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

One thing to think about when completely open plan you need to be very tidy or the whole area looks a mess.

We like open plan, though when the children were at home we had a big house with a separate living room for them.
Personally I would not live any other way once the children have left home. My husband has a separate room for his music and we have a very big bedroom with a table for my stuff.

If you have young children and lots of parties open plan is excellent. Getting older and living alone it's not worth changing anything.

I’ve just read the comment about separate laundry rooms and kitchen smellls. We do have a separate laundry/shower room and a very efficient extractor with takes and sells outside.

Sorry, that should say “all smells”!

Apparently Covid put paid to the fashion for completely open plan and people who don't actually want separate rooms are going for partially walled areas that give privacy while still keeping the feeling of space...either actual part walls or bifold doors that can be open or closed, or even screens.....but as I said that's fashion, and you should be doing what you want. Worst decision we ver made was to redo the kitchen on the basis of what would "sell" We didn;'t sell because my husband died and I HATE the kitchen.

cc

I’ve just read the comment about separate laundry rooms and kitchen smellls. We do have a separate laundry/shower room and a very efficient extractor with takes and sells outside.

I don't think open plan is a fad - it's just a good choice for some.

I love what we cook, smells good to me, no problem.

Also, our dishwasher is virtually silent - a noisy dishwasher? If you do have a noisy dishwasher, purchase a quiet one next go.

The back half of our home is somewhat open (not stylishly open) with huge cased openings - makes me happy to look all the way through end to end and know the happenings in all areas. We have lots of family, open is a necessity.

Our bungalow has a large dining and sitting area, and we love it. We have a separate utility room. We also have a fairly small sitting room if either of us need to escape! The kitchen has underfloor heating which is surprisingly economic to run, and as I like a very cool bedroom, don’t often heat the rest of the house. I could care less about fashion, it suits us very well indeed.

We are very fortunate in having both open plan and separate spaces. If I had to chose one I would definitely not go for open plan though. We have a breakfast/living room which is open plan and a formal dining room and formal sitting room. We always keep the formal sitting room tidy so that if we have visitors the rest of the house looks like a bombs hit, or we have the dishwasher and washer on, or we’re cooking fish or curry it doesn’t matter. The living room / breakfast room is lovely, but cold in winter. Also if we have family round and the fellas want to watch football, we’re not all subjected to it. I also think open plan can make furniture placement tricky. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

My mother lived in a sheltered scheme where many residents had incorporated their kitchen into the lounge. I thought she should do the same but she was adamant that she wanted a separate kitchen. She died last year but the warden confirmed that many prospective purchasers prefer to keep the rooms separate.

I have an open plan kitchen, dining room and sitting room and love it. Like many have said though, much depends on your own taste and circumstances. I can be in the kitchen and talking to others at the same time, or looking at something on TV so do not feel closed off.

I like separate spaces, though we can eat in our kitchen if we choose.
I agree about heating huge spaces, but it was mainly the need for separate rooms for children, then grandchildren practising musical instruments and a room where I could leave the sewing machine and ironing board up without making the whole house look untidy.
Hope you find something that suits you.

We have an open plan house. It's all on one level with 3 bedrooms, each with a bath or shower room on the north side. The largest bedroom has a large walk in wardrobe in the middle with the bed on one side and our desks and library on the other. Plenty of room to escape. We used to have an old cottage in Suffolk and when this house was planned I calculated the total area of the cottage and the area of this house isn't much bigger. There was a lot of unlivable space in the cottage.

The living room is on the south side, with large sliding doors. There is a short dividing wall that partially separates the kitchen bit from the sitting bit. Each area is about the size of the rooms in a normal house but it seems to be much larger. The sitting area is in the middle pf the room and you cannot see into the kitchen area at all. You can see the island which has a book case at the end facing the sitting area.

When we have people here they can move around freely without being stuck in one room.

I would find it very difficult to move back to a house with separate rooms.

PS we have a separate building which has a number of different uses and includes space for a washing machine and also has one of those hanging dryers. The dishwasher goes on at night after we've gone to bed.

I was very sceptic about open plan living but now that I've tried it, I will not go back (at least not by free will)!

