When will open plan go away?

[Anonymous]

I hate open plan. I use a lot of garlic and spices when I cook: the smell goes EVERYWHERE. But it's so hard to find a house with a contained kitchen (like, totally enclosed with a powerful range hood).

If I customize myself to create a closed-off kitchen, then it'll hurt me on re-sale since everyone mysteriously wants open-plan. Do most people just not cook, beyond boiling water for pasta???

Is there any chance that enclosed kitchens will make a comeback?

[Anonymous]

We do cook. We just don’t mind the smell of our cooking.

[Anonymous]

You’re not alone in hating open plan. Get the kitchen you want. There will be buyers.

[Anonymous]

Op You just need good Ventilation to mitigate the curry odor. Closed kitchen dues not help. Vent, vent

[Anonymous]

^ Well that was subtly racist. There are plenty of kitchen smells not involving curry. *eyeroll*

[Anonymous]

Get yourself a Lampe Berger.

[Anonymous]

DP here. We are Indian-Americans and love our delicious spice and herbs infused foods. No, not just curry, but we use herbs, spices, condiments, garlic, fennel, onions, leeks, ginger, galangal etc for all the cuisines that we make - Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Korean, Middle Eastern etc.

We do the following to get rid of smells and smoke -
1) We have a hood over the cooking range that vents outside the house. We wash the filters pretty regularly
2) We also open the kitchen window and use two powerful vornado fans to vent outside. The hood also vents on the same side of the house, so we make sure that we are not pulling that back in the house. On the opposite side of the house, we open the windows to create some cross ventilation.
3) we close all doors on all levels to prevent the smell from travelling.
4) We shut down the HVAC to prevent the smell from circulating when we are cooking.
5) We makes sure that our jackets etc are stowed in the coat closet and the door is closed to prevent the smell permeating into clothes and outerwear.
6) We have a UV light in our HVAC and heavy duty filters and it basically removes all smells.

We cook a lot and every day and there is no smell of curry or anything else in our home. Having a seperate closed off kitchen will not change anything if you have the same HVAC system circulating air in the whole house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We do cook. We just don’t mind the smell of our cooking.

Yup, same here. I do avoid frying things unless it's a special occasion like latkes for Hanukkah because of the smell, but for the most part I would rather not be in a closed off kitchen.

That said, it's your house. Why live with an open kitchen that you hate for 10 or 20 years because you're concerned about resale down the road? Unless you're actually planning to sell soon there's no reason I see to not enclose it.

[Anonymous]

I like the smell of my cooking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You’re not alone in hating open plan. Get the kitchen you want. There will be buyers.

+1 I also hate the open plan. It really is annoying to go to someone's house, walk in the front door and see everything. It is way TMI and people live a lot more messily than they think they do.

I think opinions about the open floor plan will swing back dramatically once the kids who live in them start buying houses. Why do I think this? Until March I drove a lot of carpools. You'd be surprised at what kids think about it and what they say about their homes' open floor plans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re not alone in hating open plan. Get the kitchen you want. There will be buyers.

+1 I also hate the open plan. It really is annoying to go to someone's house, walk in the front door and see everything. It is way TMI and people live a lot more messily than they think they do.

I think opinions about the open floor plan will swing back dramatically once the kids who live in them start buying houses. Why do I think this? Until March I drove a lot of carpools. You'd be surprised at what kids think about it and what they say about their homes' open floor plans.

What do kids say about their open floor plans?

[Anonymous]

Open Plan is so loud

And it's worse with all the hard flooring
There was a comforting reason people use to have carpet

[Anonymous]

I like my kitchen somewhat closed off. It keeps the hustle and clutter of the kitchen prep away from my guests. My living room and dining room are open but the kitchen has a half wall and cabinets seperating them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re not alone in hating open plan. Get the kitchen you want. There will be buyers.

+1 I also hate the open plan. It really is annoying to go to someone's house, walk in the front door and see everything. It is way TMI and people live a lot more messily than they think they do.

I think opinions about the open floor plan will swing back dramatically once the kids who live in them start buying houses. Why do I think this? Until March I drove a lot of carpools. You'd be surprised at what kids think about it and what they say about their homes' open floor plans.

Kids talk about open floor plans?

I’ve never heard any kids talk about the floor plan of their home. Well, one kid, who grew up to be a contractor, but he was the only one.

[Anonymous]

We cook three meals a day and don’t mind open floor plan. To the extent the smells travel (which I don’t think really happens much, beyond the smelliest of meals), we generally like the smells of what we’re cooking.

We currently leave in a house with a closed odd kitchen and we hate it with a passion. It’s drastically cut back on how much we both cook, because it’s so isolating to be in there.