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Location: Los Angeles>Little Rock>Houston>Little Rock
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Quote:
Originally Posted by randomparent
I currently live in a '70s home with a semi-open floor plan. The kitchen is enclosed, but the dining, family, and living rooms are open to one another. I love it!
As I have posted previously, I have been looking for a house for some time. I am in the Salem Oregon area and I think probably 85% of the homes listed are open floor plans with vaulted great rooms. I am wondering when this became popular and if it still is. When I began my search I found the open floor plan to be interesting and appealing. The more I see it the less it interests me. It is actually beginning to look very dated. Am I wrong here?
No, I hate them and always have. It is so uninteresting, and very problematic to decorate. It has no soul. Barns were made for animals to live in, not people.
I like the floor plans of old houses, 1920's and before. I like floor plans that make one curious about the house, floor plans with nooks and different sized rooms and possibly secrets. They were almost all architect designed, if from pattern books. Modern houses are designed by builders or incompetent architects and often have inexplicably awkward aspects to them and are visual mutants.
I have heard the term open floor plan and that is what my house has, but I have never been sure what a non-open floor plan would be. Is it like the old school houses with the separated formal living/dining rooms and the kitchen closed in with walls and doors?
If yes, I doubt that it will ever come back. I don't know anyone that likes them unless they are of a certain age.
People with good taste. People who want to live in a home, not a college apartment.
I live in a late 80s home that has a pretty eclectic floor plan. It has a vaulted/two story family room and a loft space upstairs that overlooks it. I happen to like that. I has pocket doors to close off rooms, too, so you can make it open and "closed off" at the pull of a door. I like that the staircase isn't the first thing you see in the house..it is tucked away along the family room wall. I like that there is a hallway to most of the bedrooms and the bedrooms are split upstairs - two bedrooms to one side of the loft and 1 bedroom + hobby room to the other side of the laugh. I like every bedroom plus two rooms downstairs have bay windows.
As I have posted previously, I have been looking for a house for some time. I am in the Salem Oregon area and I think probably 85% of the homes listed are open floor plans with vaulted great rooms. I am wondering when this became popular and if it still is. When I began my search I found the open floor plan to be interesting and appealing. The more I see it the less it interests me. It is actually beginning to look very dated. Am I wrong here?
I don't care for it either.
I prefer a more segregated floor plan with separate rooms and doorways in between. Allows for better noise management. We can all be in separate rooms doing our own thing (listening to music while cooking in the kitchen, watching a movie in the living room, our child playing with her toys in the dining room) without infringing on each other's activities while still remaining physically close.
Our house was built in the 1890s here in Pittsburgh, and suits this perfectly.
I assume open floor plans are popular due to the fact that people see themselves entertaining a lot of guests when they design or buy their home. The reality is that they probably won't all that often.
I don't care for it either.
I assume open floor plans are popular due to the fact that people see themselves entertaining a lot of guests when they design or buy their home. The reality is that they probably won't all that often.
But I don't even understand that. I entertain frequently and have never found an open floor plan to be useful to me. I usually have very little left to do once people have come over, and frankly do not mind being in the kitchen for a bit while others are elsewhere in the house. I don't want to see the kitchen sink and the pots and pans and stove from where we're sitting down to have dinner. I think being greeted by the kitchen sink when you open the front door is just tasteless and horrible.
People say "the kitchen's where people congregate" but consider that people mainly congregate in the kitchen because it is informal and cozy. Once your open floor plan has demanded you pay for a glitzy, dumb kitchen to impress guests, it's no longer the cozy space it once was. Where will they do? The open floor plan doesn't let them leave anyway.
I think that's why my semi-open '70s house appeals to me. The kitchen is enclosed, but the rest of the main rooms open up to one another. It's hard to explain, but think multiple levels with a two-sided fireplace as the home's centerpiece. Houses out here tend to be see-through, because lots of windows provide mountain views. Here in the west, mountain views are highly-prized, and more open floor plans preserve them no matter where you are in your home. I will admit that it can be noisy, especially with children, which is why it always astonishes me to see tile or hardwood flooring. Maybe when the kids all move out, but until then, carpet, carpet, carpet!
I don't like open floor plans and we're living in one now. The home is a 4/2 one story 1800 sq ft home with a huge 1/3 acre backyard and two car attached garage in front. My wife bought it before I moved in, and she has come to regret the floor plan. Ironically, she is a home inspector, but when she purchased the home 17 years ago, open floor plans were just becoming the rage, and she wasn't an inspector yet, so she didn't realize the disadvantages as she does now. Her office is the room in front, and it has no doors so it leads directly to our living room and kitchen. She works out of the home, and I only work part time, so whenever she is at home writing reports I have to be very quiet to avoid disturbing her since she can't close the nonexistent door. It doesn't help that we have a loudmouth Daschund who barks like crazy for a long time when it's dinnertime or anyone knocks. Woe to the client who happens to call during the dog's dinner hour. The next home will not be open floor plan. Privacy please!
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