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I live in a very small house and the living/dining/kitchen are semi-open concept - it definitely makes the house feel larger and brighter. If I had a huge house I could see the value in more-defined spaces.
We have just one sink in the master bathroom, but I still floss in front of my husband and we do whatever to get ready for bed together some nights. There's no privacy; it's never even occurred to me to want privacy for that type of stuff. I sometimes wish for two sinks, but our cat likes to sit in the sink and I'm always wiping cat hair out of it, so that would just double the chore, I guess.
I need to keep a little bit of the mystery in my marriage lol. No bathroom time together. No watching him brush his teeth or use the toilet. I think there was a cultural movement from formality (formal dining and guest area) towards everyone should be together all the time. I need my separate space.... someone said that's an introvert thing and I tend to agree. Tye mate and I have our own bathrooms and that works much better than the whole "togetherness during personal grooming or urination" idea. He loves a good shower for example. I am bathtub only. We had our baths remodeled to our preferences.
Count me in for the formality/closed rooms. We have a housekeeper and our antique home design works perfectly as it came with built in private space for her. We have guest areas and personal areas. Again, privacy is preserved. But in this age of everything going on social media each time someone has a mosquito bite, I am not surprised that there's a preference towards open concept nor am I surprised there's a backlash starting.
I live in a very small house and the living/dining/kitchen are semi-open concept - it definitely makes the house feel larger and brighter. If I had a huge house I could see the value in more-defined spaces.
My house isn't that big but I still wouldn't want open concept because it reminds me of when I was living in boxy apartments. I'm done with that, hopefully.
I live in a very small house and the living/dining/kitchen are semi-open concept - it definitely makes the house feel larger and brighter. If I had a huge house I could see the value in more-defined spaces.
There's a lot of things that can make a small space seem larger. High ceilings, light colors, lots of natural light, etc. An open space can feel bigger because it is bigger than a small room or series of small rooms. In the ranch we lived in (an Eichler) there was a design aesthetic that tried to make the most of a modestly sized space on a suburban lot. And because we were in a city with nice year round weather, there was also an emphasis on minimum separation between indoors and outdoors. It felt a lot bigger than it's footprint because of clever design. But for a lot of reasons it didn't really work for us.
I live in a prewar home that is slightly open concept. I have kitchen that extends to a little den/sit down area with a couch, but our dinning room, living room and front den are compartmentalized. It's the right balance of open concept and a little private space. I personally love the open concept and I see no evidence that it's a dying concept. People with kids love the open concept. My cousin has a beautiful sprawling ranch with a huge open concept kitchen, dinning room, den with fireplace. It is lovely and probably my dream home. And here on LI, this trend is not going anywhere and is more in demand now than ever. I think this article was based on the opinions of a bunch of old folks who's kids left the house and now want privacy.
It took long enough. As soon as the open concept trend started, I said well that is stupid....people will hate that after they live in one a few years. I hate, hate, hate the open concept. For one, the kitchen is basically part of your living room so you have all the noise from the kitchen, the steam and grease and all that from cooking floating through the living room instead of being more confined to the kitchen and mostly being sucked out the exhaust hood, the clutter you can see and the biggest problem of all is your kitchen is missing two walls worth of cabinets to put things.
The trend away from open concept began in our area in the last year or two and you are seeing more and more new homes being built with the kitchen more separated off. I bet in a few more years there will be a big remodeling boom where open concepts are divided by walls and the kitchen reconfigured.
I've lived and entertained in both styles of houses. I do like open concept to a point. I don't think they work practically in smaller homes where that is ALL the living space. We had a large open dining/kitchen/living space in a house we built, but it only worked because there was also a huge bonus room that was completely separate. That's where the TV was and it created great separation especially with big groups of kids and adults together.
We lived in another open concept house that was amazing because none of it was visible from the front door, and again, there was a large bonus room upstairs, plus another separate living room and a huge deck. I would build that house again in a heartbeat as it was the best of all worlds under one roof.
Our current house is a recent build, but it's not open concept. We didn't like it at all at first, but the location was premium and we went for it. The two things I really liked about it were the kitchen and stairs were not visible from the front door or from any door. For the first 6 years we lived here, we never entertained because we couldn't figure out how to get past the layout. The living and dining were separate spaces, but still open to each other which made it tolerable only for small gatherings, we thought. Then we added a beautiful screened porch off the living room and it was like adding an extension to the house. We have entertained a lot since then (crowds of 50+). The closed kitchen has never once been a problem and no one seems to be bothered by it in the least. I don't mind it at all now, as we have figured out how to make it work. There is also a fully finished basement and the TV is down there. We have different groups all over the house sometimes. I love it.
I wonder how much of "Open Concept" is a boomerang from a time when those that could entertain would have the help do the cooking.
Now, its rare that anyone except the extremely well off have hired help in the traditional sense.
Two or three of my in-laws all live in the same neighborhood of 1960's houses. Some split levels in the neighborhood, but mostly traditional layout, 2000-2500 sf homes. I've been in two that are all original and they aren't open concept, but neither is the kitchen shut away from everything. Same with my parents neighborhood. The same is true of the oft scoffed at split levels.
The massive great room would get annoying. I think that some walls/dividers are nice for a lot of reasons; if I want to go read while my spouse watches TV, to control some of the lighting between the living room and the kitchen/dining area. But I also don't want a Victorian style home full of many small rooms.
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First thing we did was take that door off. It's really annoying!
I sometimes wish for two sinks, but our cat likes to sit in the sink and I'm always wiping cat hair out of it, so that would just double the chore, I guess.
