Open plan kitchen or separate kitchen?

I love my open plan kitchen/dining room. It leads onto what the builders (it was a new build) call the family room so I have lots of space. When we have family ‘do’s’ everyone can spread out and use the living room as well. Years ago I wouldn’t have thanked you for a kitchen diner but now I can see the benefits.

My dining area and kitchen are now one and I can shut it off from the living room and keep smells in the kitchen.

Also, it is a modern house with a staircase in the living room so the heat goes upstairs. Having a separate kitchen means I can have one cosy room if necessary. A separate kitchenb for me any day.

Thanks all, this is helpful. Looks like a large kitchen/diner plus a separate sitting room is the common preference.

Another vote for separate kitchen. I like to keep small people and pets out of kitchen when the oven is on. Also need to have a door to shut when I scorch something and don't want to set off smoke alarm!

It's seems to be in fashion to go for open plan. I suspect that the roundabout will turn and separate kitchens will be the thing to have!
We've had both. I much prefer our current situation with separate dining, kitchen and sitting rooms.

We created a large kitchen dining room which has room for a sofa and tv and comes into its own when the GC are here - we have had three adults preparing for a party, one GC doing homework on computer and the other two playing a noisy game on the large kitchen table. And it works fine when it is just us, and means we don’t have to watch the same television programme if we don’t want to since we have a separate sitting room.

The arrangement is ideal for us - cooking smells dealt with by extractor fan and/or opening the window - and gives us flexibility should DH eventually need to sleep downstairs, in which case the sitting room can be used for that.

I much prefer a galley kitchen. So much easier to work in and less tiring with everything to hand. It opens out to a dining room so I can talk as I work.

Go with your gut instinct - if you want the kitchen as your refuge, stick to your guns!
I've had both in different houses - open plan downsides - too many cupboards down below, so stuff gets lost at the back (so you need large drawers instead of cupboards); if you cook from scratch you can't cook smelly food, (fish, curry for example) as chef's candles, extractors, etc never really deal with smell and steam: or if they do they're so loud you can't hear yourself think, let alone chat with family/guests; if you've guests who wants to sit looking at pots and pans?... so you have to be super tidy, no last minute stir fry stuff!
Plus nowhere to hide if you fancy pottering in peace.

Upsides, more work surfaces, and if you don't mind DH's sports programmes, fine. If you're a super tidy it could work for you.
Think open plan is a maybe a trendy, expensive fashion - in 10 years time maybe everybody will be re-constructing walls for a closed off, shut the door on the mess kitchen.
Compromise - if you've enough room in the kitchen, add a kitchen table, then DH can sit and chat to you whilst you cook......or even help chopping up veg etc??????

I prefer a kitchen/diner but where they are different ends of a long room, possibly with sliding or folding doors between.

I loathe the old fashioned living/diners, where you cannot retreat with visitors after a meal and have coffee and chat without the incubus of the uncleared dining table at the other end of the room.

Our current kitchen is long but narrow, one end provides space for a table chairs and dresser, but no more than 4 can sit round it - and that is a squeeze. We are currently negotiating an extension, which is quite complicated as the house is Listed.

However we have a very large square hall and the formal dining table is there and we open it up and use it when the fsmily visit and for high days and holidays. In the meanwhile the room is the hall, so no wasted space.

Small house here new build(well was 20 yrs ago) have archway from lounge into kitchen., Hate it, you can see my mess when cooking etc, also kitchen cooking smells.

Would love to put a door on but no room for it to open.

So seperate kitchen for me if I ever moved.

I prefer a kitchen/diner but where they are different ends of a long room, possibly with sliding or folding doors between.

I loathe the old fashioned living/diners, where you cannot retreat with visitors after a meal and have coffee and chat without the incubus of the uncleared dining table at the other end of the room.

Our current kitchen is long but narrow, one end provides space for a table chairs and dresser, but no more than 4 can sit round it - and that is a squeeze. We are currently negotiating an extension, which is quite complicated as the house is Listed.

However we have a very large square hall and the formal dining table is there and we open it up and use it when the fsmily visit and for high days and holidays. In the meanwhile the room is the hall, so no wasted space.

Separate for us. There’s an archway from the kitchen to the dining room/computer room. We did consider opening the rooms up into one, but there’d be no wall for hanging cupboards on! Extra base units wouldn’t work because of all the doorways!

For open plan - best if you can also have a utility room with washing machine there. Also use more expensive appliances for kitchen which are virtually silent -such as dishwasher. Extractor fan for smells - I think they are Regulations now in kitchens anyway.

Separate kitchen here in our new build house. Love being able to shut the door on it after dinner and sit in a cosy separate lounge room. Our only dining table is in the kitchen and that works perfectly for us. We rarely entertain and when we do its mostly family so informal kitchen dining suits us fine. Would never go back to open plan, or a separate dining room.

I also prefer open plan kitchen.

I have had both but now live in a flat which has a big open plan room with living room one end and kitchen/ dining table the other. I love that Im not on my own when Im cooking and we can all talk together in one space. I have an efficient cooker hood/fan so don’t feel smells are a big issue and just love the feeling of space. I am quite tidy so it works well for me

I have kitchen with square open arch into dining room. Downsides are pungent cooking smells, noisy extractor & fan oven, plus our fridge sounds like an express train. Can’t drop food on floor & put back on plate when visitors at dining table with beady eyes watching! Upside is you can chat to diners whilst prepping meal.

I would not have open space to include lounge, for aforementioned reasons. We have double doors closing off lounge which is a good compromise.

I've lived with both. I found open plan ideal with a young family. Now that I'm older, I like my kitchen diner and separate living rooms.

If I was 20 years younger and had family at home I would definitely go for open-plan.

However, now we probably won't as it would mean changing dining room furniture and involve a lot of expense.
We do have a table and chairs in the kitchen too, otherwise might consider it.

In this house the cook doesn't usually clear up!
We take it in turns or do it together.

I mean open plan kitchen/dining room with a separate sitting room.

I like as many doors as possible . We currently have a sitting room, dining room (mostly used as a second sitting room) and separate kitchen.

Even though it's just the two of us left at home now, we use both rooms. We like to watch different things on TV, and I often curl up on the sofa with a book whilst my husband is listening to music, and neither of us like two lots of 'noise' going on at once. If we want to chat, or watch a film together, it's easy enough to sit together.

The kitchen is a reasonable size, and we sometimes eat in there, sometimes at the dining room table, and sometimes from trays on our laps. I have never had the slightest desire to knock through, as most of our neighbours have done.

The design of the house (traditional Victorian with the kitchen at the end of the hall and a side return) means that we couldn't knock the kitchen into the dining room even if we wanted to. We could possibly lose the return and make one large room, incorporating the dining room, kitchen and a slice of garden, but there's not really much point now that the children have gone.

When they were here, I liked having separate rooms, so they could play in one and I could get peace, or chat to adults in the other. The dining room was also a useful area to work from home, which I used to do a lot in the school holidays. The children and their friends were in and out of the kitchen getting food and drinks, and it would have driven me mad if I'd been trying to work.