Completely open plan downstairs - yes or no

[PippaFawcett]

We want to remodel the downstairs of our house, there is a redundant chimney breast in the centre of the downstairs and an internal kitchen causing issues. The cheapest and seemingly most logical thing to do is to knock out the wall and chimney breast and make it all open plan.

DH is keen, but I am worried about cooking smells, noise and privacy. We do have a separate converted garage as a playroom/study area and loo downstairs but the living room, kitchen and dining space would all be open plan and the stairs come into it too. Do you love or hate your open plan?

Nope. Our new house (renovating and extending a house) is going to have a big open kitchen and dining area with room for a sofa or some squishy chairs but will also have separate futility room and a separate living room for a snuggly fire and the tv. Doors are good. Doors mean you can be in separate spaces, you don't have to listen to whatever the kids are watching on tv and so on. I end up shouting at grand designs a lot when they do those huge open houses with mezzanine bedrooms and shit when they have one small baby and i think ffs what about when the baby is s teenager and you want to go to bed or shag but they are still up watching tv?
Mezzanine bedrooms are an extreme example but you get the drift!

I don't have open plan but tbh our dishwasher, washing machine and dryer are all really quiet. The cooking smells would put me off though.

Put the dishwasher or washing machine on when you go out or go to bed. It is a bit of a no brainier that one!

Washing machines and dishwashers are a massive cause of house fires. You might be happy to put them on and go to sleep but you shouldn't be. Electrical items should not be on at night.

"Put the dishwasher or washing machine on when you go out or go to bed. It is a bit of a no brainier that one!"

Kind of invalidates a lot of insurance policies though because big appliances like that are fire risks and water leaking all over the house risks!

No! I have a house with doors on two downstairs rooms - the sitting room and the study and the rest of it is open plan, including the kitchen. It means you can't shut the door if you burn toast or cook curry (and I rarely cook curry now because the whole house stinks of it for days) and with this weather it means flies come in the back doors and I can't shoo them out of the kitchen. Drives me absolutely mad!

The house was like this when we bought it but I'm seriously thinking of reinstating some doors. It's really a total PITA

We have an open plan living/dining room, but separate kitchen, and both of us are messy cooks. The advantage of our current setup is that we can't see the mess while we eat - and nor can our guests. Also yy to cooking smells - in our previous house the kitchen used to get sticky with oil from frying (no extractor). At least that didn't extend to the living room....

I can never understand why UK houses have the washer in the kitchen
Because there is often no where else to put them. Many houses are very small with simply no space for a utility room.

Just to echo what was said above, I have a friend who set her dishwasher going when she left the house. She came home to her house completely burned to the ground. All she has was the clothes she was stood up in.

I often think about the inconvenience of completely open plan when I watch grand designs.

We had it prior to DCs it was great. Since a family, always separate rooms, much more flexible.
DS & DIL have open plan and 2DCs, they are looking to extend and remodel, to make a separate lounge.

It sounds awful, noisy, smelly and cold.

we are all open plan but we do have a door to the utility

its a pain in the arse when you have a dog and want to stop them walking on your new rug
with their muddy paws
when the dog walker brings them back
and you're at work and cant wash their feet properly
cos the dog walker doesn't do it properly

and breathe

No, there's a reason we have walls and doors! Hate open plan, and I suspect that many who buy a home like this regret it.

This is like AIBU for Property/DIY! Problem is if we don't do this, we will be cutting off a big source of light too. Hmmm.

We have open plan with a very small utility for the washer and drier. We are extending to provide a separate living room. I can't wait. The open space is great during the day when I'm with the kids, but in the evening with the fan oven and humming fridge it is annoying. Also can't just shut the door on a messy kitchen!

If it works for you and you are in your "forever house" then do it. If you are planning on selling it then don't, because it is obviously an unpopular choice.

We live in a converted barn, so the whole point of the space is to have an open plan hall, sitting room, double height dining room, with open spiral staircase and bridge across it to mezzanine type bedrooms. and kitchen. The bedrooms do have doors, but internal windows (with no glass) overlooking the central dining area. We have a central, double sided fireplace separating the sitting room and dining areas. I love it and it is not cold and I dont find cooking smells too bad. I am also very relaxed about mess in the kitchen.

But:

we bought a really quiet dishwasher
our washing machine is in a separate utility room
the TV is at the sitting room end, so a long way away from the sink/kettle/extractor fan
it is difficult if the person cooking wants to listen to the radio and the person in the sitting room wants to watch the TV

My ideal would have been to have a separate snug in which to have the TV- although now the children are teenageers, hardly anyone in the house watches TV anyway...

Even when we had toddlers I liked being able to gate them out of the kitchen.

Now they are biggervwevhave violin, recorder and piano practice. Big fans of doors here. Huge.

I have an open plan flat, although there's a wall between the kitchen and living area it's still in the same room and a nightmare.

I think open plan stairs are an issue with little DCs - when they're supposed to be dropping off to sleep at 7.30 or whatever, the noise of just talking / TV et would easily travel upstairs.

Can you have doors that divide the room so they can be open in the day so you get the open plan feel, but closed in the evening so you can pretend all the toys etc are put away.

No no no! So many terraces in east london have been totally open planned - I hate it.

Kitchen diner plus snug is the way to go.

If you can fit a utility room, it is worth it's weight in gold.

We have recently remodelled our Victorian terrace house. Friends of ours did the same to their virtually identical property. They went open plan downstairs so you come in from the street and go straight through from living room to diner to kitchen. We decided on a wall between living room and dining room, and arranged the kitchen with a large peninsula unit to demarcate between kitchen and dining room.

In my opinion, our house actually feels bigger, and has a 'classier' feel to it than theirs, which has a bit of a bowling alley/ bedsit feel downstairs. We really enjoy having a separate room in which we can relax of an evening.

I am a messy cook so would never want to sit and eat with all the debris around. Like to be able to shut the door on the mess, particularly with guests. Cooking smells are also a factor.

I can see the advantages when children are tiny, but later on separate spaces are a great advantage.

I often think the shiny, colour-supplement type open-plan rooms, with just a few lemons and limes artistically arranged in a designer dish on a pristine empty worktop, are only for people who don't actually cook - they just shove ready meals in the microwave and open bags of salad.

Lots to think about. We didn't really like the alternative that the architect proposed, but we might get another one out to see what else can be done for our budget.

God no! As you said, noise, smells. And it'd be harder to sell.