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Every single homeowner on HGTV entertains constantly...yet they want to live near the restaurants and bars to go out to eat.
They want the open concept so they could cook while they talk to their visitors/family. I didn't have open concept for the past 40 years yet I entertained..especially on holidays... 30 people for Christmas Eve or Thanksgiving was nothing.
I agree with Meyerland because you have to clean up constantly when people could see your kitchen and also don't burn anything as the whole first floor will be smoky and smell. Another thing? If someone is watching TV and you're using the blender..I can just see the arguments.
I don't like the idea of not having walls to put furniture against or hang pictures. But that's 65 year old me.
I actually like walls. We had a 2003 house with open concept, but now that would be considered closed. People asked if you could take down the one wall between kitchen and LR.
P.S Lets go Kings!
When showing houses, I can walk into a kitchen and know if the designer has ever even boiled water in their lives. A great example of this, in high end homes, is a gorgeous kitchen with all the bells and whistles and a huge eight or ten-foot long island in the middle - with the sink on one wall placed about in the middle of the island's length, and the stove on the other wall, placed likewise. I look at one of those and all I can think is "spaghetti water" - carrying a full pan of boiling hot spaghetti all the way around the island from the stove to the sink to drain it.
Open concept or closed, the work area is the important thing.
My living room is "public space." My kitchen is "family space." My family room is "family space."
I don't want people who I have merely allowed through the front door to have immediate view of my family spaces.
I like having a kitchen that is easily accessible (not the same thing as "open") to the rest of my "family space," so kitchen open to family room is fine. Kitchen open to living room is not fine for me.
My house isn't open-plan at all. It has a good floor plan. I'd like to be able to see into the den from the kitchen, but the way the wiring and plumbing is done, I'd have to rearrange so much of the kitchen that putting in a pony wall is totally impractical. So I live with it.
I don't know anyone who entertains regularly in an open-concept kitchen. Some of my neighbors do have regular gatherings, but they hold them mostly outside on decks. A few neighbors have built outdoor kitchens for grilling. That's more popular around here, anyway.
I'm sure the sellers would be p'od to know realtors were knocking their listing. Ok, realtors are "required" to point out all defects, but an inconvenient floorplan is NOT a defect, its a matter of opinion. Buyers can see the plan for themselves, that's why they tour a listed home! We had a home in Houston for sale, and found out the agent felt it necessary to point out that the second bathroom was "rather small. Hey, it was standard size, and we'd put a ton of money and work into improving it, it was practically rebuit from the bottom up. She asked US what we felt to be selling points and we noted the bathroom, with solid brass fixtures, new toilet, ceramic tile, extra powerful vent fan, new paint, new marble countertops, and a newly installed linen closet. We found out she never even mentioned any of those selling points. Instead, she went out of her way to point out the second bathroom was "rather small". Like I said, buyers had their opportunity to think for themselves when seeing it, and also the deminsions are stated. Its not like we performed some sort of optical illusion.
We toured an open house a few weeks ago, and the agent seemed to be most interested in pointing out the backyard was small. Ok, well, small for what? Go look, see for yourselves. There again, its a matter of opinion.
IMO, realtors are best at deal killing
I couldn't disagree more, MaryLeeII! When I am plunking down several hundred K on the biggest purchase of my life, and my real estate agent is getting 3% of it, I hire him/her to help me make a good decision. I once toured a house that was elaborately staged and showed beautifully. It was magazine perfect. As we walked out the slider to the gorgeously landscaped back yard, my agent pointed out that the only access to this back yard was through this slider, which was located in the master bedroom. Ugh.
Last edited by semispherical; 06-08-2014 at 09:50 AM..
A lot of times when houses are designed, they are designed for a particular person or family who have some particular needs or ideas. Which may or may not translate well to a different families wants and needs. One hopes houses will be designed which will have some resale value once the original owners no longer want it, but the original owners wants frequently trump possible resale values.
