Open plan opinions (from those who have it please!)

[hlr1987]

Has anyone with an open plan downstairs (with no additional seperate sitting room) regretted or disliked it? I'm looking to open up the kitchen to make the most of the south facing garden either by knocking through to our large lounge or adding a well glazed conservatory to the kitchen for an attached dining room. No chance of an extension (no side access). My kids are small if that helps.

We have a decent utility room, so washing machine is not an issue.

We do (well sort of). It's very noisy and not at all private. But it's social. Noise travels up and down stairs too so we can hear the kids fighting and we get complaints from them if we are entertaining late in the evening. There early teens so I suspect this won't be a long term issue. Our bedroom etc is downstairs so one they've left home it'll be golden.

I had an entire downstairs that was open plan, just one room for the living room, dining room and kithchen area. It was great as a singleton but as soon as it becomes a family unit its a pain. You cant have music on when cooking as somoene is watching TV.

Smells and noises travel throughout the downstairs meaning you cant cook anything thats smelly / smoky just spreads past the kitchen into the living areas.

Its also quite cold in the winter compared to compartmentalised areas.

No, no, no. You do need a second, private living room. Small children become big children who don’t want to have to entertain their mates under mum and dad’s watchful eye (and mum and dad get fed up of teenagers slopping all over the furniture and deciding to make a noisy smoothie when Eastenders is on) .
Our house was largely open plan - it was fine when they went to bed at 7pm but as they got bigger we all felt the need for more private spaces. We have put selected walls back in and the house feels twice as big as a result.

We used to, now we don't. I liked the kitchen being sociable with the living area but DH hated not being able put on radio etc if anyone was watching tv.

Now we have older children doing the usual mix of homework, TV, piano and violin practice, often while I'm cooking. I do feel a bit banished to the kitchen but on balance we are big fans of walls! We have fond memories of the previous house, it had a lovely feel, but I think the current one works better for us on a practical level. And most of the time we are living together, not entertaining.

It's interesting that Eleanor says the house feels a lot bigger with walls back in.

We hate it.

It looked lovely when we viewed the place, sunlight streaming in through the living room window and a beautiful open space leading all the way through to the kitchen.

The reality is noisy, smelly DH is an avid curry eating and the rest of us hate the stuff and pretty inconvenient with a family. Sadly we don't currently have the resources to rebuild a wall so we're making do with a room divider. It absorbs some of the noise and allows for a bit more privacy between the kitchen and living room but I'd love to have them as separate rooms.

Now I view open plan living as a compromise because the individual rooms were designed too small rather than something to aspire to.

We bought our house all knocked through and are in process of fitting oak doors (it's the original double doorway) between lounge and dining room. We have a TV in the conservatory but it's a challenge in winter, we are looking at blinds too.

I'd say make flexible spaces to open or close, teenagers gaming/TV does not make relaxed parents!

We moved from an open plan house to one with separate rooms and it’s so much better.
Open plan was ok when the DC were small but as they got bigger, it was driving us all mad. No separate space for them all to go, especially when their friends came over.

Now we have separate rooms so if we have people over, we can go in living room/kitchen and kids can watch telly/play in back room. Works so much better. I would never go back to open plan, some people love it though.

We had a conservatory in open plan and it was awful when it rained, you could’t hear the telly properly!

I’m surprised at all the open-plan haters in this thread; is the tide finally turning against it do you think? Most small, urban new houses are being built like this, with just a single “living space” and so many homeowners still seem to be knocking their houses through. Or does it only work when a private sitting room is retained?

We have an open plan with separate utility.iving here is hellish. I hate it.

I think open plan kitchen/diner/snug area is great as long as there is a second totally desperate living room.

I couldn’t cope with just the one open space.

I hated it - it felt huge which was nice

but I found it really noisy and basically its really hard to have more than one thing going on at once.

We have an be room downstairs which is lounge , dining and kitchen . It's fine because we have very big bedrooms so we all have space of our own And downstairs is the communal area . It's great when you have people over and xmas etc .

I have a totally desparate living room

We're thinking of an extension but we have a walk through living room in which we'd have to put pocket doors to close off the open plan kitchen/ dining extension.

Not sure why you don't want my opinion - but you're welcome to it anyway....

Open plan works when you have small children - not with teenagers. I deliberately kept all our rooms separate so that 1 could do homework 1 could cook and 1 watch TV (or any combination of). We also have a separate den / study / family room, which works brilliantly for me (I wfh), sleepovers and tv clashes.

If it’s a tiny house (eg 2 up 2 down), then it’s probably the only way to get some decent space.

My sister has a vast expanse of open plan that’s open to the hall and stairs - and PP have said, noise and smells travel up a lot.

We are currently living in an open plan house. It drives me nuts. The whole house looks untidy very quickly as dc's mess isn't contained in one space. Heating such a large space costs more. Kitchen mess is visible when hosting. Smells get everywhere. It looks great in a show home but with kids I don't like it. Happily we are only renting I would never buy a house like this.

I have a friend who lives in a flat by herself and she loves it. She can sit at the breakfast bar and watch TV while she eats; no dining table needed. It makes the flat look bigger. I suspect her opinion would change if she had a flatmate or partner.

We deliberately bought a new build with a lounge-diner and separate kitchen.

Eleanor it looks so aspirational doesn't it? And when kids are little it's really annoying trying to watch them while making dinner... if only that wall wasn't there...

I think the whole thing of putting a massive extension on the back for living-kitchen-diner is so huge at the moment, and it is nice to be sociable when cooking for guests. It is tempting to try to create that without the £££ massive extension by knocking through what you have.

Also walls are useful for putting things against. In a huge open plan house you can get a bit of natural space from each other, in a small open plan one you all disturb each other and there's no spare wall for the bookshelves or kitchen wall cupboards.

OP I am a big fan of using a conservatory for a dining room. It's the perfect use for a slightly awkward space - you know you'll be eating at 1pm, start heating the conservatory at 11. I do like a proper external door to the conservatory though - I hate those that are open plan to "proper" indoor spaces, they surely must suck out all the heat.

I live in a house with open plan downstairs and personally I like it a lot. The house has a glass wall at the back so it is all very light. An extractor fan takes care of cooking smells. I have one wall of built in storage so don't have stuff hanging around.

If we want privacy me and teen DC just slope off to our respective bedrooms.

How is building a conservatory any easier than an extension of you don't have side access?

I think with a. Family a kitchen diner makes life so much easier. I had separate kitchen and dining room and I absolutely hated it.

I also wouldn't like a separate kitchen and then a lounge diner.

I think you need some separate space though.

What is your current layyout? Where is your dining table now.

Open plan is great with very young kids as you can keep an eye on them whilst cooking tea for example.
But... once they are older you need an extra room. My first house was open plan with an extra sitting room. Perfect until they were about 7. My current house has kids tv/games room, separate lounge and kitchen diner. An open plan house wouldn't work for us anymore. When they have friends over for sleepovers etc they use one room and we use the other.

This is the first house I've lived in with a completely separate kitchen and I hate it. We're knocking through and adding an extension across the back to create a big open plan family room. We do have the current living room that'll be the same and a playroom downstairs that will contain the toys for now. I love to cook and bake, I cook everything from scratch and hate being separate from my family and friends when we have people over.

A family room is great as long as you have a separate living space as well - like a lounge or a snug or a playroom. But then that's not open plan that's having two spaces.

We had open plan downstairs when the kids were small.
It was good, you can keep an eye on them etc.

Miw we have a large kitchen diner and a separate living room. Absolutely the best set up for us.