Separate dining room or open space?

[aggie]

Hi,

I live in central NJ.

My house has an eat-in kitchen next to a formal dining room and both rooms have one common wall with the living room. Since I hardly ever use the dining room i'm thinking about opening up the whole space so the eat in kitchen, the dinning room and the living room would give one open space. That would work best with my family; however does the open space sell better when it comes to selling the house or should I keep the existing structure??? Or sould I open up only the kitchen and the living room, keeping the separate dining room?

I want to update the kitchen anyway, so now would be the time to take down walls. I love open space living areas, but do others? Can I get my money back for the change? (we want to sell the house in a coupe of years)

Appreciate any ideas
Aggie

[Malok]

Personally, I like open floor plans. For my market, they seem to sell better than the traditional formal layout.

One thing to note - make sure you aren't knocking out a structural wall to do it.

[JimOlenbush]

Lots of formal living and dining rooms are already open with no walls. You can set up a living area and a formal dining next to it, or use the whole space for something else. Just make sure to leave things in a way that a new buyer would have room to place their formal furniture if they wanted to.

[lillihammer]

I think it will help your house sell in today's market. An open floor plan is more popular these days and is a reflection of how people live today. How many times a year does a "formal" dining area get used. We did the same thing to our house. We turned the wall into a breakfast bar between rooms and installed pendant lights over the area. I've attached photos so you can see the final results.

[JimOlenbush]

Nice job Lilliana. It looks great!

[Jeff Casterline]

If you were in SC I would definitely say you should open it up. Almost every buyer I work with wants an open floor plan, including myself. Closed off floor plans are a thing of the past in my opinion.

[Saodavi]

I think it will help your house sell in today's market. An open floor plan is more popular these days and is a reflection of how people live today. How many times a year does a "formal" dining area get used. We did the same thing to our house. We turned the wall into a breakfast bar between rooms and installed pendant lights over the area. I've attached photos so you can see the final results.

Nice House!

[avonreal]

i think it depends how big the rooms are, if they're too small you can open them up to make the space look bigger.

[jasoncrouch]

Open floor plans seem to be MUCH more popular here, for what it is worth.