What's it like living in an open plan home

[CorpusCallosum]

We are about to embark on a big extension. Keeping our existing modest living room, turning the kitchen into a utility and putting the staircase there then knocking down a conservatory and going 6m out the back for a kitchen/diner/ family space. Bifold doors on the back into the garden. Very zeitgeisty.

My question is, what's it actually like living in this type of space? In my head it's amazing but are there pitfalls we haven't thought of that make family life harder? We have 1 18mo DD and are planning another.

As to a messy kitchen - that's what dishwashers are for! Chuck what you can in there as you go, much less to look at!

We have a large family room but we have a separate lounge and snug. It works really well but you definitely need somewhere else that's tidy and cosy.
We're moving and will do a similar thing.
A utility room is a must!

We did this, I love it. We did keep a third of the wall to hide the sink so you can sit at the dining table and not see the mess. I wouldn’t go open plan if I didn’t have a separate living room.

Open Plan mean different things in different types of property.

In a flat, it often means there is one room for kitchen, living and dining. This can also be the case in smaller new build houses. People often say thry find the food smells permeate their soft furnishings and noise of washing machine or extractor makes it hard to watch TV or do quiet things, plus there is no room to escape for a bit of privacy. It seems developers use this model to squeeze more into a small space....flats with a separate kitchen often emphasise it as a big selling point and even the fact it has a window. Often those big open plan rooms in flats only have 1 window or patio doors and no external light of window to the kitchen area.

In bigger houses, open plan often means having a big area for kitchen and dining, possibly with a soft seating area too. BUT the key is there is another living room and could be other rooms too like a utility. This is very different to the open plan flat as there is space to escape and do quiet things.

I'd avoid the open plan flat but the house with a big kitchen diner and possibly sofa room is very popular if there's at least one other living space too.

I think your plan is great. Keeping a sitting room/lounge area is a really good idea. We live in a typical terrace that had sitting room, small dining room behind it, kitchen behind that with a side return. We kept the sitting room as it was, extended the kitchen into a big kitchen diner, and have an open doorway from the back of the kitchen into the old dining room (currently a playroom but basically flexible space that links to the kitchen). We love the combination of sociability (kitchen) and also a cozy hidey-hole (sitting room) for sofa slouching! Neighbours of ours have opened the whole house up and, although I do like the open-ness, it's always messy.

We have this - large kitchen diner with a separate utility and separate lounge space.

HOWEVER, all 3 of my children were out of the plastic-tastic stage when we extended. It works really well for us.

In your shoes, you have quite alot of space to play with if you're going out 6m. I would have :

1. Separate lounge (nice to have an adult only / tidy space)
2. Separate utility (so noise of washing machine etc can be shut off)
3. Large kitchen diner (this is your kind of day to day family living)
4. Playroom with sliding doors / doors opening into the kitchen diner so you can watch the children play from the kitchen diner but can shut the doors on the plastic tat toys when the children nap / go to bed. As they get older, it can perhaps become a children's den / study / Xbox room.

I do agree that you need to be a tidy family - we are mostly e.g. I don't have anything out on my worktops other than a coffee machine (microwave / toaster / kettle in appliance cupboard or utility room) and paperwork is put away etc. Nothing is left on island / dining table etc. If it did, it would look untidy very quickly and I couldn't cope with that hence my suggestion for a separate playroom in the early years.

It’s not fully open plan op as you’re keeping your living room. It’s really just a big kitchen diner.

Now you're straight that it's " just a kitchen dinner" I'd like to add I think it sounds great.

You've got a lounge to retreat to if necessary and a utility to suck up all the washing and crap.

You do have to keep the sink/ table/ kitchen island area tidy. Or tidier than if it was tucked away. And it can be noisy.

But in general I like living this way.

We bought this house because I knew how I could improve it to make it perfect for us. We have a large sunroom opening into the kitchen and dining areas. It faces east, south and west. It’s my favourite room and something I’ve wanted for years.
The sitting room faces north and that’s mostly used by DS (11) for his gaming. There’s a hallway separating us. DH has his study next to the sitting room.
During lockdown this worked perfectly for us as DS only used the dining room table for his schoolwork then trotted back to playing games in the sitting room. I could cook in the kitchen, watch tv, read or surf in the sunroom, and not be bothered by DH or DS. Bliss.
It wouldn’t work at all if there was no separate living space and we had to share the open plan space.
I moved abroad to be able to afford my lovely house. We were living in a small 3 bed detached in a city in the U.K. and luckily we moved before the Brexit vote devalued Sterling. We’d struggle to afford it at the current exchange rate.

My DM lives in a 60's open plan house. I live in a 30's house with all separate rooms. Every time I stay over at her's I forget that anything said in the kitchen can be heard in the bedrooms and upstairs landing (the stairs are in the kitchen diner end).
The people who have just moved into the house next door to her are actually putting up a wall between the kitchen diner end and the stairs to create a bit of separation.
DM also has floor to ceiling sliding doors in the lounge end (effectively 18ft wall of glass). It means she has to open the doors to ventilate and as it's south facing she has an awning thing outside to provide some shade.

In my last house we had the kitchen knocked out into the current hall it worked for use because it gave us much-needed space and made use of the previously redundant under stairs space.
If we had children then, however, it may have been a problem due to noise travelling upstairs, so that's worth thinking about.

Kitchen do we maybe but def need another reception room to get awY it tuck teens away.

