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At least the kitchen in your drawing has 3 walls, which is 50% more than than my kitchen has. I'd call that an improvement. But a view of the bathroom from the front door? Maybe we need another thread to discuss the horrors of that.
If that's such a huge issue for you, keep the bloody door shut.
I swear some of you people are borderline-neurotic.
I love my open floor on the main level. The kitchen, breakfast bar and living room all wide open, no walls. We have a fantastic view of the Elkhorn and Big Belt mountains plus the lake in the valley. The natural light and the fresh western mountain breeze rolls through the entire large expansive room. I couldn't imagine closing all that off to the senses. Big, bright, airy and open. Just like Big Sky country.
Of course we have no traffic whizzing by, street lamps or other nuisances to make us want to close ourselves off to our surroundings either. Just the errant whitetail or mule deer, maybe an elk here and there, antelope in the field in front of us, and the multitude of birds visiting the feeders.
It's 20deg here and we have a window open right now..Ahhh.. Crisp fresh air...
The worst? A bathroom attached to the kitchen - like right next to your cabinets - as part of that mega room thing. UGH. I get it, they kind of have no choice, because you have to have a wall so you can have a door, but sheesh. Hmm.... maybe they don't, afterall, though..... I can picture it, all that openness can extend to just sticking a toilet in the mega room. (Okay, I admit it, I'm getting plain silly now - I hope).
LOL, you just THOUGHT you were kidding! These aren't houses, but apartments, but they sure give new meaning to the "open concept" concept.
I love my open floor on the main level. The kitchen, breakfast bar and living room all wide open, no walls. We have a fantastic view of the Elkhorn and Big Belt mountains plus the lake in the valley. The natural light and the fresh western mountain breeze rolls through the entire large expansive room. I couldn't imagine closing all that off to the senses. Big, bright, airy and open. Just like Big Sky country.
Of course we have no traffic whizzing by, street lamps or other nuisances to make us want to close ourselves off to our surroundings either. Just the errant whitetail or mule deer, maybe an elk here and there, antelope in the field in front of us, and the multitude of birds visiting the feeders.
Absolutely gorgeous views! Those are views you want to bring inside, and IMO open spaces in your house are the best way to do that.
We have the same idea, only we're located in SW Florida, where our house is situated on a canal just off an estuarial river, and we look out over the water, mangroves and wetlands, and more river beyond that. It never looks the same way twice, as the flora and fauna do their living out there, and the tides rise and fall. We do have neighbors on each side, but the houses aren't too close, and the windows/sliding glass doors mainly look out over the water, where the only folks we might see are in the occasional boats that head out to the river. It's in a very quiet area too so not much traffic either.
As someone else said, it's like an oversize studio apartment.
Unlike most folks I am in the minority of people who love formality and elegance in my home. My house is a c.1894 Second Empire Victorian with slate mansard roof, leaded stained glass windows, high ceilings, pocket doors ... and very compartmentalized rooms: a front parlor, a center hall, a butler's pantry, eat-in kitchen, formal dining room, etc. There are no children or pets in my home.
I am a romantic and a lover of history. Things that appeal to me are Downton Abbey and Gone With The Wind. We romantics aspire to a sense of graciousness and even opulence in our lives (as our budget permits) and that is why over the years I've decorated the place with traditional furniture, marble-top tables, crystal chandeliers, wall sconces, console tables and so on. That's just me. It makes me happy.
Agree 1000% about not liking to cook that way. I really prefer to cook alone. I can't concentrate properly and I feel stressed out with too much company in the kitchen. Also, visitors, please don't "help" by filling the dishwasher for me. I will literally take everything out and reload it the way I like it and how I think dishes get cleanest.
I didn't feel deprived at all by not getting to ogle their sink full of dishes soaking or their greasy "hearth room" as is now the trend. (All "hearth rooms" off the kitchen are greasy in my opinion, even the name of it sounds greasy, or sooty at least.)
I don't like cooking help either. My wonderful gf (now fiancee) doesn't cook and I cook a lot, however, she knows an enormous amount about cooking. She hovers over me when I'm cooking, watching my every move and occasionally making unwelcome "suggestions." I love her to pieces, but it makes me very nervous to have people watching me cook, whether they are saying anything or not.
