Open plan houses are great until you have teens!?!

[bigmouthstrikesagain]

I found our house useful in the early years I could let the kids run around and still hear them. We had lots of space etc. But now they are aged 10-14 I have the issue of watching grown up TV downstairs and if one is still awake they can hear, come downstairs and see or watch from the stairs as there are no friggin walls. We only have bedroom doors between upstairs and downstairs. No walls or doors for the stairs, living/ dining rooms or kitchen. It means I am on edge. For instance tonight I started watching "sex education" on Netflix, lots of sex, swearing and phalluses and ds (age 14) comes trotting downstairs for some water 5 mins ago while agent Scully is masturbating an aubergine! Awks!

I managed to pause and navigate away but it is a pain. How do you watch grown up stuff when you have young teens?! They hang around and make it very tricky.

"Hiyses" wtf? Houses obviously! Sorry I may have had wine.

• [Message from MNHQ: We've edited the title for you. Cheers!]

Ours are 12 & 15 and both secrete themselves in their rooms

.....elder one has a mini fridge in his room which solves the drinks thing

I imagined that 'hiyses' was you saying houses in a mock very posh voice and I'm sticking with that

I wish we had two downstairs living rooms. When DD has friends round OH and I watch TV upstairs in one of the bedrooms.

I figured you were northern Irish! They have hiyses. Or maybe they're hoyses.

Never mind. How do you heat such an open plan house? I have a newish well insulated house but I feel draughts all the time if a door is open anywhere in the house.

It is true. We have 2 living rooms but neither has a door to the hallway (archways instead) which is usual where we live. great for a big gathering but for day to day life with teenagers, it is a pain. We have a basement living space which the teens use though.

Now that i think of it maybe I will see if I can get a door put into one of them ...

This is why we have recently put in walls and doors in our open plan ground floor. It was great when the dcs were little but not when they're also staying up late. Everyone thought I was mad.

It doesn’t sound that bad for a 14 year old TBH.

There’s a lad in my Y9’s class who watches hentai in Maths on his iPhone.

An aubergine sounds positively innocent in comparison.

Masturbating an aubergine?

@daredevil223

Open plan houses are awful. Our first house was one and we swore "never again". You need to be able to be separate from time to time. Everybody together in one room or banished to their bedrooms is a dreadful way to live. We've actually put walls back in one place we lived.

Hahaha I know exactly what scene you're on about. I started watching it this morning and am now about to start episode 4.

DS bless him is very uninterested in sex currently, he is above such messy human concerns and lives intellectually so I feel I sully him if I watch base sex related programmes. He is autistic and shows little interest in girls (or boys) in any romantic way that will change I assume at some point.

I am enjoying sex education though it feels like it is set in an American high school transposed to the Yorkshire dales - weird. And it seems to be set in the eighties and now - they have jazz mags and are texting it's fucking strange.

@daredevil ha well I am vair posh ... 😂

I am enjoying sex education though it feels like it is set in an American high school transposed to the Yorkshire dales - weird. And it seems to be set in the eighties and now - they have jazz mags and are texting it's fucking strange*

Yes this this!! You've hit the nail on the head. I've been confused with when it's meant to be set as, like you say, looks like 80s but modern at the same time!

This is why we have recently put in walls and doors in our open plan ground floor. It was great when the dcs were little but not when they're also staying up late. Everyone thought I was mad.

Yes, exactly the same for us. Victorian terrace all knocked through into one space downstairs. We put the walls back in and it's sooo much better. It was the realisation that there was nowhere apart from their (small) bedrooms for them to entertain their friends away from me and DH. More than once, we found ourselves sitting on our own bed eating dinner off a tray to make space downstairs for teenagers. Now we have two smallish sitting rooms and a reasonably-sized kitchen, all separate - so in theory we have a room for each child and one for me and DH.

We're also paying to have the walls put back in as the teenage years loom. The house was all open plan when we bought it and though it is handy when they're little, I've been longing for a refuge for ages. A separate space to read a book and escape the noise of YouTube morons on the telly would be bliss. Until the wall's sorted (this Spring hopefully) the only escape is on the loo or in bed!

I've started to watch stuff on my (very old) iPad with headphones. Watched Catastrophe a couple of nights ago knowing the language would be verily bad.

Ooh what was the deleted message!? I am intrigued... I do use tablet and headphones and I can plug headphones into the Xbox controller to watch Netflix silently if I want to reduce noise pollution.

I used to wait til the kids were asleep for grown up telly - but their bedtimes are getting later ... I suppose there comes a time when the kids bedtimes are later than mine. But not yet.

I hate open plan. I like walls! And doors!