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Hehehe that's good advice actually. I never fry anything in my kitchen. Fried food is bad for you, plus it makes such a flippin' mess whether you "clean as you go" or not.
And some cuisines are so...fragrant...that the smell soaks into every surface and you can never seem to get rid of it. (Indian food, I'm looking at you....)
For those complaining that TV watchers don't like to have competition from kitchen noises---TV Ears. You don't have to be hard of hearing to benefit from TV Ears but they really are terrific for those with a hearing loss.
I renovated 10 duplexes with open concept kitchen and they are very popular. These duplexes were built in the 40's and were very much in need of modernization so I bit the bullet and went for Open concept. They look terrific and tenants are drawn to open concept. I don't think younger buyers or renters are that hung up on "embarrassment from dirty dishes in the sink". They want the ability to socialize all together and not to be holed up in some dark crappy kitchen. Besides--everybody knows kitchens get dirty and there are dishes in the sink when food is prepared. It is no reflection of the hostess if her kitchen looks used when guests are being fed.
so true. my parents renovated their whole house (our house?) when I was just a girl. They created one of those "great rooms" with kitchen, dining room and living room all in 1 big space. It has caused so much angst between my parents. My dad watches TV super loud because he's practically deaf, and my mom tries to cook, and then he gets annoyed at all the noise it makes. Or do dishes - again, more noise. I think open kitchens LOOK really nice and SEEM great in theory because you might think you won't be stuck in the kitchen cooking, but it ends up being the opposite. Oh, and I've had an open kitchen recently and we just moved and I'm thinking about swinging the other way around because the open kitchen meant the kids were all over me when I cook. If there were only a door I could close...
My house predates open concept by about 84 years, but there is a pretty arch leading from living room to kitchen. The style is shotgun with the kitchen inback and the kitchen is plenty big. But it still bugs me that there is no DOOR. I'm looking into the barndoor hookups and putting in one to slide it closed. I like shutting the door when cooking even if its only me and the four legged kids.
I'm starting on fixing up the kitchen, and planning on faux period/country style, but as many such kitchens had multipurpose furnature, I have built a small island from an old bathroom cabinet which is storage and a prep area and a table. It slides, though with some difficulty. I remember when we were looking for a house when we moved from Los Angeles to the beach as a teen, mom's absolute demand was the kitchen had a DOOR. We ended up with galley kitchen and family room, but if she needed space she got it. I think largely most of the time the door leading to the living room was closed. The other one usually was.
Mom insisted the living room be neat. The family room usually wasn't but it had two doors between it and strangers, and only good friends or family went there.
My house predates open concept by about 84 years, but there is a pretty arch leading from living room to kitchen. The style is shotgun with the kitchen inback and the kitchen is plenty big. But it still bugs me that there is no DOOR. I'm looking into the barndoor hookups and putting in one to slide it closed. I like shutting the door when cooking even if its only me and the four legged kids.
I'm starting on fixing up the kitchen, and planning on faux period/country style, but as many such kitchens had multipurpose furnature, I have built a small island from an old bathroom cabinet which is storage and a prep area and a table. It slides, though with some difficulty. I remember when we were looking for a house when we moved from Los Angeles to the beach as a teen, mom's absolute demand was the kitchen had a DOOR. We ended up with galley kitchen and family room, but if she needed space she got it. I think largely most of the time the door leading to the living room was closed. The other one usually was.
Mom insisted the living room be neat. The family room usually wasn't but it had two doors between it and strangers, and only good friends or family went there.
To me this has an unbalanced "round hole , square peg" look to it, but if you wants your privacy you has gots to has it --
Different market I guess. My neighborhood is mostly traditional ranch houses built in the mid to late 1950s and some have been updated to be open-plan, but many have not because it's cost-prohibitive to knock out so many walls and have to rearrange the entire kitchen's wiring and plumbing. The houses aren't valuable enough to justify the expense. Houses the same size as mine are just scraping the $290k mark; I bought mine 5 years ago for $190k, if that gives you any idea of how ridiculous our market here has gotten.