And don't even get me started on dishwashers. Never mind, here I go on the dishwasher rant anyway. That is the most useless kitchen appiance ever invented. Since my fiancee is a home inspector, she insists I use the dishwasher at least once a month because she says I need to circulate water through its body parts to keep it functional (as if it really does anything anyway). I think dishwashers are stupid. Why? Because for most dishwashers costing less that $2500, the procedure always goes something like this:
After you eat on the dish, you rinse the food off. Sometimes you have to scrub the dish too. The you put it in the dishwasher. But you can't just put it in the dishwasher and call it good. You have to load it a certain way (however that is) or it won't clean the ?(+$% dishes as it was designed to do. And you can't put plastic dishes on the bottom, supposedly. So you pretty much have to wash the dishes before you put the in the dishwasher, the appliance that is supposed to do exactly what you already did prior to loading them. After loading them, you add diswashing soap and run the diswasher. So you wash the dishes twice. After it's done, the dishes are often wet, so you often have to dry them before putting them away. Forget that. I wash all my dishes by hand, wash them in about 1/3 of the time, and use much less water. The only time I use that dishwasher is when she notices the cobwebs forming
We have that open floor plan too. I hate it just as much. She works out of the house, and her office has no doors. So whenever she is on the phone, I have to be completely quiet, because she can't shut the nonexistent door to her office. When we buy our next home, it will not be open floor plan.
I hate victorians and in-town living. Ugh. They're stuffy, gaudy and wholly inefficient walled off messes. I grew up in a suburban / in town nightmare and couldn't wait to leave.
I was so happy to move to our family farmhouse in Ohio when I was 12-13 years old. A big brick late 1800's German 3 story farmhouse with a huge open eat in kitchen that led to the open parlor and living room. Only the bedrooms on the 2nd and 3rd floor had doors (and of course the bathrooms). It was heaven. My great grandmother, grandmother and mom cooking huge meals while we worked in the barn or in the field. Man did that ever cement my decision to never live in a walled off nightmare again.
Unfortunately 7 years ago my wife and I had to get a place in town (in Bridgeport WV) for a few years until I transferred west. A 1970's colonial suburban walled off nightmare. Tiny little rooms, cramped family room, houses and noise all around us. Ugh. I hated every second of every minute of every day in that environment. No connection to the outside, the yellow glow of street lamps through the windows at night.. Blech.
I don't like cooking help either. My wonderful gf (now fiancee) doesn't cook and I cook a lot, however, she knows an enormous amount about cooking. She hovers over me when I'm cooking, watching my every move and occasionally making unwelcome "suggestions." I love her to pieces, but it makes me very nervous to have people watching me cook, whether they are saying anything or not.
And don't even get me started on dishwashers. Never mind, here I go on the dishwasher rant anyway. That is the most useless kitchen appiance ever invented. Since my fiancee is a home inspector, she insists I use the dishwasher at least once a month because she says I need to circulate water through its body parts to keep it functional (as if it really does anything anyway). I think dishwashers are stupid. Why? Because for most dishwashers costing less that $2500, the procedure always goes something like this:
After you eat on the dish, you rinse the food off. Sometimes you have to scrub the dish too. The you put it in the dishwasher. But you can't just put it in the dishwasher and call it good. You have to load it a certain way (however that is) or it won't clean the ?(+$% dishes as it was designed to do. And you can't put plastic dishes on the bottom, supposedly. So you pretty much have to wash the dishes before you put the in the dishwasher, the appliance that is supposed to do exactly what you already did prior to loading them. After loading them, you add diswashing soap and run the diswasher. So you wash the dishes twice. After it's done, the dishes are often wet, so you often have to dry them before putting them away. Forget that. I wash all my dishes by hand, wash them in about 1/3 of the time, and use much less water. The only time I use that dishwasher is when she notices the cobwebs forming
We have that open floor plan too. I hate it just as much. She works out of the house, and her office has no doors. So whenever she is on the phone, I have to be completely quiet, because she can't shut the nonexistent door to her office. When we buy our next home, it will not be open floor plan.
You must either have the absolute cheapest or outdated dishwasher known to mankind because you haven't needed to rinse dishes prior to loading in a decent dishwasher for years now; in fact several manufacturers specifically recommend not to because it causes the sensor measuring the dirtiness of the water to give false readings (yet most folks still do out of habit and waste water and energy in the process).
It goes like this; Tilt the dish or pan in the sink or over the trash, a quick scrape off of clingy food remaining, toss them in exactly how they easily fit, pop in a soap packet, touch the start button, close, don't hear a thing (yes, it's working) and voilà, perfectly clean and dry dishes and pans every time. With a lot less water than anyone washing by hand generally uses. Yes, there is the rare, "one that got away" item that needs a quick wipe and some pans obviously have to be washed by hand but this is how it works in my house.
I love my open floor on the main level. The kitchen, breakfast bar and living room all wide open, no walls. We have a fantastic view of the Elkhorn and Big Belt mountains .
You have Elkhorn Mountains in Montana, too??
Here is an early morning view of the Eastern Oregon (the sparsely populated dryer part of Oregon) Elkhorn Mountains from my kitchen window in Baker City. (Flatlanders eat your hearts out.):
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