Am I the Bly one who is over the open floor plan?

[Anonymous]

I never liked them. I don't get the appeal.

[Anonymous]

We are in a newer Craftsman-style house that is a mix. When you enter the front door, there's a nice foyer, but it's only one story. [I prefer that to prior old center-hall Colonial, which had an entrance that always made me feel a bit puny, as if I should be giving speeches to my subjects from the second-floor landing, but couldn't quite pull it off.] Off the foyer are dining and living rooms and a small library, which are separate rooms. However, the rear of the house, where the kitchen, breakfast space and family room are located, is open. That's pretty nice, since you can be cooking in the kitchen and still have conversations with others in the family room. I don't think I'd like a ground floor that was completely open.

[Anonymous]

I think it depends on the size of the house. In a small old house, open floor plan opens up the cramped space and bring natural light in.

However I would have a hard time decorating a huge space with two story high ceiling - they mostly seem so cold.

[Anonymous]

When we renovated we could have opened up the kitchen to our smallish family room but it would have been expensive and kind of clutzy. I only regret it when we have a bunch of people over for a big game. Otherwise its nice to have some separation. I would annoyed by the kids / husband at times when trying to get dinner on the table and they are goofing around. We have doors to our family room so at night can watch TV without disturbing anyone else in the house. For noise control, the old fashion layout works much better.

[Anonymous]

I've never liked an open floor plan, for all the reasons others have stated: being able to be in one part of the house without hearing/seeing activities in others, being able to close off the kitchen after cooking, having more options for getting out of each other's hair, and not having the TV be the center of everything. My center hall colonial has windows on all sides and lots of natural light.

[Anonymous]

We recently moved and one of the things I was looking for was a separate family room from the kitchen because the TV watching was starting to bug me when I was in the kitchen. I started to walk around with earphones all the time to escape the sounds of Phineas and Ferb. My new kitchen is big enough to hang out in but I can't see the family room, although I'm assuming once the TV is installed I will still able to hear it.

[Anonymous]

Our house seems like a bit of both. When you walk in, there's an office behind french doors and a formal dining room to the right and left respectively. Then the back 2/3 of the main level are open - kitchen, breakfast nook, living space. Our TV/movie room and playroom are downstairs and we have all the bedrooms and a small loft with a smaller TV on the second floor. Works well for us.

[Anonymous]

I think if you have a large kitchen, then you don't need the kitchen family room combo. We are renovating and the kitchen will be large enough for a farm strike table and an island. One child can be doing homework while I cook in the kitchen and the second can practice an instrument is the family room. I think the great room concept came about due to the size of kitchens shrinking year after year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have kind of a combination that works great -- open family room/dining room but separate kitchen. That way we can have a party with lots of people and extend the table but no one sees the dirty dishes!

We have this too. Less formal dining room that opens into the family room...feels like a big open living space but with an eat in kitchen just around the corner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have kind of a combination that works great -- open family room/dining room but separate kitchen. That way we can have a party with lots of people and extend the table but no one sees the dirty dishes!

We have this too. Less formal dining room that opens into the family room...feels like a big open living space but with an eat in kitchen just around the corner.

Forgot to finish my thought...

We love having the open feel but never liked having the kitchen in the family room. We rented a home with this for a while and felt like we spent all our time in the kitchen, and didn't like having kitchen smell and dirty dishes and always sitting at an island. With our family room-dining room combo we have a large area for entertaining, a place to play games and do crafts while still being with others in the family room, and we eat most of our meals in the eat in kitchen so we get togetherness there as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are in a newer Craftsman-style house that is a mix. When you enter the front door, there's a nice foyer, but it's only one story. [I prefer that to prior old center-hall Colonial, which had an entrance that always made me feel a bit puny, as if I should be giving speeches to my subjects from the second-floor landing, but couldn't quite pull it off.] Off the foyer are dining and living rooms and a small library, which are separate rooms. However, the rear of the house, where the kitchen, breakfast space and family room are located, is open. That's pretty nice, since you can be cooking in the kitchen and still have conversations with others in the family room. I don't think I'd like a ground floor that was completely open.

This is similar to our layout, and what I've liked the most. It's not choppy, but it's not an echo chamber, either.

[Anonymous]

Every dumpy apartment I've lived in had an open floor plan. It gives me flashbacks to my single, college days when I was poor and living on beans, rice, and Ramen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I originally liked the kitchen/great room/dinning room own plan, but now I am yearning for a center hall colonial. The open space is hard to heat, everyone is in the same space most of the time, it is just not cosy.

Center hall colonials are great, the larger and newer ones have a nice combo of flow and openness, yet aren't as airy as some hardi plank new builds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the open floor plan trend was a scam by builders too cheap to put up walls in new construction but who wanted a way to trick buyers into paying more for less.

Heh!

[Anonymous]

Here's my opinion: I have a toddler and a galley kitchen that is not open to ANYTHING. It is really stressful cooking dinner and trying to find things to entertain my DS while I'm in there. He likes to be around me which is wonderful, but the kitchen is super small, so the best thing is for him to play with the cans of cat food, grocery bags, etc. And that's when he lets me put him down. Prior to having kids I was really ambivalent about open floor plans, but now that I have a child I really see why people like them. It would be wonderful to cook dinner while he plays with his toys within my line of vision, and his line of vision to me.