Open plan only works for couples or young kids. I dont want to hear Xbox all day when I'm trying to watch the news and I dont want them in bedrooms on Xbox either.

I have an L shaped open plan you can watch tv on the living room and have a separate radio on in the kitchen. I love it but I am very tidy and you can't see the sink/cooking from the sofas.

My bedroom is also downstairs and big enough for a king sized bed dressing tables etc and crucially room for an armchair TV area I can retire to and knit/crochet /game if there's too much going on elsewhere. I wouldn't like it if it wasn't L shaped.

I would seriously consider making a separate study as you have so much space. With a lot of people WFH for some time, or working evenings, someone will need a separate study space sometime and your DH working evenings in your "cosy escape" living room doesn't give him much chance to separate home from work.

I guess it depends on personalities. My husband has commandeered the most remote room in the house as his study since lockdown. The more doors he can close between his work calls and a child's violin practice or gaming, the better. However our children hate working in their bedrooms and now they are into secondary, they need a quiet downstairs space away from the TV daily, not just once a week.

We moved into our Victorian house on Friday and had the architect round yesterday to start discussing our extensive plans. We would like to knock the current tiny kitchen into the dining room, knock down the dated conservatory on the back and build a new extension to the dining/kitchen rooms. It will be approx 7m x 7m. However we are keeping the sitting room at the front of the house plus extending to the side with a double height extension with a formal dining room, utility, office and walk in pantry with master suite on the first floor. We are very excited by the ideas! We would have a very open plan room at the back opening onto the garden but the front of the house with have 2 distinct rooms. We enjoy entertaining and feel this arrangement will give us the best of many worlds as we'll have both formal and informal living spaces.

@MissFritton65 that sounds incredible, and I bet you have amazing high ceilings with it being Victorian 😍 I can't wait to have the architect round!

@Africa2go I'd LOVE a play room but I just don't think we could fit one in. It's going to be a long but narrow (5m) house.

We're planning on moving the main access to the side as that'll give us a hallway of sorts (front door goes into tiny porch then living room), more space in the living room (as stairs will be gone), a v spacious cupboard for crap utility and a downstairs loo 🤩

It's a good point about hauling open the bifolds every time you want to peg the washing out etc, are they a faff? We could rethink the garden access from the side 🤔

Also, from what you've all said I'm so glad we didn't buy another house we looked at recently. It was much bigger but downstairs was all open plan. I thought extending here was a lot of compromises but you've made me realise it will be better 🙌

We have a fairly open plan back of the house with a kitchen, dining and sofa area with TV. We also have a front room. I love our house but it would not work for us at all without that front room.

@Elieza all the downstairs doors are open all the time 🙈 even with the washer on they're open but there are walls so noise won't travel so much I guess.

The toddler spends A LOT of time marching up and down the length of the house through the doors it drives me a bit nutty 😂

This is a new thread really but for those who have done it, what's it like living through an extension?

We are also planning a 5x5 garden room with shower as a home office/occasional guest room so we're anticipating living in that for a bit 😱

We didn't have issues with noise travelling between kitchen diner and large living room but it was a Victorian house and TV was at one end of living room furthest away from kitchen appliances. We also had a seperate study. We found it fine with young kids and teens - DD has a desk in her bedroom and works there and DS is ASD so needs me to do everything with him anyway.

If you are the type of person to keep doors open - I am too - think it will be fine.

My front room and kitchen, although not fully open plan, has a massive opening between them, with no door as its way too big, tumble drier/washing machine makes a racket, no way of keeping animals or kids out of the kitchen and all of downstairs ends up sweltering in the summer. Next house i definitely want a seperate kitchen/dining room and front room.

NOISE.
Thing is, when the kids were small they all crammed into the 2m square where I was anyway, open plan didn't matter then. But when kids get older, it's nice if they can spread out & not wind each other up. It's when they are young adults that you badly appreciate separate space.

I have open plan kitchen living and dining room and I absolutely love it. However I also have a utility room, tv room and office so there is plenty of place to escape. I don’t think I would want it completely open plan however, a kitchen with seating for at least 6-8 is a prequsite if I didn’t have open plan

I have big open plan room like that and a separate living room. The separate living room is a must - its impossible to watch tv/relax whilst someone is clattering around in the kitchen etc. But it is really sociable and easy to keep an eye on kids. The biggest issue I have is the only opening door/window is the bifold door. Annoying if you need to nip to the bin/let in a bit of fresh air. Make sure you have an opening window too, and I'd get those bifolds where they work as a door too. Underfloor heating really helps in a big room too if you have the option.

Our bifolds have a door in them! Like the first section opens on hinges, you can then unlock the next two sections to open fully when wanted. We def don't have to open it completely just to put the washing out etc! We also have a back door on the utility so can go straight out that way if needed.

We have this OP - big room with kitchen, dining table and sitting area. Separate sitting room and separate utility.

I love it. We spend most time in the kitchen and this is a lovely big space with choice of sitting areas and room for everyone without feeling crowded.

However this kind of layout hugely benefits from, in fact I would say requires, a separate room for all the plastic to live in, so you can shut the door on the toy mess and not have to tidy it up or look at it all the time. Also as PP have said, a separate room for the DC when they are being incredibly loud or want to watch kids tv.

We have a playroom upstairs (kids are young primary age) for this. However this won’t work with your age kids as they will need constant supervising. With toddler and baby, I would suggest you make your separate sitting room into a playroom for the next few years (with double doors through to the main room). You can send the toys upstairs and reclaim it as a grown up room once they get to primary age.