Will open-plan fall out of fashion?

[dollyolly]

Just moved into a 1930s 3-bed (ok, 2.5 bed) – it's one of very few in the area that hasn't been structurally changed in any way. No extensions, no walls knocked through. Small-ish kitchen with two downstairs reception rooms.

Everyone assumes we'll knock walls through to create an open-plan space, but it suits my husband and I as it is, as it's just us here.

I know open-plan has pros – for example, I guess it's very useful to be able to keep small kids in view, and a lot of people hate small kitchens. Plus, spaces can be more multi-functional.

But I wonder if there'll be a move back to privacy, separateness, each room having a very defined purpose. Open-plan is relatively recent, and there were good reasons for designing these homes as they originally were.

Interested to hear thoughts on this. Why do you love open-plan (or not)? Has anyone regretted knocking walls through? Do you agree it could fall out of fashion and folks will start putting walls back in?

I do have a separate utility room for laundry and untidy storage items.

I have open plan and wish I didn't. Much harder to keep warm and keep cooking smells out of living areas. Never really feels cozy.

I've always preferred smaller rooms. It's more cosy and it's easier to ignore mess/noise from the kitchen.

We live in the same sort of house. We kept the front living room separate and knocked through the kitchen and back living room. We also were able to add a bit more on the back to create a living/dining/kitchen/toy shop type room. The front room is our "grown up" room, no toys allowed!

I like what we have, large open plan kitchen diner with lounge area, plus a utility and snug. A small, cozy area for TV or the teen to hang with her friends or a film for the littlies, but a large family space too. I don't like being stuck in a tiny kitchen alone, and I hate lounge diners or carrying food to dining rooms miles away. I would be happy with a kitchen diner and lounge, or adjoining dining room tho.

I have never been keen on open plan, and having had to live open plan for 7 years, I'd never do it again. I like having rooms to close off, especially when there are pets and children in the house. I love nice big kitchen diners, but I'd need at least one more room entirely separate. I'd never buy an open plan house unless there was the possible of putting walls up.

I hope so.
I strongly dislike open plan.

I like doors.

We have open plan kitchen living dining and I spend most of my time there. Its great with small DC. We have separate utility so the washing machine and laundry is out of sight. Kids keep their toys in their playroom so living stays clutter free, they will bring out whatever toys they are playing with then take them back before bed. Mock fireplace breaking up the open plan makes it feel cosy. We have a separate living room too that isn't used.

Agree, I have a Victorian Semi and many that we saw have the front room knocked into the dining room. We’ve kept our separate because then you can have someone watching a tv in one and someone else playing the piano in another.

I definitely like to have a big, sociable kitchen, but not at the expense of a separate living room. With your configuration I would combine one of the living spaces with the kitchen and leave the sitting room snug (preferably with a wood burner if you're rural like me). I don't like seeing the kitchen from my sitting room.

I do like a nice big kitchen diner but not keen on where they have the whole downstairs open. I like a separate lounge
Our house is about 25 years old and we have nice sized room at the front which most use as a dining room. Fairly small kitchen and good sized lounge at the back
We have got a table in our kitchen but it's tight and the front room is being used as a 5th bedroom which wasn't our original plan.
Most of our friends have a lovely big kitchen diner and I do feel a few pangs of jealousy at times. We did consider knocking through into the lounge to make one huge room but decided against it
We also explored putting an extension on the kitchen but it would eat into the already quite small garden and the quotes were insane
So we need to learn to love our smaller kitchen. Think we are going to replace it and rejig the layout slightly to maximise space

We have separate rooms (kitchen, utility room, dining room and lounge) and we have left it like that unlike many of our neighbours. I can shut the kitchen door on the mess, enjoy my dinner without being able to see the pile of washing up and go back later. I can watch TV whilst the dishwasher or washing machine are running without having to listen to them. And over the winter it was so much easier to keep the house warm whilst keeping the bills relatively low. Neighbours complained about the cost to heat their open plan spaces and one doesn't like how everyone is always in the same space because if someone is watching tv it makes having a conversation in the kitchen area more difficult.....

House was built in the 1980s so extraction and central heating were very much available (and in situ). If we ever move it will again be to a house with separate rooms.

