Is open concept out?

[Anonymous]

After covid no one wants one large living room kitchen area. Nope. Space and privacy please!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work for an architect and I can’t remember having a client who wanted to close anything off that wasn’t a bedroom, bathroom, closet mud room, gym, ot office. Without exception every single project we work on a home involves opening something up.

With that said, trends don’t matter, do what makes you happy. I don’t think open concept is a trend, it is just the casual lifestyle people have had for the last 25 years.

Maybe when it comes to opening up a kitchen, I believe you, but it's totally bunk if you are talking about other spaces if you worked for an urban architect. There is plenty of demand to create closed off rooms when housing price goes over 1k/sq.ft and families want to make it work.
Urban townhomes where the walls were removed to create vast master bedrooms and dressing rooms and open living spaces for a childless couple tend to sit on the market longer, and if bought by families would undergo inevitable reconstruction of walls. And if you worked for an architect in NYC, you would be putting more walls in than taking them out to make bedrooms out of dining rooms, sleeping alcoves in studios, etc. Kitchens usually still undergo "opening up" because it makes the small spaces look larger, but not always. Galley kitchens are still abound to preserve precious cabinet space.

You don’t need to believe me.

I can also tell you there has never been a time in my career I’ve been busier. I only do residential work and I’m on 5 projects at the moment and still am taking out walls. The pandemic threw everything into a frenzy of work and opening up homes to create more functional spaces.

Not sure why you care to debate it, but I guess your the expert here living and breathing this 50 hours a week.🤷🏻‍♀️

No I do not do work in NYC. I work in The DMV and do a nice balance of renovation and new construction. All clients spending a small fortune

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Open Concept and Work from Home don't seem to go together particularly well. As more and more people work from home either full time or part-time, presumably there will be a greater need for actual rooms with doors that can close, as well as walls.

There are still bedrooms, separate living spaces, and basements in open concept SFHs, for the most part. I so think open concept townhouses can be much trickier to WFH in as open concept often truly does mean no meaningful separation other than bedrooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Open Concept and Work from Home don't seem to go together particularly well. As more and more people work from home either full time or part-time, presumably there will be a greater need for actual rooms with doors that can close, as well as walls.

There are still bedrooms, separate living spaces, and basements in open concept SFHs, for the most part. I so think open concept townhouses can be much trickier to WFH in as open concept often truly does mean no meaningful separation other than bedrooms.

Open concept is for public areas, but there are still private areas of the home.

We have a home that has an open concept. The open concept includes living room, dining room, family room, sunroom (which is the kids play room/hangout room) and kitchen. There is a first floor office/guest room with a door. And there are 4 bedrooms upstairs with plenty of privacy. One of those bedrooms is an office, so my wife uses the upstairs office and I use the downstairs guest room/office for teleworking. When the kids were virtual, they did their virtual classes from the family room and the playroom. We have been happily teleworking for 2.5 years now with our open concept home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After covid no one wants one large living room kitchen area. Nope. Space and privacy please!

Weird that every new build has that, then

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now that I have a child, I definitely see the value of separated spaces

Interesting. Open concept became more important to me w little kids bc I wanted to be able to see what they were doing while I was cooking or unloading the dishwasher or whatever. If I just hid from my kids i a closed off Galley kitchen they would wreck the house or at least each other

Surely you realize there are myriad options that fall between tiny galley kitchen and "my family room sofa is against my refrigerator"?

Surely you realize most open-concept houses do not actually have a couch next to a refrigerator?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Open concept stopped with covid because people were working from home and realized they needed doors. The only reason open concept became a thing was because builders like it because its a lot cheaper to build without interior walls and doors.

I guess you didn't read the prior post that explained that open-concept is actually more difficult and expensive because you don't have load-bearing walls and you need beams instead.

Also, please point to any evidence that open concept "stopped with Covid." Are there new builds going up with closed-off kitchens?

[Anonymous]

Made our cape cod open concept when the kids were little because I wanted to keep an eye on them! The key to making it work is to have other separate space available.

