Advantages of keeping kitchen/diner separate

[CatsForLife]

Looking to buy a house which needs updating and we would be at the top end of our budget. It has a separate kitchen from the dining/lounge room (also has another living room). We wouldn’t be able to afford to knock through yet. Can anyone make me feel better about making it work? The kitchen isn’t teeny tiny but too small for a table. It also desperately needs updating, so may have to just look at changing doors and worktops. Have no idea how much that would be though if anyone has any ideas?

We have a kitchen diner at the moment and are soon moving to a house with separate ones. I am really looking forward to cooking, on my own, with music on, without being interrupted all the time by kids / partner doing other things in the space. But then I'm very anti social!

Our kitchen is separate, our kitchen also isn’t huge, and although it does have space for a table, it doesn’t have a lot of work top space. However, I really wouldn’t want a kitchen diner, purely for the cooking smells lingering in furnishings and having to look at the washing up! Plus Kitchens are greasy. And finally, this may not apply to you, but I like being able to contain my elderly cat who pretty much lives in the kitchen now.

we used to have a lounge/diner through room and we’re in the process of having it put back to 2 separate rooms as well. I much prefer contained spaces!

Oh yes and I also agree with @TulipTeeth , my Sunday afternoons with my music on, glass of wine, cooking the roast dancing around is another major bonus!

I like a separate kitchen, ideally next to the dining room, but I’ve lived happily enough with one room in between or across a corridor. I’ve had two kitchen diners, both designed by us so to our tastes, when there wasn’t an alternative. I’d go for the separate rooms every time if there is a choice.

Mine is separate we did extend so it’s a good size, we continued the worktop down one side to create a breakfast bar.
Not a fan of cooking smells pervading everywhere, like having another separate room and it’s warm in winter

We moved a year ago to a house with separate kitchen and small dining room (plus living room). They are adjacent to each other and knocking through would be relatively easy. That was the original idea, but we decided to live with it as it was for a while to see what it felt like, and have to agee with PP - Kitchens are smelly, greasy, noisy places, which are best kept separate.

We have now replaced the kitchen which was falling to bits (kept pretty much the orginal configuration) and kept both rooms separate. Our dining room is now a multi-purpose room - sitting room/guest room/dining room. Much more practical.

OP, can you not manage a small/slim table + a bench or two that tuck under? If you can eat in the kitchen, even if a bit cramped at meal times, that's all you need.

Also, I'd recommend living with it for a while. You may love it. Or not.

You can extend your kitchen diner but still have it as a separate space from your main living area. it doesn't need to become all open plan but you will have more space for everything, a nice table, a couple of chairs overlooking the garden. My kitchen diner is around 20ft but there is still a serious lack of space for everything so I would double it but still have a divider from the living rooms.

It's great having a separate kitchen!
Benefits include:
shutting off the smell
shutting off the noise of fridge freezer / dishwasher / washing machine at any time of day/night
being able to open a window in only one space (eg, kitchen get rid of condensation)
Two different styles of room, you can have a different flooring in a dining room which can help reduce noise at meal times (tiles are super echo-ey)
You can just close the door on your messy kitchen when you sit down to eat when you have people over / tired at the end of the day
Your soft furnishings/curtains in your dining room won't pick up the smells etc of the kitchen and won't get any mould from the moisture from the kitchen area
If you're kitchen's at the back and has way to outside (often the case), it's an extra barrier for taking your shoes off etc before the 'clean' part of the house
An extra space to make yours with the radio etc, more distanced from the living room with tv noises

There ya go!

Our kitchen is separate, I had to accept that the dividing wall is historic and we can't knock it down. But now I've come up like the fact that there's more wall space for kitchen units and dining room furniture and we can eat in a lovely tidy space (after all who wants to see all the pots and pans from the table!) it's especially lovely at Christmas when it's all decorated and clutter-free.

NB I would never have kitchen and living room combined, also.

