Open plan eat in kitchen family room or no?

[Ifidget]

I feel like the moment of open plan is going? We have our table in the kitchen but our family is ever expanding with new kids and girlfriends and we want to buy a much bigger table- 2m. It will fit in the kitchen, but it’s going to be tight and I’m wondering about moving the utility to bathroom upstairs (should be room) and opening the kitchen into the utility.
But - do I open it all up to the hall and the family room next door? Or keep some doors and separation? We use the larger living room as our separate tv watching break out space so I don’t mind the rest being open.
I just not sure what I want to do!
The bit on the wall between the kitchen and family room is a chimney so I can’t just knock that through.

I think you need an architect to help work this out. Nobody here is going to really know how the house layout works just from the floor plan. I agree you need to stop and think before doing everything open plan, it's been such a trend and actually you do need smaller rooms sometimes. Why isn't the dining room a possibility for the dining table?

Yes we probably will speak to an architect, I’m hoping there’s a simple fix and I don’t need to spend the money.
We want to only have one table, so the larger table that we eat at in the kitchen and when all sorts of family and friends are over.
We have a bit of a complicated blended family with wide ranges of ages, so the ‘dining room’ is a family room/ play / hobby area and I don’t want it to be a formal dining room with the large table taking up most of the space.

You are correct, the move is away from open plan and giving family their own spaces.

Id save the money for now then look to move on when you are ready.

We put up stud walls to divide our large open plan area.

It works so much better for us now.

Our house was open plan when we bought it 20 years ago. We put walls up so we have 2 separate reception rooms and a huge kitchen diner.

The 2 reception rooms are great as DH and I have one and the DCs have the other when they have friends round etc.

@Ifidget could something like this work?

eta; sits closed at 1.8m then extends to 2.3m and again to 2.8m

As you have another living room I’d define open it up - but while I always think a utility room (do you mean where the laundry is) is always better on the bedroom floor I’d be loathe to lose that space. But who effing cares about trends - how you live as a family is what counts. We had a large kitchen either table and family room set up - there was a partial wall (a fire breast) between them that had a TV on it the family room side, but it was open either side of that. We also had a more friendly up living room (we also had a separate dining room which was only used half a dozen times a year). We had kids ranging from baby to teens so it worked really well. We could have grown ups in the living room, teens in the family room and as it was open plan to the kitchen didn’t feel cut off.
My current much smaller house has living room to front with double glass doors to the kitchen/dining/small family room and it’s the best layout of any.

That was formal living room, not friendly (though it was that too).

I’d look into installing sliding doors so it’s broken plan, they work really well and mean you don’t lose floor space. I’d have sliding doors into the utility and an extendable table, so you can keep it small when people aren’t visiting. I’d keep the washing machine downstairs for convenience though, just screen it off with built in cabinetry or a curtain. If in five years I found we always had the room opened out I’d then invest in moving the utility upstairs.
future proofing wise, I’d want my washing machine near my back door for hanging up in the garden, assuming I’ll one day be too old to carry a wet load down a flight of stairs

I’ve just redone our kitchen giving us an open kitchen diner and losing the small utility room. Washing machine next to the back door to make it easier to hang the washing out, I agree with @wafflesmgeere future proofing. It leaves me with a small enclosed living room and a large family room with the kitchen diner in the middle which, as my kids are young teens, gives us all some living space. In your shoes I’d lose the utility room and incorporate the washing machine into your kitchen. Have an extending dining table for when you need the space.

Can you move the doorway into the utility and access it from the hall instead? Can you move the doorway from the kitchen to the family room to the other side of the chimney breast? You would lose some kitchen but gain a complete corner . Then you could have a banquet seating corner and table (preferably extendable so visually takes up less space when not needed). I've done a very shoddy edit to your picture to give an idea. I will try to upload it.----

It's possible to remove a wall with a disused chimney, you just need properly designed and installed steelwork. You might consider removing the chimney above at the same time, preferably right to the top, and closing the roof over the gap.

It will be a bigger job, and quite dirty.

It can be an advantage to have separate rooms people can be in without disturbing each other. I've found a table that extends to seat 8 is big enough, but not often fully used. YMMV.

This is a great idea - I hadn’t actually thought of opening it up that way. The kitchen doesn’t need redoing but I might investigate this when it does.

Thank you for these ideas. Im definite wondering about the merit of closed off spaces. Extendable table is also good… of course I’ve got my eye on a particular big one is the problem!
More thinking needed methinks. I’m glad I’m not just missing something obvious.