It depends on your stage of life too.

Little kids - open plan so you can be preparing food or doing laundry and still see them.

Teenagers - rooms with doors unless you want the x-box and/or a pack of kids to take over your living room

In that kind of 1930s house I would probably have a big kitchen diner at the back. Ideally with a utility configured in somewhere for laundry appliances and really aspirationally a sofa and small TV. I'd retain the front room as "formal" living space.

I think having somewhere you can retreat to without cooking smells, kitchen mess and eavesdropping teenagers is useful but something of a luxury.

Flats are quite personal. I really wanted an open plan space as I entertain a lot and don't like being stuck in the kitchen away from my guests. My sister on the other hand discounted anywhere with an open plan kitchen as she wanted to contain the mess.

I do have a laundry cupboard off the hallway which removes the noisier appliances from the main living room.

Sounds like open-plan kitchen and dining room with separate lounge is the sweet spot for most folks. If ours had come that way, I wouldn't change it. But we quite like the poshness(!) of eating in a separate dining room and we're lucky that the back of the house is a bit wider so the kitchen does have more space compared to the original footprint of houses nearby.

Just really interested in how home-building reflects the concerns/sociology of its time. What did a 1930s house say about its time? I think they reflected a growing aspiration (all built with driveways, even if many people didn't yet have cars), a desire for light (bay windows), they were generous in terms of plot size and street layout (plenty of land available). It seems they were marketed at people who wanted to move up and out of their Victorian terraces.

What do today's new builds say about our time?

What do today's new builds say about our time? that space is now at a premium and a decent garden and driveway are a real luxury!

Each to their own - I'm from The Netherlands, I'd say 90% of houses are completely open plan downstairs and I much prefer open plan. I like being able to cook dinner and watch my kids at the same time and I prefer light open spaces.

Definitely those things!

Wonder about more subtle things. Lots of storage, as we have so much more stuff now? (Or maybe they don't – and that's a problem for people!)

It's always hard to separate what's been done as a cost-saving measure and what's been done because it's appealing to people. Any property developers here?

Have houses there always been built like that? In the UK, we built our (ordinary) houses quite small and poky for a long time.

Wonder if you can pinpoint any cultural/social or climate-related reasons for the differences.

I love a kitchen diner - you can prep food for a dinner party in a big, light space and chat to friends over wine as you do so, or keep an eye on children doing homework as you peel veg.

But I prefer soft furnishings to be nowhere near food smells. And I really like defined living areas. So often we'd have one person watching TV another practising piano, a third wanting to read or work in peace - by having a kitchen diner and two smallish living rooms instead of knocking through, we could do that.

Blimey Dolly, are we writing your uni essay for you?..

(We reconfigured our space to Kitchen diner, separating dinning room from the lounge.)

Hey, no one forced you to reply! 😉

We had an open plan flat before we bought this house and everyone also thought we'd knock walls down etc. It's so much easier not being open plan. I used to hate that we were always in each others space and there wasn't really a place to escape unless you went to bed. Now I can curl up in the dinning room while DH cooks or I can cook while he watched football or something. Much nicer this way. The only down side is some of our furniture didn't fit when we moved in as was bought to fill a much bigger space.

I love that house footprints reflect the sociology of the time. My house is 1930s but built in the mid - late 30s so probably reflects changes to architecture over that design period. It is very spacious with high ceilings and big dimensions. The original kitchen I think was small but not quite the galley you see in some. I guess they wouldn’t have had anywhere near as much to put in a kitchen back then!

We like the separateness of our layout but we opened up the hallway & morning room when reconfiguring to fit a downstairs loo. Now we have that sense of open space (the hallway is huge anyway) whilst still retaining separate rooms.

I do like open plan, but not so it's just one big room. Or house is over three floors, the downstairs is a huge living room, the middle floor has a kitchen diner, cloakroom etc, and then the bedrooms and main bathrooms are upstairs again. It works really well, as the kitchen is nice and big and airy, and the living room, although huge feels really cosy on a evening as it's on the lower ground floor. I don't think I could have a kitchen, living, dining space all in one. Especially living with kids who I like to hide from sometimes!