open plan living room and kitchen vs separate

chucknorris

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

In flats it means cheap, shoddy and pokey, based on one I rented. Superficially it looked modern and exciting, but turned out to be massively impractical. Noisy, smelly, and limited storage (nowhere even to store a mop and bucket).

It doesn't always mean that, in 2004 I viewed 4 or 5 flats with a friend who was buying, and he wanted a second opinion. All the flats we viewed had open plan kitchens and the prices (at the time) were about £550k to £700k, it wouldn't surprise me if some of them were about a £1m now. He ended up buying two of them, I think he bought the most expensive and the cheapest.

Although my ideal house would have an open plan kitchen, it would be open plan to at least a second lounge (preferably third).

GwylimT

A lot of new estates have coach house style flats where your garage below has ventillation and plumbing for a washing machine.

martinsurrey

Kitchen/diner, great.

kitchen/diner/living No no no no.

Slinky

elsien wrote: »

Separate kitchen for me. I don't like people watching me cooking (they might see me rinsing off stuff I've dropped, or other bad habits), and there's generally dirty dishes lurking around waiting to be washed. I don't want to sit looking at them and I certainly don't want to be leaping up to do the washing up as soon as I've finished eating.

^^^
What she said.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

chucknorris wrote: »

It doesn't always mean that, in 2004 I viewed 4 or 5 flats with a friend who was buying, and he wanted a second opinion. All the flats we viewed had open plan kitchens and the prices (at the time) were about £550k to £700k, it wouldn't surprise me if some of them were about a £1m now. He ended up buying two of them, I think he bought the most expensive and the cheapest.

I think it was actually an expensive flat (by Croydon standards), as they'd been labelled "penthouse" (they'd tacked another floor onto an existing tower block). Atrociously built though; paper thin walls, dodgy laminate, poor fixtures & fittings.

Outside of size and quality, I guess it is very much personal taste. I like the idea of a small settee in a big country-style kitchen, but not the whole lounge in there. To my mind they are separate rooms for a reason.

ReadingTim

In all but the top end properties, open plan is just a cheap and shoddy way of disguising the fact that there's no enough space to have separate rooms of an adequate size. And in those top end properties, chances are you'll also have a separate dining room and lounge/reception room.

Basically, no-body wants open plan, except developers, who tell us we do because it's cheaper for them. In this country, we should have moved on from one room huts. And if anyone claims they prefer it, then why haven't you gone the whole hog, and got the toilet into that wonderful multi-purpose space as well...?!?

teddysmum

I live in a house and have never had an open plan kitchen , but would hate it as I am easily annoyed if the kitchen door is left open when the washing machine or kettle are working. Another annoyance would be the combi boiler, which is in the kitchen and can be heard with the door open.


Only food smells like fish or curries would be slow to disperse, but condensation could be a problem.

dirty_magic

I'm another one who doesn't like open plan! I like kitchen diners but I like my living room to be just a living room. I don't like living diners either if that's what they're called.

I think a kitchen diner is social enough, people always seem to congregate in the kitchen anyway!

lxpeanut

so much hate for open plan. I live in a flat with an open plan kitchen and lounge and dont really mind it. The major annoyance is the old boiler which can get really loud. I did look at a few flats to buy but they were all terrible. It didnt matter if they were open plan or separate the kitchens were all too small.

katejo

lxpeanut wrote: »

so much hate for open plan. I live in a flat with an open plan kitchen and lounge and dont really mind it. The major annoyance is the old boiler which can get really loud. I did look at a few flats to buy but they were all terrible. It didnt matter if they were open plan or separate the kitchens were all too small.

Were the flats viewed all modern purpose built? My first flat was a period 1st floor 1 bedroom maisonette built in 1915 or thereabouts. My living room was about 16 x 11 and the kitchen about 11 x 12