Oh, you lovely lot! Some brilliant points here. I’m totally getting sold on it. I think a work surface with stools under could work if we needed a couple of seats, although not enough room for four. Thinking about some of the points made, making it into a kitchen/diner/living room would be too big and too open plan. The points about closing it off and cooking smells are good ones. I have a kitchen diner now (the kitchen part is tiny!) and when the washing machine/dishwasher is on? It can be intrusive. Also good point about keeping the heat in. It also makes me think that maybe the end goal shouldn’t be making it one room? Maybe we should work towards having a new kitchen completely when we can afford it, rather than aiming for knocking through.

Is it liveable until you can afford to knock through? You don’t want to spend money refurbishing for you only getting a change of appetite and ripping it all out in a few years.

Would you not consider getting a loan from your bank to get the work done and then paying it back over a period of time?

Mine is separate, but it does come off the living dining room.
I echo what everyone else has said, and have enjoyed decorating them as totally different spaces.

We have a large, separate dining room. It is a great space for entertaining and Sunday dinners, but works equally well for those quiet/private times needed away from others in the household= teams meetings for example, or wrapping pressies. I also love being able to have two xmas trees each year.

@DevonshireDumpling1 Is it liveable with? Mmmm… not really as it is now (all right for months but not years) although I could redo work surfaces and cupboard fronts. Also needs new flooring. In terms of getting a loan, I wouldn’t rule that out but I’m sort of in favour of living with the separate kitchen arrangement first just in case I feel strongly one way or another.

Not sure how old your kids are but there are advantages to being able to shut them out!

We are moving from a lovely open plan kitchen/diner/living room plus living room to an open plan living/dining room, separated but adjacent kitchen and separate small living room.

I’m excited. Our current house is lovely and I have fond memories of sitting having a glass of wine at the breakfast bar whilst DH cooked or vice versa. But now it’s so open plan it’s a huge charging space for toddlers, can’t just gate it off for babyproofing, people are moaning they can’t hear the TV over the cooking. House guests can see all of my processes/if I’m arsing it up or fudging it. If we retire to the open plan bit after dinner you can see all the dishes unless you see them.

The agent was saying how easy it would be to open out but we don’t plan to yet. Maybe when everyone’s older and the kitchen is due an update anyway. Or maybe not!

If you have a lounge/diner at some point in the future would it make sense to move the kitchen here? So it then becomes kitchen/diner and you still have separate lounge in the other room. If the pipework backs onto that wall it's easier.

Might be more cost effective than structural work as it's only the cost of kitchen (which you can buy some places on credit if needs be).

Advantage is you still have a kitchen while work is being done so you can source your trades rather than paying a premium for it to be completed on a short timeframe and you can rip the old one out yourselves afterwards. Plus if you don't have utility make the original kitchen part utility part office or whatever suits making use of the old units.

i love having 2 Christmas trees too. One in lounge and one in dining room xxx

We have a small table in the kitchen, enough for four people to sit around with a cup of tea while one person is cooking or for two people to have dinner, and a larger table in living/ dining. This works well for us as it’s just two of us. Great when DH had people over in the evening and I didn’t have to interrupt/ be social to get my own dinner.

@32WindsorGardensBinLorry Yes very good point on the hidden fudging/arsing it up. Total bonus.
@Calmdown14 Changing the diner/lounge into kitchen could be an option but not ideal as one wall is patio doors. I’ll ponder on that…

Our current house has an open plan kitchen / diner (original galley kitchen was tiny) and I love this space. It was a great when my kids were small; I could cook / wash up / do laundry and see them. Now they are older however, we’re all under each other’s feet and if we’re cooking whilst they’re watching tv or playing together, they tell us to go in the other room 😂

We have just sold and bought and our new house has a separate kitchen, and we’ll be keeping it that way. I think open plan living is great with a young family but perhaps not so suited to older children and teenagers. We’re all looking forward to them having a separate space to chill together or with friends!

We have a kitchen and a dining room. There is a doorway between the 2 (we removed the door). I love having them separate, keeps the mess in one room, especially when entertaining. I’d also not be able to have any tall units in my kitchen if we knocked through as windows and doors on other walls. We use the dining room everyday for breakfast and dinner and it’s also been my workspace.

My kitchen is 30 or 40 years old but still pretty solid, we are looking to replace it soon though.