Anonymous wrote:Open floor plans are for people and builders who can't afford more dry wall. It looks cheap!

And yet there are people who pay for removing walls (and often structural ones) to have it.
I had a closed kitchen in my previous house and absolutely hated the isolation of cooking dinner on my own with everyone else hanging out in the living room. I love my current open concept kitchen.
Can’t we just accept that different people prefer different things?

We normally set out the food in our dining room off of the kitchen, so that is where the majority of people are. The flow is much better out to our deck and porch and patio. I don't find I'm missing the action at all and I actually like having a little bit a long time finishing up some kitchen stuff before moving into the dining room.

If you normally have food and stuff laid out on your counter that is why people congregate in the kitchen, but if you don't want that, move it somewhere else. Eventually, I would like to have our kitchen window slide open to our deck.

I hate open more plans and think they are best for starter homes when you can't afford anything better

Any friends I have who have a more closed off kitchen, everyone stands around in the kitchen when they are entertaining. Which is fine if you are fine with that. I think culturally, that is where we are. The era of your guests wait in the living room or dining room while you whisk back and forth serving them is not the norm. I suppose you could tell people to go sit in the other room? This would make me feel awkward as a guest probably. You would definitely have to say it out loud to people. I think people perceive it as rude to go sit down and ignore the host who is busy in the kitchen. I especially don't want to do it if the male half of the couple sits down with us while the woman does all the work.

I have a 1965 house with a 1995 kitchen and I love the layout. Its somewhere in between open and closed with the wall in the middle and the kitchen, dining sitting area and living room looped around. I need to redo the kitchen at some point, but I likely won't change the floor plan!

Anonymous wrote:I love my open kitchen and love having company in the kitchen while I’m cooking, but it’s your house, so do what you like. Whatever you do will probably look/feel a bit dated by the time that you end up selling, so might as well get what you want and will enjoy.

+1 I've had both, too.

I didn't like the closed kitchen because when we had friends over, sometimes they would be in the dining room area by themselves while DH and I would finish up in the kitchen, or I'd be in there myself (usually) while everyone else was chatting.

Our current house had a closed kitchen that desperately needed remodeling (really). We opened up some walls to create an open space, however, the way it is configured, part of the living room is behind the wall of the kitchen, so if you sit on one side of the living room, you can't see the kitchen, though you can hear some noise and obviously the smells.

But, I like it this way because we are pretty low key, and when we entertain, we usually all hang out in the large kitchen area.

having stated that, if you do most of the cooking, including when you entertain friends, then IMO, you should have more say.

Open floor plans are for people and builders who can't afford more dry wall. It looks cheap!

I can't stand the open floor plan. It's loud, messy and totally not practical at all.

NEVER go with trends unless you want to spend another $100K and living in a renovation zone a few years from now.

I have a closed off kitchen but then the rest of my floor plan is fairly open. It feels like the best of both worlds.

Whenever I see an open floor plan I think of cheap.

If you have super young kids I can see some benefits of an open concept kitchen but to be honest I absolutely hated ours. I hated that it was always a visual clutter. Catch-all and I couldn't escape it while sitting on the couch. Our kitchen now is still open but there are walls separating it from parts of the home and I love that. While I am cooking, the kids can be in another room and I don't have to see or hear of them but they are older now. I can have on a TV show or a podcast and they can be watching a show in the family room so it works out really well

I have a half wall and glass cabinets above. It is perfect to me. My kitchen feels both separate and open to the eating area. I have been advised to take down the wall and put an island in by a few designers but declined.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, builders are trying to sell open floor plan because it reduces their costs (fewer walls, fewer interior doors), not because it is functional or desirable.

I've designed and built many kitchens. Walls make them cheaper. Drywall and framing are the cheapest materials in the building, and walls give you places to run plumbing and electrical. What gets expensive is having to figure out how to get a sink or an outlet onto an island with no walls nearby. Without walls you still want to divide the space, you end up doing that with cabinetry, and cabinetry is way more expensive than a simple partition wall. Plus you have to get cabinetry that is finished on all sides which adds to the cost considerably.

And it's way cheaper to have a bearing wall than to have a beam holding up the second floor.

No one said “no walls”. People said “fewer walls”. Builders are smart - smart enough to put in just barely enough wall to avoid having an expensive beam, but no more walls than that.

And to PP, no door is still lower cost than any door. And a lot of these open concept floor plans merely have paint in lieu of lots of expensive cabinetry; paint is very low cost…

My house was built in 1984. The kitchen is separate from the living space but still leads into it. I much prefer it this way. I'm left alone to cook and we have separate spaces. Kids can make noise elsewhere while I'm busy. I don't want or need anyone in the kitchen with me, and we've got enough access to dining/living that it has not been an issue

Our current house is a bit of a hybrid and I like it a lot. The kitchen is semi-open to the family room, but it is closed off from the dining and the living room.

If you have the money do two kitchens.
One for show and light prep kitchen in the open space.
The second small closed kitchen with good hood for real cooking.