Would you always open up kitchen diner?

[thismusthappen]

Hopefully will be moving in months to come, finally after a year of collapsed chains and stress…

our soon to be new home, has a separate kitchen (12x12), with separate living/dining room knocked into one large space.

me and OH have different views on whether to open up kitchen into diner. And brick up the living room so only keeping that separate.

is open plan kitchen diner always the best option? Is 12x12 a big enough kitchen space to also have an eating area?

so many houses renovated in more recent years have gone for this open plan living we just can’t agree right now whether it’s always the best option!

would love to see any 12x12 kitchens with eating space if anyone has one in their house!

thanks

Do you have kids? What sort of entertaining do you like to do?

I hate lounge diners personally, and if you have older kids, it might be nice for them to have a "den".

Could you do it in stages - split the lounge and diner, then later knock the kitchen in? (Depending on life plans etc?)

I have always wanted a separate lounge/sitting room. I want somewhere to sit that's quiet and away from cooking noises/smells.
Bonus points if there is room for a play area/sofa in the kitchen diner
So in your case I would definitely separate the lounge and open up the kitchen into the dining room. Watching house shows that is usually the preference of the people looking and Kirsty & Phil 😃

I would definitely open it up. We opened up what was a dining room into the kitchen and have never regretted it. As long as you have another sitting room, it’s perfect.

I HATE open plan with a passion, give me seperate defined spaces that are cosy (and actually feel bigger) anyday but an open plan kitchen is the stupidest and least practical of the open plan ideas.

I need to keep pets and children out of the kitchen, I also do NOT want smells, heat, condensation and appliance noise throughout the living spaces. The kitchen is simply a practical area, I'm no more likely to want to sit and eat in the kitchen then I would in the bathroom. This is why kitchens and bathroom are usually exempt from habitable space laws, they are not meant to be sat or lived in as a 'habitation' area.

Is there room for all three rooms to be separate? It's so much better having three separate rooms as it's just more flexible. If not then I agree that kitchen diner is better than lounge diner.

I far prefer all the rooms to be separate, separate living room, dining room and kitchen.

I have always had a kitchen that can fit a smallish table and chairs in though so can eat in there for everyday meals. If any of the rooms were combined it just wouldn't work as well.

My piano is in the dining room and my children used to play it in there, can't imagine having to put up with that in an open room. The dining room was also used as a quiet place to do homework by the child who had a small bedroom and lots of hobbies so didn't have space for a large desk. We also play board games in there and do jigsaws. I also use it as a sewing room. Of course it is also used as an actual dining room whenever people come round for a meal or you want a normal meal to be a bit more special.

I found that as my children became teenagers and had friends round and then girl/boyfriends it was great having the separate rooms so that we could do our own thing but still be downstairs if we wanted.

Absolutely not! We’ve got a separate kitchen, dining room, and living room and I wouldn’t dream of changing it. If I was buying a modern house that had been built with a kitchen/diner I could probably live with that, but I wouldn’t want a living/dining room under any circumstances. if it was an older house, then I would definitely try to restore the original room layout to have three separate rooms - I really hate the way people butcher lovely old houses and turn the ground floor into a massive open plan space, usually with a square box extension stuck in the back.

I’m sick of open plan, honestly.
I would only do it if you have a separate living room
to get away to.

We're having the same discussion! Moving somewhere with 3 separate spaces. DH wants to keep them separate so that cooking happens in the kitchen and then we have a separate place to eat and play games etc away from the view of the washing up. I can see the merit in the argument. But we also have small children, who craft, read, hang out, chat etc at the dining table, whilst an adult is in the kitchen, so it's a real family space. We're entering our homework era and I like that there's a space we can all be in doing our separate thing if so desired. So my preference would be to knock through and have a kitchen diner, but keep the lounge separate.

It's all preference surely?

Depending on size of lounge diner I would be blocking off the lounge and opening up kitchen into dining room .

We've extended and now have a kitchen diner, which I love. As it opens onto the garden it's the perfect arrangement for me. The separate front room is great but gets most use in the winter. Kids in my experience usually want to be near Mum, for help with play, reading, homework or just plain company. This way they can join in with what I'm doing if they want as there's room or do their own separate things but we're together. And I can keep an eye on what's happening.

Thank you! Kids are still primary age but getting older so I like the idea of being able to have friends over downstairs and us being out of the way somewhat!

we could definitely restore to 3 seperate rooms. Which I think would be my preference.

