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The latest kitchen plans I've seen show homes with an open kitchen and countertops from the great room. It used to be the island or bar would be up higher so people couldn't see the dishes in the sink, the countertops covered with prep mess, or spilled stains waiting to clean up. You know, life.
I guess it's a preference. Your house is lived in there is mess. In an open concept that mess is out in the open and can't be tucked away when people come over. Unless you are a neat freak.
I have an apartment with the raised bar and hate it. It's hard for kids to get up to. There's also very little space behind the faucet, so it gets wet and moldy without frequent cleanup. The new huge flat design is much easier to clean.
To the OP, I don't care for a fireplace. If it's really important, you can get a standalone
I had that higher up bar on the peninsula in my old house and I can't even express how much I loathed and despised it. If we hadn't ended up moving, I was ready to take a sledge hammer to it myself! lol!
I put in a very large, very deep sink on my island, and it's amazing how much I can hide in there. And I guess I have some neat freak tendencies, although not so much that my house is spotless, more that I wish it were and at least try to keep things tidy. But mostly I don't have people over to my house that I think would judge me if my kitchen were not spotless. If they do, then they are the jerks, not me as far as I'm concerned!
Meanwhile, as already posted, the dryers should be placed on an outside wall to vent directly outside. Not in the center of the house and venting up through the roof! Or in the case of my idiot builder, down the wall, into and through the slab 14' and only half above grade where it came out. AND he put the vent between the washer and dryer such that it was in the way of the washer, and there were four 90 degree bends in the vent piping. It wasn't horribly effective, and was the most blatant mistake I've had to fix.
Agree on the dryer vet fix - Ours vented to the roof and we unclogged it twice. .. It had a sharp bend and of course lint would get trapped. Dryers and house fires go hand in hand.
One design we insisted on in one home - The control panel is in the laundry room instead of the 'traditional' spot in the master bedroom closet. . . Which used to take a ladder to access. I still remember the cable guy walking through our bedroom to get to our closet. Just NO. No service repair guys in the master!
When we've had young kids and homes with great rooms, we converted the formal dining room into the family TV room. That way the kids could watch late at night or early in the morning and the noise wasn't in the master. Then in the great room we had our computers set up as well as the usual sitting area. But in both homes the kitchen wasn't seen by the guests.
Now that I think of it, we always had the TV in a smaller more intimate room.
If you're building new, there are several ways to make a wall a lot more soundproofed than a standard wall. If for some design reason you weren't able to move the rooms, perhaps putting in a soundproof wall may help.
Personally, though, closets and baths between sleeping areas and awake areas are better than the soundproofed walls, but the best option would be both. Also, if working with soundproofing, don't forget a solid door instead of a hollow core door.
There is no one floor plan that is going to work for everyone. I think builders and plans just tend to reflect what is most popular now. If you can't find something that works - I'm sure you can custom build! Our house has a 9 foot island and works great for us. Food prep - no issues, its great when we have company because we can set up all the food on the island and the kids usually eat breakfast there. Our kitchen is open to our family room and that works as well for entertaining. We do have a separate living room off the foyer which works well if someone wants a quieter space. That was a deal breaker for us when we were shopping for a house - we had to have a house with a family room and some other separate space on the first floor for reading and our piano, but again not everyone cares about a separate space like that so it's all based on what a person wants or needs to be comfortable.
My open floor plans work perfectly for me and my school aged son. I live in a neighborhood that is at least 3/4 families with young kids all living in houses with open floor plans. And just about all of the houses are 2 (or 3) stories, and no master bedroom on the main floor next to the great room. That is something that varies by location.
Just because you don't care for something doesn't make it wrong, it's just something you personally don't like. Presumably the people who buy these houses don't see the same drawbacks that you do.
Or sometimes you don't realize the drawback till you live with it.
This was the case with our former home. It was new construction (in 2009) and truly beautiful. I mean, you walked in and the WOW factor was definitely present. It had a huge foyer that opened into an open floor plan, with the kitchen tucked around the corner but still open.
No formal dining room but we had a big dining space (open to the living room and kitchen, of course).
There was a little alcove between the living room and the master bedroom, so you didn't immediately notice that the master shared a wall with the ONLY wall you could put a TV on in the cavernous living room.
One thing I immediately didn't like, but chalked up to "Well, you can't have everything" was that the fireplace was 1) in the corner and 2) didn't have a raised hearth. Like someone else said, it looked almost like an afterthought. But it had a pretty mantel so I figured it would do.
Another thing I didn't really like that much but decided I could live with was that to come from the garage carrying groceries, one had to walk through the mud room, then the foyer, then the living room, then the dining area, and finally into the kitchen. But hey, it was a spacious side entry garage so I shrugged that off too.
Things that slipped by me till it was too late:
Hardly any walls in the main living area and kitchen. My gosh, furniture placement was difficult. And forget hanging hardly any art. Between hardly any walls, huge windows, and doorways, we just didn't have much wall space. I ended up storing most of my art.
And we could forget lamps too. Hard to float a lamp in the middle of a cavern. I don't like overhead light, I prefer more intimately lit spaces. No deal there.
BOOMING, echoing TV against the master bedroom wall. AUGH. Even if it hadn't been against that wall, the sound of the TV on in the living room dominated everything.
Cooking smells - look, most cooking smells are pleasant, but I don't want them permeating my living room textiles every time I poach an egg.
Gigantic kitchen bar/island area. It was like it's own country. Too much granite. Too much empty space that frankly wasn't used that often.
I did like some things about the house. First of all, I loved the natural light from all the windows. And I loved the LOOK of the place - it looked very spacious and luxurious. I loved the finishes - the rough stucco walls, the tons of real wood trim, the granite, the fixtures. It's a good thing I loved all that because I couldn't help but look at every bit of it 24/7 because everything was open.
I've been viewing a lot of home designs while online, shopping for our next home. I love all the energy efficient stuff that hasn't been in homes past. But the designs! I'm wondering if anyone else wonders what these builders were thinking.
Well, without expounding on what exact "stuff" you're talking about it would be hard to say one way or the other.
Like those massive island bars in the kitchen. Or better yet the great room is so open anyone visiting can see into your kitchen 24/7. Walk into the home and see the back yard windows. .. And off to the left is a wall of kitchen cabinets and that massive island right there. It's like walking into a bar and seeing the wall of glasses and liquor lined up.
Ever heard of "supply and demand"? If it sells, that's what gets built over and over- clearly it's not YOUR "cup of tea".
For a young mobile active couple this layout may work. For a young family of 4 it does not.
Why not?
Another thing I've noticed is the fireplace is like an after thought. It's placed in a corner. Or boldly on a wall and it can't be incorporated into the design with a massive TV hanging on the wall. Furniture placement surrounds the TV, the fireplace is no longer a focal point.
Yes; today the fireplace is an "after-thought". People today "gather" around the TV, not the fireplace. Fireplaces were essential before there were other means of heating- keeping the heat would be done with tall-backed benches/chairs (the original concept behind wingback chairs). The gathering of the family and friends would be conversation of the day's happenings, book reading, schooling, etc.- it was a much simpler time.
Then there's the fact that these great rooms with a fireplace and massive TV is placed smack dab next to the master bedroom. So the main place the family gathers to watch early morning cartoons and late night movies is sharing a wall with the people that'd like to sleep in.
I wouldn't necessarily call that a "fact"- it would totally depend on a particular plan; not ALL PLANS!
Why can't the master bathroom be put between the great room and the master? Anything to block the noise.
I don't know; why not?
Thoughts?
Thoughts in BLUE...
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