I love the open space, the way that I can see what the cats are up to at all times, continue my conversation with DH while pottering in the kitchen. The feel of the open space is just marvelous and I never knew it could lift my spirits that much.
We rented for 6 month and that house had not only open space but also for the living room area high ceilings to the second floor. If I could afford it, I would go that far and have that too. It felt nearly like being outside having so much space and the roof being so far too. I had been worried about cleaning and not reaching up there first but found that I started to not care at all if there might be an insect on the ceiling, or a cobweb. I am not claustrophopic but the open space does give you such a lift, I wouldn't have believed it if I had not been given the chance to experience it.

If any of us wanted some "peace" he had his office and I had my craft room we could retreat to.

Alas when buying we didn't have the funds for the scale that house had. We have open space now but sadly not a high ceiling.
We had the opportunity of this experience due to DH being transferred to the USA. Part of me dreads going back to Europe as we most likely will not have the funds to transform a property in that way. But I certainly going to enjoy what I have now and will worry about what I get later.

We have open plan - kitchen, dining and lounge. It looks very spacious but that, to me, is the only plus. We have to turn the TV volume up when boiling the kettle. We only do the washing in the morning and the dishwasher goes on when we go to bed. When cooking food the smell permeates throughout the house. If we could, we’d move but unfortunately that’s not possible. I burn a lot of candles to get rid of the cooking smells. In my opinion, you can’t beat separate kitchen/dining/lounge.

I think that it is the current trend: every TV programme on house selling ir renovation seems to feature homes that have been opened up fir open plan living. It works best IMO, when you have a big enough house to have the open plan area plus a separate living room and dining room.
BTW, we bought our house 25 years ago because we wanted lots of rooms to give private space to us and each of our 3 children then aged 9-16.

I think Mumsnet generation, or at least those with younger children, prefer open plan so they can keep an eye on the little ones whilst they cook, wash, clean. As we get older, we no longer need that facility and enjoy cosier spaces. I'd keep your walls up, OP.

On a slight tangent here, the one fad I can't stand is those kitchen islands with high-up chairs at them. I mean, why? Usually in photos of those kitchens there is also a table just a couple of feet away. Islands now seem to be squeezed into the tiniest of kitchens. Give me a nice big table any day.

Open plan must be very expensive to heat, I should think...

I love an open plan kitchen diner with separate living room.

Unfortunately, we have a very thick chimney between our kitchen and dining room so have left the two rooms separate. We do not eat in the dining room but have a computer in the alcove of the dining room so at least the dining room is still being used.

I am currently updating our 1960s house and cannot make up my mind whether to future proof our existing house or move into a bungalow nearby in the future.

Would love to live nearer my daughter but there is very few bungalows in the village she lives or in the town next to her village.

Chestnut

Don't knock the walls down OldHag!! Open plan definitely is a fad and a horrible one. Who wants strong smelling fish or fatty foods cooking in the living room, or hear the dishwasher turning or the washing machine spinning. You will also end up with your sofa smelling of roast dinner which you then have to sit on. Then there's the aroma of boiling vegetables which puts a lot of moisture into the air, again this will travel to your soft furnishings and make them smelly. You also have the dirty dishes staring at you while you're trying to relax in the living room. I can think of countless reasons why this is a bad idea.

I prefer the kitchen/utility area to be completely separate if possible. It can be joined to the dining area if necessary, just not to the living room. No way.

I couldn't agree with this more..! Trying to hear the TV over the noise of the dishwasher or washing machine is my idea of hell - as is sitting on a sofa looking at a sink full of washing up, or in a room that smells of food cooking when I want to relax...! Yuk..!!! 😱

I sometimes wonder why the houses here in the UK do not have a laundry room. In the Far East, the flats have a service bay with a drying clothes rack with pulleys to hang your clothes.

I have a laundry room as well as a utility room.

we had open plan at our last house, it takes some getting used to, and are you prepared to live with the cooking smells in your front room ? Now I like to close the kitchen door, and also if you have visitors when you're just finishing a meal, they have to sit there while you eat and then amongst your dirty dishes unlkess you deal with them straight away, whers in a normal plan house you can take visitors into the lounge area and all the business end, cooking etc is behind closed doors ! Just something to be aware of .