Our family room is open to the kitchen and our screened in porch. However, my spouse and I also each have separate home offices (mine doubles as a guest room, but we haven't had sleepover guests in ages), each child has their own bedroom with a desk, and we have a large finished basement that is also a teen hang out area.

We can all hangout together on the porch, in the family room, in the kitchen, even in the finished basement. Or, we all have our own spaces to go to.

Love it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Open Concept and Work from Home don't seem to go together particularly well. As more and more people work from home either full time or part-time, presumably there will be a greater need for actual rooms with doors that can close, as well as walls.

There are still bedrooms, separate living spaces, and basements in open concept SFHs, for the most part. I so think open concept townhouses can be much trickier to WFH in as open concept often truly does mean no meaningful separation other than bedrooms.

Open concept is for public areas, but there are still private areas of the home.

We have a home that has an open concept. The open concept includes living room, dining room, family room, sunroom (which is the kids play room/hangout room) and kitchen. There is a first floor office/guest room with a door. And there are 4 bedrooms upstairs with plenty of privacy. One of those bedrooms is an office, so my wife uses the upstairs office and I use the downstairs guest room/office for teleworking. When the kids were virtual, they did their virtual classes from the family room and the playroom. We have been happily teleworking for 2.5 years now with our open concept home.

Yep! We have a 3 story townhouse. The living room-dining room-kitchen level is semi open (there's a partial full-height wall separating the kitchen from the living room). Other two floors have separate room. It's the perfect blend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Open Concept and Work from Home don't seem to go together particularly well. As more and more people work from home either full time or part-time, presumably there will be a greater need for actual rooms with doors that can close, as well as walls.

As long as you have an office space with a door, it doesn’t really matter that the rest of the house is open concept. We have a mostly open concept main floor, but with a first floor bedroom that I use as an office. DH has his office in the loft Rex room area - were both very loud phone/video talkers, but worked from home very happily for 2+ years without driving each other batty. Now that we’re starting to entertain again, we really love having the open lkitchen/living room area

[Anonymous]

If your house is HUGE you can have open concept and privacy. If you house a normal sized, you usually have to choose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After covid no one wants one large living room kitchen area. Nope. Space and privacy please!

Weird that every new build has that, then

That’s because it’s cheap for builders to build. Walls, doors, door jams are expensive. Just because they want to shove a an open air barn style at you doesn’t mean you should buy. Read the real estate articles on this since covid. It’s gone and it will affect your resale because that barn look is already dated

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After covid no one wants one large living room kitchen area. Nope. Space and privacy please!

Weird that every new build has that, then

That’s because it’s cheap for builders to build. Walls, doors, door jams are expensive. Just because they want to shove a an open air barn style at you doesn’t mean you should buy. Read the real estate articles on this since covid. It’s gone and it will affect your resale because that barn look is already dated

Having weight bearing beams and supports around the house for an open floor plan are also very expensive. Builders don't save money by not including walls and doors. You spend much more to build an open plan with weight bearing beams than building a weight bear wall. Plus building to conceal electrical and plumbing and HVAC ventilation when you don't have walls to conceal things is expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After covid no one wants one large living room kitchen area. Nope. Space and privacy please!

Weird that every new build has that, then

That’s because it’s cheap for builders to build. Walls, doors, door jams are expensive. Just because they want to shove a an open air barn style at you doesn’t mean you should buy. Read the real estate articles on this since covid. It’s gone and it will affect your resale because that barn look is already dated

This is such BS. Open concept has been popular and homes have been moving that way for 50 years. It's not new. People prefer more open floor plans. The reason it shows up a lot in these home shows as a discussion point is they are usually renovating older homes so it can be perceived as something new. But the house I grew up in and was built in 1982 was mostly open on the ground floor. It's not going anywhere. It's not cheap either.

[Anonymous]

I need bright open spaces for my mental health. I am old and wealthy enough to not have to compromise. I will admit it was not great for at home schooling for the kids with at home work for adults but we ended up just putting desks in the kid rooms to solve the issue. I could maybe handle a closed in home if there was a very usable wide open covered outdoor space I could take breaks in. If anything new builds should focus on good outdoor spaces.