kitchen/dining room or lounge/dining room - help me decide!

[linspins]

We have a 1930's semi and at present we have 2 rooms which have been knocked through, as our lounge and dining room, with a separate kitchen. We're thinking of re-instating the wall between these two room and knocking through to have the kitchen and dining room open plan, with a separate lounge. But would this work better? Less floor space for playing but I would be able to see/chat to children in the dining room as I cook/clean/wash up etc in kitchen, which is where I seem to spend all my time!
We'd have room for the dining table, and one easy chair plus a bit of floor for playing. The conservatory joins on to this but is pretty chilly unless the sun is out. The lounge could then have sofa, another chair, more toys, tv etc. My children are 3 1/2 and 18 weeks.
Any thoughts anyone? What have you got and does it work? Or should we leave to whole lot open plan??!

I'd definitely restore the wall and have kitchen/diner. If you can afford it, I would consider getting rid of conservatory and putting in proper extension width of house to give you more space at the back.

def kitchen diner
and keep one room separete, dont go totally open plan, nice to ahve a room you can shut off

Agree with mad cyb keep one room more formal and don't put in double doors build a proper wall.

That's what I thought, cyb and noddy, that one room would be (in theory!) tidy-able to hide evidence of kids! Obviously on a day to day basis it would probably be covered in toys...
Lala, I'd love to build a huge extension on back, but if any work is going to be done it'll have to be an extension to make upstairs bathroom bigger, which is currently miniscule.
So downstairs work is just tinkering with the walls.

Agree with the other kitchen/dinner definatly more appealing.

we put back our wall and it is much more child friendly, we still have galley kitchen but it leads off from dining room, and is decorated much the same. Our front room always looks tidy and clutter free.

mmmmm, clutter free....(drooling..)

We currently have a lounge/dining room and separate kitchen, I really don't like it so we are closing the living room off and opening it up to have a large kitchen/doning room and hopefully a playroom off it.

I'd go for a seperate sitting room and look into heating options for the conservatory - something portable to make the room a little more useable.

Definately Kitchen/Diner.

Our first house was a lounge/diner, next had 3 separate rooms, present has a kitchen/diner with separate large lounge - by far the nicest. When you entertain you can faff about in the kitchen & still speak to guests,but then move to lounge & leave all clutter behind

Def kitchen/diner it means that one of you can sit in the lounge in peace or with a friend and the rest of you have somewhere to go! It also limits the food mess.

100% kitchen diner

It looks conclusive then that kitchen/diner is much preferred! Thanks everyone for your comments.
Jamiejay - yes, the conservatory needs heating, probably just a bit would take the edge off the chill on cooler days.

We've just swapped the furniture round and put the sofa in the room which would be the lounge, and moved the dining table - it already feels better, now just got to resist the temptation to take a sledge hammer to the kitchen wall! A builder assured me it would be easy to fit a steel lintel, so I'd better get on to the surveyor.