As for kitchens, there are more to them than the "work triangle". Consider the flow pattern so once a cooking project is underway it goes neatly from one area to the other without a lot of crisscrossing. Food comes from the refrigerator and storage area and usually goes onto a counter on it's way to the sink or prep area. A ginormous Sub Zero refrigerator isn't going to be all that useful without a counter next to it. Preferable on both sides. Then the food gets washed, the packaging put into recycling, the food is then cut & prepped, put into cookware and to the cooking facility. A Wolf stove without space on either side isn't as nice as a no-name brand in a proper location.
Food is cooked, plated, served and then the plates come back in for washing as well as the cookware. Not to mention getting the food into the kitchen in the first place, a nice flow pattern from the car to food storage is a good thing. Most folks only seem to be concerned about the serving or cooking part, but those are just small parts of the whole process.
As for "openess" that can be good or bad as well as over done. Walk into a huge area with twenty four foot ceilings and think about how you feel in that space. Find a cozy nook and think about how you feel in that space. Personally, I seem happiest in a nine to twelve foot ceiling. Much higher than that and it's too open for me and I spend too much time trying to figure out how they change the lightbulbs. Eight foot ceilings are okay, but nine is better.
Walls don't have to be static, either. You can have one or multiple sliding doors which will close off part or all of an area. Then, when you are entertaining, you can open them up when you want the area accessible and close them off, when you're done with the area.
Currently we are living in a smaller house with what I call a "one butt" kitchen. It's big enough to have a small eating area in it and has a "work triangle" but there's only room for one person at the busy point of the triangle. Mostly that is due to the sink being set at the bend of the "L" shape in the kitchen. I didn't design it but I can see why it was done the way it was, it has a few constraints in placement due to it's size and configuration. One nice thing the kitchen does have is sliding shoji doors between the kitchen and living room.
I'm also beginning to appreciate solid linoleum tiles (42 years old and they look like the day they were installed) although the Formica counter tops not only look dated (anyone remember that white with the gold sparkles in it?) but is worn as well. That will be replaced eventually but there's a few other projects ahead of it. Granite is surprisingly inexpensive considering how happy a lot of folks get about it and how fancy they think it is, but we will probably just pick a better color of Formica and go with that. If your glassware falls over on Formica it will survive and if it falls over on granite, it won't. Same with those lovely enameled cast iron sinks. They look lovely, but they will eat your dishes. So, a stainless steel sink (too bad stainless doesn't come in colors), Formica counter tops and a solid linoleum tile floor. The walls are clear finished redwood except for the tile area around the stove. But these choices are only what I'd pick for this particular kitchen here, other kitchens and other folks would want entirely different things. I doubt HGTV would be interested in a kitchen like ours unless they were doing a retro show or something.
Has anyone noticed, though, that on many of those shows even after they are done with their renovation it doesn't look all that much different nor that nice? The folks are spending a LOT of money on something that doesn't look good. What's up with that?
You can get a replacement front for cheap...at least it will blend a bit better while you wait for the vibes to work.
I actually did some research with my make and model looking for a replacement stainless front, and couldn't locate any on the Internet.
I'd surely buy it in a shake of a sheep's tail if I found one for sale.
Oh I sure wish it would break soon. I'm right about at my one year anniversary and not too late to renew my home warranty before it lapses.
It will be stainless one day or another. I plan to live in this house until either (1) I get pronounced and carried out feet first, or (2) the California state government finally goes off the deep end and Boxer, Feinstein, Pelosi and Moonbeam are simultaneously reported to be infected by rabies.
II don't want people who I have merely allowed through the front door to have immediate view of my family spaces.
Those people don't even get in my front door. The only people I let in are friends and family, and those necessary people, tradesmen, contractors, handy men, etc. who have to see the whole house.
In fact I'll reveal worse about myself. When the doorbell rings I look through the peep hole and if I'm not expecting anybody and it isn't a friend or relative I just go back to what I was doing and ignore them.
And yet worse: Phone me with no caller ID or "blocked" and I don't pick up, and I have the answering part switched off. People who need to contact me have my cell, my email or both. (I don't answer "blocked" on my cell either. But they go to voice mail and they are always calls I would have hung up on.)
My whole house is my personal space. Public ends at the front door.
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