Diner & living room or open plan????

[africa_rock]

Hello all.

Have done four developments before and the last two have been in France. I have returned to this wonderfull sunny country of ours and am doing a development down in Cornwall (as well as going to croisant re-hab). After being out of the country for a while I have a question for those of you in the know on the current thinking. I have a 200 year old semi detached cottage in a nice village in the cornwall (they dont eat there young really you know!) The downstairs floor plan is a 25m square living room with inglenook (cosy but north facing and a bit dark) and a 20m square dining room. Off that is a large kitchen in a 70s extension. The question is does it add value to the property to open up the living room and dining room into a large open plan space or do people prefer to have the two rooms thesedays? I know everybody in the 90s opened them up but is this still the vogue? I will do the work myself so the cost of whacking in an I beam and making it good will not be too much. What are the pro's and cons and the bottom line of added value?

Cheers all

stuart

[Kaz]

Hello again Stuart

This is always a hard one to call and usually depends on a number of factors i.e. your target audience, the character of the property itself etc. Perhaps you could ask a few local EAs what they think buyers in that area are looking for.

I tend to think, rightly or wrongly, that young FTBs like open plan for entertaining, easier to watch the kids etc. and more mature people like the privacy and cosiness of separate rooms.

I guess you could always have it both ways and open up a large squared archway and install bi-folding doors so people have the choice of open plan or separate so you're not putting off one or other group.

Kaz

[fwebstar1]

my answer is Living room