Talk to me about pros/cons of totally open plan family living...

[Daffodilly]

We have a traditional Victorian semi that was originally 3 reception rooms downstairs. One wall has already been knocked down to create a through 'living room/dining room' from front to back.

We are now considering taking out another wall to create a big family kitchen/diner/family space across the back of the house.

Question is whether to re-instate the other wall to have a seperate living room at the front. It would still be a good size for two sofas, TV, sideboard-type-thing, etc. I'm not sure I like the idea of basically having one single, albeit large, room downstairs with nowhere to escape to. On the other hand I worry that we might just end up living in the big family space at the back and never using the front room.

Any thoughts? Our children are little at the moment, but as they get older will we be glad of having another room to use and shut the door on?

Yes you will appreciate having a seperate room. Could you put in some sort of sliding folding door system so you can do either?

Open plan living is noisy, TV competes with kettle/washing machine/microwave etc. The toys travel everywhere because there are no walls & doors to stop them. You can't decorate one room at a time, you have to heat the whole area in the depths of a cold winter.

Open plan living means nowhere is free of the clutter and mess, everywhere is on display when you have visitors, there isn't anywhere you can keep small tots safely away from the rest of the house or older children out of earshot with their "neow-neow bip bip bip" computer games or renditions of High School Musical on repeat.....I agree that a separate room is a welcome sanctuary, if only to be somewhere to thrust the toys and mess when people come over

I don't know how old your DCs are, but now that mine are old enough not to need constant supervision, I am very thankful that I have a room with no TV (or in fact anything electronic or plastic) that I can retreat to away from the TV/toys in the main living room. The DCs also use the 'quiet' living room for reading/music practice etc or just to get away from each other (siblings...). We also have a box room which functions as an office/computer room, and if that were also in the big family kitchen/dining/living space it would be horrendous. I'd never get a moment's peace on MN...

It's so long since I had a seperate room (err living at home with my parents I guess) I can't imagine such luxury anymore.

We have a similar layout to yours and are about to reinstate the wall between the living and dining room. we've lived with this layout for over 10 years, and as the Dc's have got older we've found the layout just doesn't work for us. There's nowhere separate, and we find that we only use one end of the room anyway, because we eat in the kitchen/diner part of the house.

Also seperate room with sofabed = spare room when you have guests staying.

Brilliant. Thanks for all those answers. Sort of confirms my instinct to put the wall back in (DH less keen).

I can see that the front room will be used less - mainly by me watching TV in the evenings (or rare chance to escape kids in the day). But think as they get older and are up later it will be nice to have another space.

You need a separate room so you can eat biscuits without a small child hanging off you trying to mug you for them!

lol at Butterball's biscuit strategy.

Definitely have a separate room. We are open plan and it does my head in - there is no escape apart from the bedrooms and the kitchen (which has no table).

Definately keep a separate room.

I speak from experience of living in a house where the whole downstairs area is open, so we have a large kitchen/diner/living area and I HATE it.

I can never get away from the sodding telly being on in the evenings w/ends and it drives me crackers.

Not a fan of totally open living plan either. Firstly, the whole house would smell of cooking and how would you hide clutter of pots pans various thingies when having a dinner party? I like having kitchen separate so can herd the dear guests to pristine living area for drinkies and then serve the 'feast' in the spotless[right] dining room.

If you have any musical DCs, you will appreciate a separate space for the piano etc.

I totally agree with Rollmops, although it seems to be the minority view. When you have guests for supper, a separate (chaotic) kitchen and (pristine) dining room is really handy. Plus, with the ultra funky heating system, we can heat each room individually to the right temperature for that time of day - with open plan, you're having to heat the whole space and the stairs and upstairs landing too.

Agree that totally open-plan has downsides. It means you have to childproof everywhere to the max (no shutting doors if you temporarily need to keep someone away from something), get the mess everywhere and the noise (TV/radio, playing, washing machine) and cooking smells too. And it can be cold.

Plus I agree with all those who said it is great to have a separate room you can "get away" to sometimes. Not got any older DCs yet, but so many people have told us how useful it is to have somewhere separate that can be used for music/TV/quiet homework or whatever.

We've got a very open plan Victorian semi. We have a big sitting/dining room that runs from front to back, and the kitchen is off this to the side (in practice very hard to keep the kitchen door shut, so it feels like one huge room).

We had similar (but much smaller) in our previous house and loved it, but that was before we had dcs. Now I find it really annoying, and one of the reasons we are planning to move house.

Problems:

1. Noise - you can't get away from it, and really difficult when people are trying to do different things (read, watch tv, play with noisy toys, talk).
2. Small children have access to everything so can trash the whole downstairs within minutes.
3. You have to tidy everywhere if guests are coming, not just one or two little rooms.
4. Not enough walls to put things (bookcases, eg) against.
5. PITA when you have builders, workmen, etc in - nowhere to escape to. (Particularly a prpblem if you have a dog, I find).

The only plus side I can think of is that it can make a very dark house feel much lighter and bigger.

Having enough walls to put things against is a really good point. I would like to open up my kitchen and small dining room but would have absolutely nowhere to put the piano then.

I hate my open plan house. Its just an open plan living room / dining room (the kitchen is small but to one side).

Cons;
The dirt from the back (patio doors) gets trampled all the way through the dining room, past the sofa and up to the front door.

The toys are spread from the front to the back of the house.

There is no where for me to hide when the dc's are driving me up the wall (the kitchen isn't big enough to 'hang out in', let alone have a table or chair in it).

Any crumbs from under the dining room table are swiftly scattered onto the living room rug thanks to my 2 pre-schoolers.

pros;
Makes a small area seem lighter.

I dream of the day I have separate rooms.

Cons - cold, noisy, can see the mess and not close the door on it, cooking smells

Pros - can see kids/friends etc while cooking. More space

Personally I would recommend a flexible approach - i.e. can be either or with doors that can close/open. We have all our doors open most of the time, but nice to have the option to close.

Great stuff. Thanks for that.

Sherbert - had to LOL at the idea of a separate music practise room ( you haven't met DH or I...least musical people ever) but you never know!

Daffodilly - you never know. I struggled to a painful grade 5 on the violin whereas DD wants to study music at uni and plays constantly.

I agree with Rollmops and Grendelsmum. My brother moved into a house with the whole of the downstairs open plan, even the kitchen can't be cordoned off. Nightmare trying to stop the toddlers from racing round the kitchen when the oven's on and it's so noisy when he and his wife are cooking.
Having come from a house with a kitchen/diner, I really enjoy having a separate kitchen in my current house. It's next door to the dining room but means we don't have to eat whilst looking at the pans and hearing the oven fan whirring while pudding cooks!

I wouldn't like a single room to include the kitchen/laundry room. We have a big hall / sitting room / dining room (all more or less the same size) with glass doors between them which are always left open, so it is pretty much open plan. But the kitchen and laundry room have doors and I wouldn't want it any other way.