and a drive.
There doesn't seem to be any around now

Do most of you have a living room and open plan kitchen?

Thanks

You can get a dilapidated garage for £200k here!

There’s a garage sized piece of land for sale round here (London) with permission to build a one bedroomed, one story house on it.
No garden, because it’s literally parking garage sized so the building would cover all the available land.
Basically a studio flat, or a bed in a shed...
£350k

Come and buy my house in Staffordshire!

Its a 3 bed detached. It’s on for £210k. It has a lounge diner but we just use it as a lounge, a kitchen diner and a separate room (garage conversion) that we use as a home office (dh is a music teacher).

Open plan doesn’t work for us due to working from home. All the houses we recently viewed had to have two living areas.

I think it's common in older houses as they were often built with very small kitchens (by today's standards) that were meant to be hidden away, and not meant to be social spaces like they often are now - so people knock them in to a reception room. Our kitchen was such a small space we just knocked the walls out either end so the space is now part of our lounge/diner and part of the footprint taken up by a new downstairs loo that opens into the hall. The reception room next to it is now the open-plan kitchen.

DH was very keen on open plan kitchen - I can take it or leave it because the mess is on show a bit, but our house is on a slight downhill slope which means the kitchen is up a set of steps from the main living room, so that actually separates it off a little in a nice way, and it turned out really well when we knocked the room through.

We're lucky that we were able to get a house with 3 reception rooms, so we still have a separate second one at the front of the house.

We looked at a few places with almost totally open plan downstairs, but I wasn't keen, especially as I wanted a piano, which we now have.

Are the two living area houses still available, just at a higher price?

Where I live there is no way you would get two living rooms for £200k.

You would get an unextended semi-detached which needs a little cosmetic work.

I reckon you could manage that round my way but my house cost a deposit in London so it's all relative really. My friend has a lovely house that has 2 living rooms and a separate kitchen but she built it herself. I imagine it was pretty steep price wise but it's lovely.

I have 2 living rooms and a kitchen, I’m in Manchester. It’s probably worth about £190k but I paid £135k 8 years ago.
I love it, we’re about to start an extension and I’m keeping the 2 existing reception rooms and adding a new dining room/family room we will have 3 reception rooms.

I guess because people prefer it? I have a big kitchen diner which has a sofa and TV area in it then a seperate large living room. Most people say it's their ideal.

I agree with everyone else that it is the price. I don't live in the South, and marvel at London prices, but even up here you would struggle to get what you are asking for for that price. Would be an awful area where houses are only available to rent.

This open plan living doesn't suit everyone. Round our way the new houses all seem to have the format of a large kitchen/dining/living room (i.e. just about room for a small sofa in the living bit) and then a separate small sitting room. These come in at roughly £400k!!!!! We've just bought a new-ish house - but it was much less price wise and has kitchen with room for a table, separate large dining room which we use as a snug/reading room and a large lounge diner. We're older, just the two of us, and like our separate spaces. I can understand this open plan living when you have a small family, so it's convenient - but they do grow up quickly and like their own space. I would have thought you should be able to get what you want in an older house? As I said, not everyone follows this open plan fad. When we were looking there was a beautiful open plan house, similar square footage to ours (four bed detached) but it was on the market for ages before it sold, notwithstanding that the fittings were of a very high quality.

We've got a big kitchen diner, 2 separate living rooms, big garden, 4 bedrooms plus an office, drive, garage, BUT we're in (outer) London so would probably be 5x your budget.

OP, you are not alone I am not a fan of the open plan house either.

I think though most people are and many houses have been altered to make them so.

I hope you find your dream house soon.

OP I sympathize, we had the same issue when looking to buy. It seems to be the current way of living.

For the doubters you could easily get that in my area, which is perfectly fine.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-88213883.html
It all depends where you want to live! I know this is a doer upper, but there are loads like this all around the country, just not in London or some other expensive areas.

I HATE open plan living with a passion, it just doesn't make for a stress free home when you have kids and pets. It seems all the rage now.

our house was 2 reception rooms and a separate kitchen, trouble was you couldn't swing a cat in the kitchen. Our house is a 3 bed semi, so arguably a family home and the kitchen literally had 4 cupboards an oven and a sink and nothing else in it. We knocked through to the dining room and created the open plan that you don't like!

All of the houses on our street are the same. We viewed about 10 and half were like ours, and the other half had been knocked through.

200k would find you what you want round here though easily. We're in West Yorks and its cheap.

I think the problem is that for at least the last 20 years this has been the way to live. So many perfectly lovely houses have had umpteen walls removed so that people can live the dream (I blame Kirsty Allsop!).

The problem is that lots of people don't like the open plan style. I don't like people under my feet when I am cooking. I love having a separate dining room. I love having two reception rooms so the kids can be in one and us in the other, they can have their friends round and we can watch what we like on TV. The DCs have somewhere to do homework if they need more space than their rooms will allow and the rest of us don't have to tiptoe round in silence.

I have always had an open plan kitchen/dining, with separate living room.

Not intentional, just the way it has been. I like it, it’s easy to serve dinner straight from the kitchen, clear the table, the kids can do homework while i’m cooking etc.

Back in the 70’s my mum always had a separate dining room. We very rarely used it, always ate on a small kitchen table. High days and holidays when we did, it was all very formal as we sat round the table while plates were ferried in or out. With my mum missing half the meal as she was in the kitchen preparing or clearing up. I also remember the “solution” to carrying hot food from room to room in friends houses- the kitchen hatch!! How I wished we had one of those. As an adult though it would make more sense to enlarge the hatch and have one big kitchen/diner