The end of open plan?

[Cloudesley]

Every estate agent who came round to value our house said, "oh yes people will probably take kitchen wall down and open it up here". Fine, do what you want when you buy our house, but whilst I'm here I really really appreciate having separate spaces in the house. With lockdowns etc and people at home more, what on earth is the appeal of a sitting room where you can see, smell and hear the person cooking in the kitchen?

Admittedly my kids are grown up and I don't need to have one eye on them whilst I cook supper, but even so, I don't recall that ever being a problem when they were younger! I just used to yell at them from the kitchen, or have them strapped in a high chair.

Can anyone explain why they would view a house and mentally "open up the kitchen/living area"?

Open plan has reduced the number of properties I am interested in. I like rooms, with walls, and doors.

Some beautiful old houses have been ruined because of people knocking walls down and removing features.

Agents don't consider that not everyone wants a house that is basically one room downstairs.

You can build walls up again! Once they have bern removes, they don’t have to stay removed. Build what you like.

I cook from scratch and over a week it takes me hours. You would be alone in a tiny kitchen if you did this. Not for me. I like a bit of chat!

I don't count a kitchen/ diner and a separate living room as open plan.

No, I have a kitchen/diner and two reception rooms and study, no way is it open plan

I like big rooms

I like light rooms - if we weren’t open plan, the back part of our big room would be dark following our extension

I like having company while I do boring jobs like unload the dishwasher or wipe the surfaces

I like being able to do jobs in the kitchen whilst supervising DC homework/playing

I like being able to get up and make a cup of tea or put a few things in the dishwasher without feeling like I’ve left the group/conversation/missed part of the tv programme

We have a separate utility and sitting room (as well as our open plan kitchen/dining/living room) so that solves many of the issues of open plan.

Personally I find open plan really off-putting and have even factored putting walls back in into the price when looking round houses. Everybody being in one room is just so inconvenient when you all want to do different things!

Some beautiful old houses have been ruined because of people knocking walls down and removing features.

Yes, my heart sinks when I see what looks like a lovely old house on the outside, only to find it has one big room downstairs!

I wouldn’t want open plan in my only kitchen and living space but would love the space for both an open plan kitchen diner/sitting room AND a separate living space :)

That’s THE DREAM for me.

Op, I don’t know if it’s your style of writing, but you come across like you’re offended that anyone would choose to live differently to you or would wish to amend your hpuse.

Some folks like closed, some like open, people are more likely to open up when the rooms are small.to maximise the use of the space. I’ve seen plenty of small kitchens with a space for a table for four. But they would hardly be called spacious.

If the agent is saying yours would be knocked through then I suspect yours falls into this category. No one suggests knocking through when the rooms are large and spacious.

You need to loose the turf protectiveness if you’re going to sell and just view it as an asset. The fact it can be knocked through to make it feel more spacious will ne a plus for many buyers.

A kitchen diner is great - but only if you have at least one other room where you can shut yourself off. Especially true with teenagers - or, as my neighbour has found (having only recently opened up the whole downstairs), working from home!

Our house is small and if the kitchen, dining room and lounge were still separate they would all be tiny. Nearly all the houses in the street are knocked through one way or another.

I said on another thread we put doors back in the opening between lounge and dining room so we have the option but I'm just as likely to swing the TV out and watch it while I'm cooking.

Like all these trends it can be taken to extremes with these enormo-extensions and massive "family" rooms, I think it's more future proof to have flexibility as to how the space is used.

I guess it also depends on how well everyone in the home gets on together!

My house (bought last year) is open plan downstairs and I am saving up to put a wall back in. This has been the plan from the start. I don’t like that you can see through the whole house from the street. Mess from a toddler and baby spreads throughout the whole downstairs by the end of the day, whereas if the living room was separated I could keep that clean, and we’d spend the day in the kitchen/diner/den space, then in an evening I’d have a toy-free retreat.

Is it really a trend, or just whatever you prefer?
I prefer open plan, always have, & I can't see that changing.

I hate open plan so glad our flat is living room and kitchen separate.

Friends have open plan, he likes to watch a lot of sport she likes to listen to the radio while pottering in the kitchen. The solution is for them to take turns wearing wireless headphones.....I’m not convinced.

@2Zebras

I love the fact that we have a kitchen, dining room, living room , tv room, sun room (where the decent music system lives) a separate office and our own bedrooms

Well I never! That's a lot of rooms! Do you actually use them?

I grew up in a big old rambling house with this many rooms. In fact the attic space (which contained an additional set of small rooms for the servants) wasn't even used by my parents. The thing is, when you are used to lots of space each room has a specific function and there's no 'living room' with children playing, someone watching TV and someone else trying to read or listen to music or send a work email. All those activities have their own room. Everyone I know with a big house easily fills it and uses it. We have 2 reception rooms (playroom and sitting room) and a kitchen diner and an office and utility room. Would have hated to have less space during lockdown. Kids worked in the playroom, we worked in the office. Kitchen diner and sitting room for down time for us all.

@PickAChew

And I hate talking to people as I cook! Sometimes I'm preparing 3 meals at once and need to concentrate.

Oh god, me too. I'd like a crocodile-stocked moat around my kitchen.

As someone else said, blame TV. Some people want the “Come Dine With Me” dinner parties. To be honest, so did I. We open the kitchen / diner out to be social but then put in some Internal Bifold Doors so we I can hide all the kitchen mess!!

It’s definitely a 50-50 split in choice but you would never hear an estate agent walking into an open plan house saying “someone could put a wall up here”!

Most people’s ideal is a big kitchen-diner and then another separate living room.

I don’t think we will move back to small kitchens and separate dining rooms, but I also think that totally open plan has always had limited appeal.

Family sized houses usually have space to have a separate living room and older ones are often converted to have kitchendiner or are built with it if newer.

The thing lots of people hate is what is found in flats and small houses....the one room for everything. It’s a medium sized room with a kitchen along one wall (often no window at that end) and then a tiny table nearby and then a small space for sitting. They sell those houses and flats as sociable spaces, but really they are just squashed and there is no space for privacy or to get away from each other or the other functions of the house. As people say, you can hear the washing machine or smell the food from 12 hours earlier when sitting in the one small sofa which is only a few yards from the kitchen area. Those houses have one big room which is ‘zoned’ and cram more units in by avoiding corridors and spaces between rooms and walls, but they don’t create satisfactory living for most people, especially when there are children too.

So definite no to any property which has living, dining and kitchen all in one room, if there’s no other living space. If you have to fit a 4th function of working into that single room too, it gets even worse.

The reason they are small is price! Not everyone can afford bigger flats. My DD has a beautiful open plan flat in London. She couldn’t afford bigger! She needed certain areas for work and it’s fine being open plan if you are not a family. In fact people like the feeling of space. It would feel cramped if the kitchen was separate. The zones are well defined and it’s a former warehouse. It’s better than tiny separate rooms. Younger people are happy with open plan in these circumstances.