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?

It's a way of making houses with tiny rooms more spacious.

I like it providing there are additional reception rooms.

I live in open plan. Its lovely. Entire bottom floor pretty much.
Contrary to belief, the cooking smells never ever make it onto the fabric sofa or the curtains etc. I have 2 types of extraction to help with that. Also if I open the kitchen window and the back window I get an undisturbed flow of air that'll take any extra potent cooking smells straight out. (I make a lot of Indian/Caribbean/Mexican)

I was very skeptical but I love it. I love cooking and hosting and DP and I love a good chinwag whilst one of us cooks, so having a separate kitchen would be less sociable for us. We put the TV on as background or stick some music on and often have a wine and a little boogie while we cook. It's just really lovely and so very very us.

I have lived in a flat which had a kitchen with no door (by design) but that was atrocious and cooking smells were in the entire home. The extraction and airflow is key.

Maybe when my 5 year old is a teen she will wanna stay in her room more but right now I love that I'm there whilst she's at the table or on the sofa or just playing.

My kids hate the noise of the extractor when I am cooking / they are watching TV and we have a quiet extractor. Also it is impossible to cook without any noise
I also hate seeing mess in the kitchen when we have guests and feel compelled to tidy up after dinner immediately which defeats the purpose of it all being together so you can spend time with guests

The concept is lovely but in reality, above has been my experience.

I think it depends. We have an open plan kitchen/dining room with a "snug" off it without a door, but also a separate lounge which we can shut the door on. i'm not a fan of the whole downstairs open plan thing.

We like it, our entire living area is open plan, I dislike homes where everything is an individual room.

I disagree, I think the majority of open plan spaces are in small flats and houses. Otherwise, as people have already pointed out, it's not 'open plan living' it's a kitchen diner.

And for me, my books belong in my sitting room where I read them, not in my office and definitely not in the playroom (which already has a wall of children's books anyway).

I hate it. I cook a lot, and ‘smelly’ food. I don’t need curry smell in the soft furnishings. I like to close the kitchen door. I also like it feeling obliged to multi task when cooking, I close the door and stick the TV on.
I like in the evening warming one small room to relax in if I want to, a toasty room to read in is cheap.
I like to hide away sometimes, and has we’re a big family there’s more storage options this way

I love a half way house of a big kitchen and dining room which I think works with kids and having people over. Then a separate living room for TV and sofas. Also works well with older kids. Totally open plan would feel like we had less space plus isn't it hard to hear?

We like it, but we have no dc at home. We have an open plan kitchen/living/diner and DH and I basically live in there. We also have a separate lounge and dining room, but they never get used unless we have people round (which to be fair is quite often).

Mine is open plan but in the Grade II listed higgledy terrace way, rather than the grey and marble way. I like it.

No.

I'd prefer a kitchen diner, I don't want food mess in the living room and the kitchen is tiny by itself. Our lounge diner is 5.3mx3.6m and the kitchen 2mx3.6m with patio doors so the space is really limited.
We've looked at a few new houses with lounge/diner or kitchen/diner and prefer kitchen/diner. The lounge always feels small once there's a table in it whereas it doesn't seem as bad in the kitchen.
My last house had a separate living room, dining room then kitchen and it felt too far away when I was in the kitchen and DS was in the living room.

We're renting while our house is renoed. Our house will have a big kitchen/dining/family space and a separate living room. I can't wait. Where we are currently living it's a kitchen with separate dining/living room and while I liked it to start with its now driving me nuts. There's no privacy anywhere, if I need to make a phone call after kid bedtime I sit on the floor of the kitchen and hide in a bathroom during the day.

Call me old fashioned but I love my kitchen it is perfectly formed not quite big enough for a table. I close the door put the radio on and watch the birds as I cook. I like peace...I do not want everyone in there chatting to me.

We have a sperate kitchen but all the rest of downstairs is one room.

I honestly hate it. It feels like we are always on top of each other with no space to do our own thing.

We've set it up so the lounge/dining area/computer area are distinct areas but it still feels like everything is just there and overwhelming. All our stuff is there too and nowhere to hide it away.

I've had to stop sewing clothes because it's too noisy to do while eople are watching TV and I can't just shut the door on the mess.

Weirdly though, if we were to move to a house with separate rooms, I think I'd miss people if I ended up sat by myself! 🤣

Absolutely love it. We have an L shape, so we are never eating with the pots and pans, and the washing machine is elsewhere. It's great. We still have our own space though.

I have a big kitchen - diner. This was two rooms which we knocked into one. Really love it. This is our "social space". But also have a separate living room, formal dining room (doubles as husband's study on work from home days) and kids TV/play room (in basement). I really like having all those rooms separate as we can watch different TV or have leave and quiet. If H is working at the weekend he can just shut the door and we aren't disturbing him and vice versa. I think if we did a lot of entertaining it would be better to have more of the rooms as a big open plan, but we don't do this suits us fine.

We’re just finishing the end of some building work where we’ve knocked out the wall between the dining room and kitchen - and the one between the living room and dining room was already gone when we moved in. It’s an old Victorian terrace so we are now open from living room right the way through but I hasten to add, we’ve kept all original features that were there - our builders were under STRICT instructions that nothing was to be removed or ruined and they salvaged lots of architrave and skirting board to reuse. It’s going to be life changing for us with a two-year-old (and a baby on the way) as the old layout meant we had to drag her away with us every time we needed to prep food etc whereas now she can continue playing and we can see what she’s up to. It’s also a much more sociable space and flows much better.

That said, we also recognise that there will be evenings where we want to cosy up, so we are putting some wooden folding doors in between the living room and dining room so we have both options available to us.

Also no problem with seeing the kitchen from the sofa as the sofa is sort of behind the bit of wall that remains from it being knocked through so no direct view to the kitchen…

As for heating, we had the whole kitchen insulated when we did the work, replaced the boiler, added an extra radiator in the kitchen, replaced one in the dining room (and moved it to a better location) and we’ve also had new windows throughout - downstairs has never been so warm 😊

I think open plan is great for sone things and not others. If you have open plan areas then it's nice to have quiet spaces for contradictory activities

I hate fully open plan. We have an open plan area of living room and dining and our kitchen is tucked away behind a wall. I despise the idea of having a kitchen on display all the time. It looks great in these shows where everything is pristine but it's not the reality. Our countertops are cluttered and sometimes there are dishes piled high. I don't want to look at that all the time. Kitchens are also very loud!

We also have an L shaped open plan downstairs and I love it. It’s great when we’ve got people over but also when it’s just us. Dc are older teenagers now so it’s lovely when they’re downstairs as much easier to chat with them, and just be in the same room!

We have open plan (it is well-zoned so that each area feels distinct) and love it. It’s really sociable for parties and also nice when, for example I’m helping the kids with their homework whilst I cook dinner. But then, we have a big house with other areas where people can go for quiet.

I love it it ! But think it works better in warmer countries / more modern types of house

so I have gone for a compromise with the seperate living room and open kitchen diner with sofa etc

I know that most people on mumsnet are British and carpet is "a thing" but does anybody really still have carpet in their living area? It's not the 80s.
Lots of the arguments (@JaninaDuszejko 's for example) against are also based on older housing, smells etc are an issue in older houses I guess, bad ventilation. I live in a modern house. Also, again, very British this obsession of having the washing machine in the kitchen. Also don't you have built in storage?

Yes, this.

Everybody. It's why I live on my own. You can close off the space and out doors in but the buggers soon learn how to open them 🤦‍♀️