To Think That Open Plan Living Is Just a Fashion of The Moment

OldHag

Thank you all for your thoughts. It would seem that most people prefer a kitchen/dining room with a separate living room, sitting room, lounge, whatever you prefer to call it. We actually live in a large bungalow, and in general the area is more retired people than young families, so going from what's been said, and most particularly about cooking smells impregnating soft furnishings, I think we may decide to keep the living room separate.

It's an Australian concept and works over there but generally, it's warmer over there so no need to keep a sitting room warmer and cosy.
There's no need to be looking at the kitchen area from the sitting area if the layout s good and they all seem to have separate laundry rooms.

I agree with most of the above posters and for similar reasons. As I live alone it does not really affect me now.

I was brought up in a tiny two-up-two-down terrace and hated the lack of privacy and always being on top of one another. There was no heating in the bedrooms so in winter I did my homework sitting in bed with my coat on.

I can think of nothing more horrendous than "togetherness" and "family time".

There was no heating in the bedrooms so in winter I did my homework sitting in bed with my coat on.
In winter I did my homework at a little table in the sitting room and no-one was allowed the TV on until I'd finished.
We had about 2-3 hours homework a night in those days.
Dad used to be wanting the news on.

We have a kitchen diner and a living room. I would prefer the living room to incorporate an eating area and have a smaller kitchen. Next door is open plan, but it’s so small that it’s the best way to make use of the space.

I think it also depends on the size of your house. One large room gives the feeling of spaciousness which 2/3 separate small rooms doesn’t although others may find them cosy. I think open plan does need to be well planned. Dd is about to move to a small 3 bedroom house and intends to take out most of the walls downstairs but they aren’t solid walls anyway. Others have done it in the row. As for kitchen smells extractor fans usually work very well and if you wash up as you go along as my granny did or load the dishwasher you won’t have pots and pans to look at - you have to be well organised.

We have moved a few times, built our own house once, and now have adapted where we are to suit us. We have a large kitchen/diner, with a small TV on the wall, and a separate living area which is often not used until late afternoon/early evening. DH also has a study, and we have a fab large utility room for all the washing, ironing and crap with nowhere else to go. Thus with a judicious closing of a few doors, all is quiet and contained. I don't like the idea of cooking in a room with soft furnishings (DH cooked kippers earlier, and I can still smell them) and certainly don't want a washing machine screaming in the corner while I am watching TV! In fact, I don't like washing machines and their associated laundry being anywhere near food prep.

10 years ago we moved to a house with an open plan ground floor - hallway, kitchen, living area. It had been altered by a previous occupant. It was what attracted us so much to the property! It has a spacious feel and is light and bright because of windows on different elevations. We still love it, BUT - perhaps because we are now in our seventies and feeling the cold more, we are beginning to think about having some doors. This winter particularly we have really noticed how difficult it is to keep the living room warm. But if you are younger and aren’t bothered about that I would say go for it!

I agree with the majority, kitchen diner and separate living room. Utility room would be a bonus.
chocolatelovinggran why is it our children only discuss our shortcomings and never the positives ?

A long room with partitions can be flexible if you want to entertain.

I have never understood a separate dining room and even some cafés now have kitchens where you can watch the food preparations.

I like to talk to my guests whilst cooking though woe betide them if they get in my way.

Back in 1960's London we had a serving hatch to the kitchen. It was small but by the 1970's these had grown into proper dividers with breakfast bar.
Always a separate sitting room though.

We live in a bungalow too. It has a smallish kitchen (no room for a table etc) and an L shaped living room/diner. If I were designing it I would have gone for a smaller living room and a dining kitchen. One of our neighbours has this and it seems to work better… although they have now built on a dining room extension.

Our dining room is more of a second sitting room with a table. We've got a very extendable table, which is usually left on the second size up (basically a square), so there is room for easy chairs, a wall of bookcases, a TV and occasional tables as well.

We do eat in there most nights, although there is also a table in the kitchen. That usually has assorted 'things' on it though - the dining table is deliberately kept clear so it's just a case of setting it once a day. It's next to the kitchen, but totally separate, so I can shut the kitchen door and ignore any carnage whilst we're eating.

Fully open plan is not for me. Like others say, I don’t want to look at a pile of pots and pans when I’m sitting down to eat, nor listen to the dishwasher whilst relaxing in front of the tv.

