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Kids don't need that much watching. If they are old enough to play out of the play pen, they are old enough to play on the living room floor while you're in the kitchen.
Our first house had absolutely no privacy. Kitchen was literally five feet from the sofa where we watched the TV that was next to the dining table. Bedroom and bath opened directly off the living space. Everyone could hear whatever you were doing in the bath.
Second house was slightly better because it was simply bigger with the bedrooms on the 2nd floor. Kitchen, dining, living were still one space, just bigger, with the laundry and downstairs bath directly off the living.
Funny thing is in those open plans we felt cramped because everything was on top of everything else. Our third house is half the size of the second, yet live much larger because it has separation. Yet we raised two kids in that house.
We raised 5 kids. Mostly in houses with rooms and walls, but several years in an open concept warehouse type home. Really makes no significant difference whatsoever. Kids mostly focus on their play and on each other. If they are going to get into something they shouldn't, they will do so regardless of the floor plan of your house. Kids are persistent and clever. You will look away - walls or no walls.
[quote=turf3;56401353]On weekends I like to sleep in. My wife wakes up at 7:00 no matter what.
In our small (1200 sq. ft. house), she can go into the kitchen and have breakfast, read the paper, wash up the breakfast dishes, make a phone call, etc, and never disturb me, because we have THREE CLOSED DOORS between the bed I'm sleeping in, and the kitchen where she is.
That right there seals the deal for me. I grant you, if we wanted to spend all our savings on a huge open concept house and then pay the resulting exorbitant property taxes the rest of our lives, we could achieve the same thing. But in a small house the only way to have privacy and acoustical isolation is to have DOORS and WALLS.[/quote]
Exactly! Privacy and acoustical isolation - Yes!
You can make a 1500 sq ft house feel at least as palatial as a 2500 sq ft house. It's the layout! The single most important feature to incorporate into that 1500 sq ft layout is a circular traffic pattern (which, of course uses walls). You don't realize it until you actually go into such a house and experience it. That "circle" can simply go around something as small as a (completely walled in) stairwell and closet. It still has the same effect. I first realized this 50 years ago. There were 2 single story so-called "ranch style" model homes in a sub ("the Terrytown" and the "Collingwood"). Same price ($18,900). One (The Collingwood") had (instead of a family room + living room) only a large family room, offset from the kit/dining area. The kitchen was placed interior/central. The hall to the the BR's & baths went around that kitchen. Talk about a 1500 sq ft house feeling like a palace! Ironically, that model didn't sell. The one with a dead end hallway off of the LR/kitchen/family room did, however, and it, alone, became the only ranch style home of that size to be built in that area for the next 20 years.
Last edited by TwinbrookNine; 10-17-2019 at 09:14 AM..
My husband and I just moved. While we weren't looking specifically for or against an open concept home, we did realize that within that catch phrase there are all SORTS of types of construction.
Our history:
We've owned three houses together. One was what I would call truly "open concept" and while it had many advantages and I thought it was a beautiful home in many ways, it had a couple of challenges I did not PREFER. One of those challenges was that the kitchen was too open (for my taste) to the living room. Another challenge was that there actually wasn't a lot of space in the living room, even though it felt like it, because you had to have walk ways even though there weren't as many walls if that makes sense. Finally, just one eating area didn't really work for us in the long run and that's what this particular home had.
This didn't make or break the deal for us, but I will add that due to the high ceilings and the tile floor, even with rugs, the main living area could get very loud, and also cooking scents (and noises) could be very noticeable. We had a second living area so like I said, it wasn't a TERRIBLE drawback, but then, we also don't have kids still at home so we didn't have to deal with a lot of commotion much of the time. But during a get together things could really get loud.
But still, overall, I enjoyed hosting social events because in spite of what could be noisy, the kitchen was very comfortable and in the middle of the house and people could wander in and out of it and anyone in the kitchen could also see (and talk to) anyone in the living room. Plus the trim and the tall ceilings and abundant windows just made everything really pretty and pleasant.
Our next house was more closed but it did have wide archways between the kitchen and the living room (the dining room was completely separate - more on that in a minute). To me, in a way this was the best of both worlds. But the living room really did seem smaller and more closed off even though a person could move easily between rooms due to the "circular" design (I totally get what the other poster is talking about in that regard and it's very important to me). It was designed more for smaller groups, more privacy, etc. and there are pros and cons to that. I did like that it offered more wall space for art, and furniture placement was easier too. Thankfully it had tall ceilings and lots of windows so the smaller spaces never felt particularly confining. I noticed when we had get togethers there, people tended to break off into smaller groups and wander into other rooms, which can be nice but also, when more than about 5 people were in the living room together it felt crowded.