My house still has its original floorplan and original kitchen cabinets and layout from when it was built in 1957. It doesn't bug me enough to spend what it would take to "open it up."
Also it seems like most of the neighbors I've talked to do not like the entire common area of the house to be open-plan. They want to be able to close off at least some of it from kids, pets, etc. Even if they've cut out a pony wall between the den and formal living room, they install shutters so they can close it off. If they knock through, they sometimes hang sliding or folding doors so they can close it off if they want to.
It's common for SF homes to have some semblance of a finished partial or full basements in my area. That's where the kids hang out once they reach a certain age. Perhaps this is why the open concept of common areas is embraced.
What exactly counts as open concept kitchen anyway? If you have a large kitchen with an eat-in area, is that open? What if the kitchen (with eat-in area) is separated by walls from the rest of the house, but the walls don't have doors, is this still open?
Probably a regional thing. In my area, open concept means the kitchen and dining area open to a family room or in the case of the absence of a family room, the living room. It's a variation of great room.
I have a listing right now with a kitchen that is not open and the first thing buyers do is engage in discussion of the need to open it up to the family room. They also dislike the oak cabinets and Corian counters. Easy enough to show them what they want to see if they could only spend $100k more.
It won't be too long before the right buyer realizes that they can redo and open it up for $35k +\-, depending on quality of cabs and finishes and in doing so, create instant equity. A skilled DIYer could do even better.
And the reality is that even looking out 20+ years into the future...
Quote:
Originally Posted by middle-aged mom
Probably a regional thing. In my area, open concept means the kitchen and dining area open to a family room or in the case of the absence of a family room, the living room. It's a variation of great room.
I have a listing right now with a kitchen that is not open and the first thing buyers do is engage in discussion of the need to open it up to the family room. They also dislike the oak cabinets and Corian counters. Easy enough to show them what they want to see if they could only spend $100k more.
It won't be too long before the right buyer realizes that they can redo and open it up for $35k +\-, depending on quality of cabs and finishes and in doing so, create instant equity. A skilled DIYer could do even better.
...I would not envision that there are going to be whole lot of folks doing the opposite. I mean I don't have a crystal ball but unless someone truly did a hideously incompetent job of "opening up" the kitchen there is very little chance that folks will be thinking "golly a nice solid wall / swinging door is really what this house needs".
To be sure I have seen some poorly thought out remodels that do need the various functional spaces better "defined" but that usually means someone tired to re-use crummy base cabinets as a makeshift island, dropped a picnic table where they really need a nice farmhouse table or let the upholstered furniture from the family room be much too close to the work spaces in the kitchen. These are things that anyone with reasonable skills of "picking the right house" would know BEFORE they got out the reciprocating saw and sledge, but that is why the shows on HGTV often do fast forward through a dozen or so houses before they pick one or two worthy of "opening up"...
The thing that I am seeing right now in my neck of the woods are some "post Brady Bunch" era homes. These frankly do not have the same features as "cleaner" mid century moderns and strike me as harder to really to update without gutting iconic items. The heavy looking rough hewn stone walls / fireplaces and things like brickwork in the kitchen around a gas fired brazier are just not nearly as appealing as the more streamlined features of early mid century modern homes. In many cases these places are quite "open" (think of the Brady Bunch "dining table" was in the same space as the big lving room and open staircase...) but just live "funky" -- no place for a flat panel TV, family room on "far side" of kitchen / other wing of house...
It's common for SF homes to have some semblance of a finished partial or full basements in my area. That's where the kids hang out once they reach a certain age. Perhaps this is why the open concept of common areas is embraced.
That may be the difference. Basements are excruciatingly rare in north Texas. The vast majority of houses built since the 60s here are on concrete slabs. Mine's a pier and beam with a 12-18" crawlspace underneath...that's about as close to "basement" as you get around here.
It is a scripted show
The writers put the words in their mouths and some shows seem to share same script w one in another state even
I agree 100%. Have you ever noticed that in virtually every show, a buyer will comment about how much they like the "natural light." Obviously, some producer told them to say that.
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