We are lucky in that the kitchen is large enough to house a table which we use at breakfast and lunch time, but also have a separate dining room which we use every evening and a separate sitting room to read, relax , watch tv, etc.

When I see these open plan arrangements, often in barn conversion (but not always) on tv programmes, I’m always struck by how echoey they sound and also wonder how people “zone out” in order to read quietly or listen to music/watch tv without being disturbed by or disturbing others. I also think they must be expensive to heat.

Never mind what's in fashion .
Have what pleases you !
I hate open plan .
It looks great , but I dislike cooking smells and I can't relax if I see an untidy post -meal kitchen if I'm having a glass of wine with friends or I want to enjoy a programme .
I've looked at houses with open plan designs and thought how I'd section off the kitchen area .
And grey is the new magnolia .

Gosh, you would be hard pressed to find a house here that wasn't open plan. I think every house built since the 70's has been that way, and any older houses have been re-done.

I think it's just something we are used to now.

Open plan living is nothing new. 🙂
Personally, I prefer separate rooms for the reasons mentioned in earlier posts.

Open plan living - as we know it now - probably started in the 60’s.

I wouldn’t do it. It’s nice to close a door.

My small house is 25 years old, it is open plan, I do not have a door into the kitchen it is an archway and directly off the lounge. the stairs are also in the lounge. (no door).

I hate it! always have but moved here in a rush . All my heat goes upstairs so it is always cold. The kitchen cooking wafts through the house and upstairs. There is really no way of putting doors on it is just not feasible.

Would never choose open plan if I had the choice again.

At least if you go for a house with walls /separate you do have the choice to remove a wall.

CanadianGran

Gosh, you would be hard pressed to find a house here that wasn't open plan. I think every house built since the 70's has been that way, and any older houses have been re-done.

I think it's just something we are used to now.

I'm surprised to hear that because I always assumed large countries had plenty of space for building. The UK is so small and crowded we have to build small and cram as much as possible into the smallest space.

By the way, I love your username because it says where you are, which is something I keep asking for, that we have the country next to our name. Only regular users know where people are based and it causes confusion sometimes.

I agree that open plan living is nothing new and from what I can remember very prevalent in both N. America and Australia. No doubt a reflection of the space both those continents enjoy, so square metres in their layouts of homes tend to be less non confining as opposed to the way smaller new builds are presented here. A frequent aspect of those appears to be the integration of the kitchen/dining/living areas. Imo the without walls approach merely means that prospective buyers are a room light. It can't be great not having any separation between the kitchen cooking area and the living room, that just amounts to one room living it seems to me

Most homes in America and Australia do have one or more of a separate Lounge/CinemaRoom/Games Room/Basement as well as a big open plan kitchen/diner/family room though. Their houses are much bigger on average than in the UK, and the sense of space in their homes, with the open plan areas and the choice of retreating to a more intimate room in the evenings brings a completely different feel to the house, which I like.

PS they have been building homes like this since the 1940s, with no sign that it’s changing, so I don’t think it’s a fad.

I enjoy home makeover programmes such as the George Clarke ones, and have noticed that for about five years the vast majority knock kitchen and dining room together, sometimes incorporating the sitting room, put an island and a table with three pendant lights above it in the new 'family kitchen' and open the new room, often with bifold doors, onto the garden, to 'bring the outside in'. It is a very 2020s look, which will date, as it is so popular.

The important question is whether that matters to the people who live in the houses. The style of my house is Victorian/Edwardian. Sitting room at the front, dining room behind, large kitchen at the bottom of the hall with a boot room behind that. The layout has been in and out of fashion since it was built, but we knew when we decided to move here 25 years ago that this is the style we wanted, and it still works for us now. I don't care if it is dated.

If a young couple buy it when we decide to sell (which is likely, as it is a family house) they can knock out or put in walls to suit what is in fashion at the time, and how they want to use the space.

IMO, if the OP wants to knock the walls down she should, and if she and her husband are having second thoughts they should hang on until they've decided what they want, but either way, they should do whatever suits them and their lifestyle, without worrying about fashion.

My personal preference has always been for a dining kitchen, but separate living room - and that goes back to the late 1960s when we bought our first house and in those days it was all living diners.

If you like it does it matter if it goes out of fashion?