This half height wall at the stairs was the only wall in our entire living room \ kitchen\ dining area of our first house, and it was horrible.
Just stop with all the open concept floor plans
Seriously. Just stop.
I know this opinion is practically sacrilegious in this day and age. I hate open concept floor plans.
Recently, we acquired a Hulu subscription. This has conveniently coincided with prepping our house to sell and listing it. I have now watched a bunch of HGTV shows depicting the same horrid transformation episode after episode. Since we are selling this house, we are looking for a new one. We need acreage, an out building, and enough house to comfortably hold a family of eight.
And this is where problems start. Already, we have the problem of low inventory in the housing market. There are no houses at all for sale, let alone one that fits our list of needs. Our needs are not that plentiful. We need enough bedrooms so that we only have two kids per room. And some sort of bonus room to be my office/studio/workshop. A five bedroom house would be great. A four bedroom with a bonus space to use as my workshop works. I don’t believe in children needing their own rooms.
But what I do need? Walls. Blessed walls!
Who the heck decided it was a great idea to make the entire first floor of a house all one room?
I’ve heard the pros.
-It gives an illusion of more space.
-It allows for bigger entertaining.
-You can keep an eye on young children from the kitchen.
That’s pretty much where the pros end. And most of them are a bit dumb.
I mean, the illusion of space isn’t the same as actual space. I only need a bigger entertaining area a couple times per year. And there is a very small window of time in which I want to keep an eye on my kids while I’m meal prepping. By the time my kids are three, they do not need constant supervision.
The cons of open concept are a much bigger deal to me.
-You can see everything.
Everything. From everywhere. Hey, you know what I wish? I wish I could see the dishes from feeding six kids all the way from my dining room. And I wish the TV in the living room was able to distract me while working at the dining room table. And I really want to look at living room clutter while chopping celery. Not.
-The few walls are all connected.
How the heck do I paint this? Every wall is connected to the next wall and it will always be one room. I would have to always use one color for the entire kitchen, dining, and living room. And it would need to be neutral in order to not be overwhelming looking. How dull.
Plus, with all of the walls being one room, it is difficult to decorate with art. It has the potential to look visually cluttered with just a couple pieces. Perhaps that is why I never see a well decorated open concept “great room”. They all look terrible.
Speaking of clutter……
-There is no where to put anything.
Where do I put the desk or bookcases or armoir when there are no walls? Do I just keep my books, computer, and blankets on the floor? Push the furniture to the outer walls and create a roller rink in the center?
If there ARE spaces for those furniture pieces, they are visible from every room, which adds visual stimulation, AKA visual clutter. Apparently, in an open concept living space, you mustn’t own anything. And quite frankly, if I keep nothing in the space, do I really need it?
-Noise.
Need I say more? Walls create nice noise barriers. You know how freeways often have a sound wall between them and the residential homes? I need that between my kitchen and living room.
-Privacy.
Need to take a phone call? Sit and do homework? Want to watch a movie? Eat a snack in secret? Grumble under your breath about other people?
Well, too bad! Everyone can hear and see all that you do from every angle. There is no division. No privacy. No where to go. Don’t even get me started on those open concept bathrooms people keep installing in their bedrooms.
-Inconvenient baby corralling, dogs proofing.
There isn’t anywhere to put a baby gate. You need a doorway for many gates to work. A hallway at the very least.
I could keep going with endless cons, but I think I covered the most pressing points. Whenever one of these shows insists open concept is best for family living, I can only assume these people have not actually raised a family. Or lived with a family. Or have known a family. Or maybe even seen one. So far, I have only seen one designer on HGTV who even had kids, and while she often pushed the open concept agenda onto her clients, you can’t help but notice she DOES NOT employ open concept in her own well appointed home. That right there says something. Open concept makes for a nice panoramic view when filming TV, but it is not a realistic layout for real life with children. It is made for TV, not real life. However, many people do not learn this until they try to raise a family in the floor plan they thought they wanted.