Anonymous wrote:I hate open floor plans. I hate most floor plans that are not original to the style of the house. That being said, we are buying a house with an l-shaped living/dining room, but the kitchen is an entirely separate room. We're that not the case, we would not buy it.

I also predict the death of open floor plans again. Soon.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate truly open floor plans. I like a defined sense of space, and since I often work at home I like to have a quiet room to be in. I like a sense of coziness when I'm sitting down to read, and open floor plans don't do it for me. When I'm in the kitchen or study, I don't want to hear what someone else is watching on the tv in the living room. When I'm sitting down to eat dinner I want it to be in a nice calm environment, and don't want to see the sink filled with pots and pans. And yes, I do clean my kitchen every day, but I don't clean up immediately after I finish cooking a meal - I wait until after the meal is over.

We have good flow through our house, but still have discrete rooms. To me that's ideal. It's harder to have that in a small house, though.

Also, I need some walls to hang my art on.

I have an open floor plan and guess what? It includes walls. So much wall space, in fact, that I have no problem finding room for our art and photos. What a bizarre comment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love having separate spaces for different things. When we have parties, it is nice for different groups to congregate in different areas. And I can set up the dining room in advance because it isn't in the main gathering area. That said, we have a semi-open floorplan - large walkways between most rooms. I can see the family room from the kitchen, but we also have a pocket door that can close the kitchen off. The kitchen itself is big enough for 6 or so people to gather. This arrangement has really worked for our family.
That said, I probably have a dinner party or other party where I'm cooking about 5 times a year. It always cracks me up on house hunters and other HGTV shows when people look at open kitchens and say "ooh, i love that I"ll be able to cook and still interact with my guests at parties." Unless you have a party every week, that seems like a really silly reason to choose a floorplan!

I guess I don't understand the preference to have your party guests separate from one another. I'd hate having to host and running from one room to another to talk to all of my guests. We only feel comfortable inviting a limited number of people to our (closed floorplan) house at once specifically for that reason. I wish we had a larger open space to invite more of our friends and family over.

Not the pp, but I guess for me it's like the the difference between being at a big wedding in a convention hall or ball room, and being at a wedding held at a historic mansion or tavern where you can move from one room to the next, each time enjoying a slightly different ambiance. It's about intimacy even if you have a large crowd. It's a different feeling and surely there's nothing wrong with either.

And some people don't like crowds at all and prefer to hang out in a smaller room with fewer people. I know people who won't go to big parties because they don't want to be stuck in a large space with tons of people. But they will go to a party at a house where they know they can hang out in the study or the kitchen.

But I think whether or not you like an open floor plan is more about how you live day to day, rather than about just how you entertain, and obviously there are just different feelings about that. Nothing wrong with either. Vive la difference!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love having separate spaces for different things. When we have parties, it is nice for different groups to congregate in different areas. And I can set up the dining room in advance because it isn't in the main gathering area. That said, we have a semi-open floorplan - large walkways between most rooms. I can see the family room from the kitchen, but we also have a pocket door that can close the kitchen off. The kitchen itself is big enough for 6 or so people to gather. This arrangement has really worked for our family.
That said, I probably have a dinner party or other party where I'm cooking about 5 times a year. It always cracks me up on house hunters and other HGTV shows when people look at open kitchens and say "ooh, i love that I"ll be able to cook and still interact with my guests at parties." Unless you have a party every week, that seems like a really silly reason to choose a floorplan!

I guess I don't understand the preference to have your party guests separate from one another. I'd hate having to host and running from one room to another to talk to all of my guests. We only feel comfortable inviting a limited number of people to our (closed floorplan) house at once specifically for that reason. I wish we had a larger open space to invite more of our friends and family over.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is there someone in this thread who is so invested in open floor plans that she keeps calling everyone else an idiot? Why does it matter what other people's preferences are?

Right? Who cares if someone likes or doesn't like an open floorplan? You're certainly not going to change someone's preference by calling them an idiot!

Anonymous wrote:pocket doors are used to install a door where there isn't enough swing space for preferable standard swing doors. They are often used to retrofit onto renovation where a door is too tight.

Anonymous wrote:pocket doors are used to install a door where there isn't enough swing space for preferable standard swing doors. They are often used to retrofit onto renovation where a door is too tight.