This current house, which we just bought, has a lot of openness to it but the spaces are clearly defined. The living room is large, and opens to the dining room, and I do like that - I learned that I do NOT like a very separate formal dining room. I like the sense of space that you get when the living room and dining room are adjacent and open to each other. Our kitchen is more open than in our second home but it does have a wall, with an opening/counter, between the living room and the kitchen. So while you can see into the kitchen (across a tall counter so you really can't see cooking brouhaha - LOL) from the living room, you have to actually walk into a separate room to go into the kitchen, if that makes sense. I like that.
Haven't hosted a big party here yet so we'll see how that goes, but I think it's going to be fine. I do think that kitchen noises and smells will be more front and center than in the second house but not as blatant as in the first house if that makes sense. Small drawback but not a deal killer.
One thing I always insist on, even in a more open floor plan, is a den - someplace that you can go to and close the door and get away from the more "sociable" open living room.
Also, I learned from the first house, that "open" may FEEL more spacious but look at actual square footage AND walk ways (you need three feet of open walkway not to feel constrained). You may be surprised at how small a room actually is when it comes to furniture placement options, which translates into where people can sit.
I don't really care whether others like open concept or not. What I hate is when all the builders in an area jump on the trend bandwagon and every dang house is some version of the same thing. Both our first and second houses were open concept and we hated it. We hated it in the first, yet wound up buying it in the second because there were no other choices available. Finally in our third house, in a different state, had a bit more separation. But I still have to hear the dish washer from the den because it's not totally separated.
Never understood the whole open concept thing.........really dumb, imho.
I will never live in an open concept home.
dumb just because you don't understand it? I think your post could have stopped at stating you do not understand it. As stated over and over - it's a personal preference. It doesn't make someone 'dumb' for liking one or the other.
dumb just because you don't understand it? I think your post could have stopped at stating you do not understand it. As stated over and over - it's a personal preference. It doesn't make someone 'dumb' for liking one or the other.
Yeah, I don't get why people have to be insulting because someone likes something different than they do.
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"People in open concept homes are realizing the walls were there for a reason" Yeah, in some cases they hold up the roof.
We just bought a house last August where someone had tried to make an open concept house by removing the wall between the kitchen and the living room AND the wall between the front bedroom and the living room. The ceiling dropped by about three inches and they were lucky it didn't completely fall on their head. (idiots!) They'd noted 'remove wall' on the wall between the bedrooms, too. Not sure what they thought was holding up the roof. Looked like they'd just gone nuts with a saws-all, although it might have been a chain saw? It turned out they were squatters, too, it had been a cute little house before they 'renovated' it. Oh well, we can fix it up, but it won't be an authentic 50's house anymore. The kitchen used to be pink before they painted it that tan color.
Living room/ kitchen wall removed
Living room to front bedroom wall removed.
Those are pictures from when the house was for sale. It sat on the market for nine months before we bought it. It's got quite a few issues other than just someone removing some walls, but we're fixing and upping.
It's technically a floor jack, but it works for ceilings, too. This picture is looking from the kitchen into the small living room, I can see why they'd want it to seem a bit more spacious, but removing structural walls without replacing some sort of support isn't quite the way to do it.
It's a small house of 760 square feet and it felt quite spacious as a one bedroom, but we're gonna put the wall back between the living room and restore the front bedroom so it will go back to being a two bedroom again. There's now a portion of wall between the kitchen and living room although we're not going to put the whole wall back. There's enough wall to hold the ceiling beam up at least and it's now been painted a lighter shade of blue, that was some leftover paint and it was a bit too blue. There will be a white post along the wall where the paint changes color. Also some wainscoting to add a 'cottage' feel to it. It sits on a hill overlooking the ocean so we're going for sea colors.
When it's done, it will be a 'semi-open' concept between living room and kitchen, I suppose. There will be a raised eating bar between the kitchen and living room. That will help hide dirty dishes since there's no dishwashing machine to hide them in.
I have mixed feelings on open concept. I lived in this spot on King in Toronto for about 3 years and mostly enjoyed the the open space but man if I had anybody crash at my place it was the worst. Had a buddy who'd stay over every now and then and snore like crazy; it would just echo through the whole place and into my room lol.
You do need to keep the place a lot cleaner, so no quarantining all your unfolded laundry somewhere. Kind of like apartment style layout better now with at least some separation.
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