Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does having a huge range hood solve this? We’re considering work on our kitchen and I’m wondering if getting the 36” range hood would help.

Not sure. We have 48” pro hood. It helps if you open up the kitchen window also. No smells ever in newer, large open floor home.

Which mfg and model for the fan?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Well, the idea behind open plan in most cases is that you have formal living and dining rooms in the front and the kitchen is open to a family room/informal dining room in the back. It’s only in smaller houses where there’s no formal dining room that guests can see the kitchen while eating.

I don't think this is open plan. This describes my parents' house (built in the '80s), and I don't consider it an open plan design. Also, the informal space isn't dead-on looking into the kitchen, even though it's open to it.

I've seen modern, McMansion type builds where the kitchen is completely open to the Great Room, and it's the centerpiece of the house. I think having a separate formal living room is going away, which kind of makes sense. My brother is using the same architect as my parents, and his house is going to have an open kitchen looking over the the main living space. I don't get it. You have to keep your kitchen immaculate (or just have everything look messy), and the noise of cooking will bother anyone sitting in the main living space.

Does he have staff to keep it clean, or does he just like to pretend to be wealthy?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

They don't speak about them as open floor plans. They talk about their house versus someone else's house so they'll say "at my house..." and "at your house..." types of stuff. As they talk what I hear is that they don't like that there is no privacy, that they can't watch tv without hearing all the noise in the kitchen from dinner/whatever prep, that their house looks "messy" all the time (I think it is just normal living, like the paper on the coffee table, mugs on the island) and other houses don't, they talk about how loud it is all the time and no place to just chill, etc. It all speaks to the fact that everyone living in one big room isn't doing it for them. These aren't long conversations, just tidbits as they move from topic to topic.

Really? You really overhear children discussing this? If so, that is totally weird. And yes, I drive carpool a lot too.

Right, children should not drink, smoke, or make any observations about the world around them before age 21.

But, those pesky rapscallions do so anyway, and we hear the because we live in an open floor plan.

You need open plan so that you can talk on the phone all day as you wander the house, secure in the knowldmedge that no matter you go, you prevent everyone from doing anything except listen your half of your repetitive conversations constantly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

They don't speak about them as open floor plans. They talk about their house versus someone else's house so they'll say "at my house..." and "at your house..." types of stuff. As they talk what I hear is that they don't like that there is no privacy, that they can't watch tv without hearing all the noise in the kitchen from dinner/whatever prep, that their house looks "messy" all the time (I think it is just normal living, like the paper on the coffee table, mugs on the island) and other houses don't, they talk about how loud it is all the time and no place to just chill, etc. It all speaks to the fact that everyone living in one big room isn't doing it for them. These aren't long conversations, just tidbits as they move from topic to topic.

Really? You really overhear children discussing this? If so, that is totally weird. And yes, I drive carpool a lot too.

I don't think MOST people will want a closed off kitchen ever again. It's not how most people socialize and entertain anymore and it's not how most people prefer to spend time as a family.

Please note I did not say all. Yes, I know some of you are very happy to be in your kitchens alone for large stretches of time and never want guests to see your kitchen.

We just completed and moved into a new build and we have a first floor with a closed off home office, a closed off living room/study (which could be a dining room if a future owner wanted to use it that way), and an open kitchen/dining/family room. For us, a formal dining room would never be used and a waste of space for how we live our life.

I think the best you can do is plan your space for you with an eye toward making it easy to change it in the future, if the need arises.

I have a different reason for liking my separate spaces...I love color and don’t want to commit to one wall color for more than one room. I also love that my dining room doesn’t have a view into my kitchen.

I had an open plane when I lived in a condo and also loved that. I don’t think that will go anywhere

An open floor plan was not on our wish list. We live in a center-hall colonial with the living room on one side of the staircase and the kitchen/dining table on the other side. The tiny kitchen wouldn't have worked for us, but taking down the wall between kitchen and dining made it open and comfortable. We don't cook with lots of spices a lot, but when we do you can smell it coming down the stairs and in the center hallway, but that's about it.

Anonymous wrote:Does having a huge range hood solve this? We’re considering work on our kitchen and I’m wondering if getting the 36” range hood would help.

Not sure. We have 48” pro hood. It helps if you open up the kitchen window also. No smells ever in newer, large open floor home.

Does having a huge range hood solve this? We’re considering work on our kitchen and I’m wondering if getting the 36” range hood would help.

If you've got a return vent in/near your kitchen, the smells will be carried throughout your house no matter how 'closed' your floor plan is. It's why I (like the South Asian/Indian PP) shut off the HVAC if we're cooking something pungent or greasy. My bedroom is in the furthest part of the house from the kitchen and even with all the doors closed, I can still smell when my DH makes coffee in the morning because the smell is carried through the ducts.

I’ve read several interviews with architects suggesting that the pandemic has killed open plan.people who still want that feeling are putting in pocket doors.

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

Never

I don’t like open floor plan either. I but renovated my kitchen to remain closed off. I wish I’d widened the doorway to dining room a bit more, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a contained kitchen, especially if you live in an older home where architecturally it makes sense. You can probably do something that’s a middle ground.