I think this would work if we can design the kitchen to feature an eating space.

we are not big on entertaining and don’t have guests regularly other than our parents.

room sizes if we make 3 seperate would be

12x12 for the kitchen
15x 12 for reception room
12x 11 for reception room 2

i think I would be inclined to have the smaller reception as a nice living room- for me and hubby to chill in the evenings! And the larger could have a table, sofa tv etc for us to spend family time together, kids do homework etc etc.

I would never open up a kitchen, unless it is so tiny that you can't fit a table in, then I can see the argument. I also wouldn't open plan a dining room and living room as you lose wall space and flexibility and make heating the space way more expensive and difficult.
Maybe you could close off the dining room and living room if you want to open up the kitchen?

Up to 1930-s - no. Keep the original design.

But we opened up a 1950's ex-council semi because the kitchen was so small - 8x8.

Is it the pre-1950 where women are expected to live in the kitchen because everything has to be done by hand?

I just don't understand this argument, yes our kids are with me all the time and virtually non of it is spent in the kitchen. I pop in to put the food in leave it too cook pop in to take it out etc... What do people actually do in there that takes literally all day (I think the same about non ill people who manage to spend over an hour sat on the loo) to the point they view it as the main living space?

and what about the jobs in the rest of the house?

We live in an automated world, you put the food in virtually any device and it cooks itself until you remove it (plus washing machines, dryers, dishwashers and other such aids we even have robot mops and vacuums now) so theres no need to stand around in the kitchen for hours.

For me i like a kitchen diner and separate lounge. A separate diner just becomes a dumping ground in my experience, or a room no one goes in. Its nice to have people around in the kitchen to chat whilst you prepare food etc.

I have been wanting to ask a question for ages please.

Why has it all changed from open plan?

I didnt used to like it, and couldnt see why people would.
But it was all the rage.
Now the "fashion", and wonder if it is just that, has swung the other way to all, "seperate rooms".

Is it a case of, new generation?

fwiw, none of it really applies to me.We, for a long time,have had large kitchen.
And dining/lounge/study in very large room.

So I am just being curious really.

I’d have kitchen diner family but with pocket or barn doors to close it off if you can. I’d aim for a sofa table and tv if size permits

can you post floor plan

I think quite a lot of people hated it even when it was on trend but yes trends come and go... often due to practicality and also fashions just change each decade.

Open plan isn't popular just as serving hatches or sunken baths or sinks in bedrooms etc... fell out of favor.

We are seeing open plan, clean lines and brilliant white/greyge combo out now for the exact opposite fashion now 'frilly, colourful and historic revival' is in and in the next 10 years time people will then be hate dark blue/colourful kitchens, emerald green or mustard yellow rooms, victorian tiles, black hardwear and en suites in every room that are so in fashion now.

Fashions last for different amounts of time.

The en suite must have lasted for 20 or more years.
Again, wasnt to my taste. But I didnt have the choice anyway.

When we moved into our current house some of it was opened planned and it's the first thing I changed, but if space was tight I'd have kitchen/dinner and never living room/ dinner.

Our previous house had a lounge/diner with seperate kitchen, we removed the wall between the kitchen and dining part so had one large open plan room with a kind of half wall to the lounge area, I grew to dislike it very much.

When we moved to our current house, we had a large kitchen and seperate dining room but crucially for us, a living room on the other side of the hallway. We did have the wall taken down between the kitchen and dining room, which has given us a huge kitchen/diner with a sitting area but we absolutely love it and having the completely separate living room works really well for us and I don’t think I could ever go back to fully open plan again.

We moved into a house last year with 3 seperate rooms, initially we weren’t going to do any work for 12 months and see how the room arrangement went. However we hated the separate kitchen. It was a pain in the arse moving everything from kitchen to dining room then back to kitchen again. Within 6 months we knocked through and now have a massive kitchen/diner and sitting area which we love.

We have a kitchen/diner that opens into the garden. We have a separate lounge area.

I love our kitchen/diner. There's a sofa in this space too. I do alot of cooking and baking and used to feel separated from the family before we altered our home. My DC's hang around chatting to me - they're all now teens and our kitchen/diner is the most used space of our home.

I think that is perfect. Each space is big enough for its purpose, your home will be warmer and quieter (and better insulated from any noisier neighbour) and you won't have to spend the evenings staring at the washing up or listening to the kitchen radio at the same time as the living room TV.
Apparently the trend for barn-like, shapeless corridors with no walls to put your sofa or a bookshelf against, is disappearing, thank God.
However, if you open the kitchen to the dining room and put a proper wall with a door in it to the living room, that would be nice too. It's the 'seamless flow' beloved of Estate Agent write ups that I dislike.