To ask if anyone actually likes open plan living?

[Thesystemonlydreamsintotaldarkness]

I love property porn. Always looking at big fancy houses well out of my budget.

I’ve noticed that there is a lot of open plan living out there! I think it would be horrible: a kitchen/diner with a bit for sitting, and a separate living room. Fine. But completely open plan?! Gives me the horrors! How do you escape the noise? What about privacy?

Our downstairs is open plan (kitchen, dining room, sitting room). Works for us; we can cook and continue chatting, keep an eye on kid/s etc.

We do have another living room upstairs we can retreat to when teenage years strike.

We haven't any children so that is probably why we prefer separate rooms

Open plan is definitely not for me.

I'd hate kitchen cooking smells in my living room, especially if my husband was making a bacon sandwich!

I much prefer defined, separated spaces.

This is where me and DH disagree and probably why we are struggling to choose a house to buy lol. He likes fully open plan the more open the better, ideally he wants the whole first floor open with massive bifold doors so it opens in to the garden as well. I'd love a big kitchen diner but I'd find more use in having a few more rooms ( lounge separate, ideally a utility room) also once kids get older they won't need us to be peering over them whilst cooking so it just feels like it's a short term thing.

We are lucky to have a livingroom kitchen diner with a separate sitting room and utility so we can escape the noise/cooking carnage with guests if necessary. I would not want an open plan stairwell as the heating bills/smells would be horrendous.

My mate has an open plan house and apart from about 4 weeks in the summer it’s freezing and costs a fortune to heat. Not for me.

I love ours, it’s great with the kids although we do also have a separate living room.

I guess if you have kids it is easier to have open plan to be able to keep an eye on them. I don't live in a house but if I did and could have what I want, even though I live alone I think I would prefer separate rooms.

Also for older children it might be preferable to be able to shut some doors (though if they are teens they will be in their bedroom!). Also it will keep out the smell of burnt potato or cabbage (two smells from my childhood! Mum would be sitting in the kitchen reading her Mills & Boon and I would come out to say the spuds are burning. She would deny this until I took them off the stove to show her the burnt offerings!!

Open plan living space is popular with architects and photographers because it looks good in photos. But anyone who has enough space prefers separate rooms. There are multiple reasons why it is impractical, particularly for a large family.

1. Removing walls reduces storage. On the wall between our kitchen and sitting room is the range cooker, two sets of drawers, and two wall cupboards in the kitchen. In the sitting room that wall has 18 m of shelving that holds ~600 books. Where would all that go in a more open plan space?

2. Mess and smells. A wall between our kitchen and utility room means we don't need to look at drying clothes in the winter and the clothes don't end up smelling of stale cooking smells.

3. Noise. The washing machine not being in the kitchen reduces noise. The dishwasher isn't in the same room as people watching TV. We have 2 sitting rooms and a kitchen which means different people can do different things without being relegated to their bedroom like a naughty child. DH can listen to a podcast in the kitchen, my teenage DDs and I can watch a drama in the sittingroom and DS (9) can play with his friends in the playroom all at the same time. Or one child can practice piano in one room while another does their homework in another. I want the kids downstairs, not sitting in their bedrooms being antisocial, and separate rooms downstairs facilitates that.

4. Heating. Heating an open plan space is more difficult than heating smaller rooms. In period houses you need doors to keep out drafts and want sitting rooms to have cozy curtains and carpets to keep them warm but you don't want that in a room that is also a kitchen.

I wouldn't like open plan living. I have separate rooms for kitchen, dining room and living room. DH wanted to knock through a wall to open up kitchen and dining room but I said no. Need a space to escape to. Especially if older DC need space to do their homework.

She/he doesn't have adequate radiators in then. I put proper rads in and the open plan room with 3 large windows is warmer than the rest of the house now

I don’t think I would like totally open plan but we have almost completely open and it mostly works well. We have a kitchen, dining and living room in an J shape so the living room is around the corner from the kitchen - no line of sight (and no smells) but not closed off either. Then the dining area is in the corner section between the kitchen and living room.

however we do have a separate utility room which you can close the door on because the noise from the washing machine was annoying when we lived in fully open plan in a flat previously. We also have a separate playroom which at the moment is mostly toy chaos but when the kids are teenagers it will become “their” living room (or more likely me and DH will be in there while they have the main living room 🙄)

I wouldn't want to sit down to watch TV in the same room as the dishwasher

ive noticed alot of people saying how much they love open plan still have a seperate utiltiy or lounge...

How loud are peoples dishwashers? I can barely hear mine if it on? It's not loud enough to be distracting

I love it. I'm disabled and I hate scooting through dozens of doorways and poky, badly lit corridors all day. Open plan feels easier and more natural. I like being able to see all my things!

My parents are vehemently anti open plan, even though their Edwardian house would really suit having the (windowless, barely used) dining room knocked through to the living room. When they hosted at Christmas there were 20 of us crammed into the dining room with no room to move. Terrible way to plan a house unless you only want to host two or three people at a time!!

I was thinking that🙈

I hate open plan, partly because I like having some peace to cook in the kitchen without my culinary skills being scrutinised or having to answer hundreds of questions from my kids while doing so.

It makes me sad when I see beautiful old Victorian houses on Rightmove and they come back up a year later having been converted to an open plan layout with all period features removed (and often a glossy grey kitchen).

We have an open plan kitchen diner with a lounge area at one end (tv, sofa and kids toys etc.) it’s great and we spend 90% of the day in there. Our old house had a separate kitchen which was a pain with babies and small kids so it’s a dream in comparison! We do have a separate lounge that DH and I go into when the kids are in bed and is a more ‘grown up’ room which is nice and I think will be great when the kids are older.
That said when we moved we couldn’t afford to decorate so the lounge was a tip for 6 months and unusable and we were absolutely fine in our open plan room. I’d change it a bit if it was our only space but it would be fine at the stage we are now! We do have a seperate utility though and it’ll be nice when the kids are older for them to have space with their mates!

So not really open plan just a kitchen diner.

True- I have lived in a completely open plan downstairs (albeit before kids) and it was sociable but not cosy!

This! We have a huge kitchen / family area. Large dining table in one side, sofa, fire & tv in other side and then kitchen at the back with a large island and additional seating. It’s perfect for having people over and entertaining which we do almost weekly.

However, we also have additional reception rooms so no “privacy” issues and DH and I tend to sit in the snug in the evening watching tv once the DC are in bed.

Kitchen Diners don’t tend to have large living areas in them so yes; they’re still open plan 🙄

Wait, when people say open plan, you mean just living room/diner/kitchen not hallways and stairs upstairs as well, do you? (like absolutely whole downstairs so basically street into living room (well every room) walk in)

Open plan is the whole lot open, a kitchen diner which is what most people have on this thread is not really that. Years ago it was fashionable to knock through the lounge and dining room, that is not open plan either