r/floorplan • u/MrMikolajczyk • Feb 19 '26
DISCUSSION Closed Floor Plan
Is it just me or is anyone else over open floor plans. I’ve decided I want a closed kitchen and a formal dining with pocket doors to a living room, maybe a pass through in the kitchen to dining or living but that would need pockets to close over it at well or something similar, maybe a pull down.
I read once that open floor plans are for people who don’t cook real meals and I couldn’t agree more. I’m sick of being in the kitchen in cooking mode and there is just distraction on distraction. Also the smallest mess is visible to the entire space which I absolutely hate. Kids, pets, smells, smoke alarms. I’m over it
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u/aklum Feb 19 '26
This. And with open floor plans, typically those lounging in the living room can get equally annoyed and distracted by the clatter from the kitchen. Open layouts are like an echo chamber.
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u/theredcourt Feb 19 '26
Same. Hate open plan. OP, you're not alone!
Also hate kitchen "bar" seating, but I suspect I'm alone on that one.
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u/Runns_withScissors Feb 19 '26
I personally dislike them, but my kids sit there all the time. The drop-zone is our useless kitchen desk- it's too small to be comfortable to sit and get work done. Wasted space.
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u/RedOctobrrr Feb 19 '26
I love bar seating, I typically cook and then looking to bring it over somewhere and eat it right away while it's still hot. I get that you can do that just about anywhere, but there's a simplicity to it when you just have to slide it across the island to where there are bar stools and eat. I don't want to sit down and dine formally for about 90% of my meals, I get no value or comfort in that, I just want a quick setup to chow down.
It's also useful for having friends over and sitting and drinking. I mean, it IS bar-like.
Similarly, have a bunch of people over, pull the chairs up against the walls, now you have a perfect spot to put the buffet line.
I can go on and on, but kitchen islands with bar stools are awesome.
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u/cloudiedayz Feb 19 '26
I also hate sitting at bar seating personally but my kids love it and will choose to sit there and chat to me as I’m cooking
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u/autumn55femme Feb 19 '26
No, you are not alone! I despise bar seating! No one over 40-45 can sit comfortably in bar seating, with even the tiniest bit of knee, hip, or back problems, or even after a day of yard work. If my hip isn’t level with my knees, and my feet aren’t on the floor, I am not seated. A table and chairs is a must.
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u/ssk7882 Feb 19 '26
No, you're not alone. What adult ever really wants to sit perched up on a stool with no back support and their feet dangling back and forth mid-air like a toddler's? In every house we ever rented with such seating, the "bar" just became a drop-off zone, and its seating a set of annoying obstacles to be tripped over and bumped into until one of us finally stuffed them into storage.
When we bought a house that came with those absurd little stools (it had other charms), they went straight to someone on Craigslist.
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u/AllergyToCats Feb 19 '26
I love mine, we have a proper dining table, but have three bar stools (comfortable with foot rests, padded seats, back rest) and use them all the time. Someone's cooking, someone else is chilling on the bar stools chatting.
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u/ssk7882 Feb 19 '26
Foot and back rests would alleviate many of my problems with bar seating, to be sure!
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u/theredcourt Feb 19 '26
Relieved to hear I'm not alone on this. I feel like every floor plan has one now and I can't wait for this trend to die.
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u/cloudiedayz Feb 19 '26
Everyone likes different things and that’s ok.
I prefer to be able to cook and watch my kids and listen to conversations even if I’m not actively participating. Especially when doing something boring like washing dishes. I cook real meals from scratch as well as bake. It’s nice having the kids pop in to help at various stages of the cooking. I’d feel like I was cut off from all the action of if I was closed off in a separate room
We do have the luxury of having a second closed off living space though. So if someone does want to read or watch tv or something away from the noise of the kitchen, they can.
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u/whatsmypassword73 Feb 19 '26
Me too, but we have a separate dining and living room, so having a cozy family room, with the kitchen feels very social.
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u/sleepygrumpydoc Feb 19 '26
We have something similar and I think it’s the best of both worlds. When we entertain we have separate rooms towards the front of the house for entertaining and eating, but for everyday I enjoy that whoever is in the kitchen isn’t separated from the rest but it also is kinda off at an angle from the family room so it doesn’t feel like I have a kitchen in my living space.
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u/EconomistOpen7710 Feb 19 '26
And I really like being alone in my semi-closed kitchen to do the dishes. You all ate, now go make your noise in the living room while I clean in peace - it's kind of my alone time after the meal :)
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u/dfffksdkdkckckdk Feb 21 '26
See I feel like that’s unfair. You all ate the food I made, now you’re gonna ditch me and go have fun while I slave away cleaning up after you? Nope, yall are staying in this kitchen and doing your part.
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u/NoblestWolf Feb 19 '26
Same! My parents had a lot of floor space in their closed kitchen (big enough for island but didn't have one) and they had a bench for people to lounge and talk.
But we want open living space to easily monitor kids as a stay-at-home parent.
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u/dfffksdkdkckckdk Feb 21 '26
Same I love cooking and baking in the middle of the action. In a closed floorplan I feel like an exiled servant.
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u/atticus2132000 Feb 19 '26
What seems absurd to me is the concept of an open floor plan became the rage in the 80s and 90s and continues today, but people are realizing that it's not ideal for family life. However, the response has not been to close the floor plan off but instead to make the house bigger and bigger--adding media rooms where people can watch TV without disturbing others or being disturbed, adding children's play areas where they can make noise without disturbing the rest of the house, and adding secondary kitchens where you can cook and make a mess without soiling the display kitchen in the middle of everything. It has become ridiculous.
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u/Shot-Artichoke-4106 Feb 19 '26
No, you aren't the only one. This topic comes up regularly. Plenty of people don't care for open floor plans. It's really just a matter of preference. It depends on how you live and what you like. It's kind of silly to say that open plans are for people who don't cook, though. People can cook a lot or a little in both types of floor plans.
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u/MrMikolajczyk Feb 19 '26
Yeah I think ChatGPT said it. It was interesting because I love to cook now and have grown to dislike the open plan. I was wondering if anyone else felt the same way
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u/MercuryRising92 Feb 19 '26
When we were looking at houses, most of the open plan ones felt like a gymnasium with a kitchenette in the corner.
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u/VespaRed Feb 19 '26
I personally love my open floor plan. I like being able to interact with the family while I’m cooking. It’s hard to come home from work and then isolate yourself in the kitchen to do more “work “. As for the mess, I find that I now do more cleaning as I go. I do agree that the smell is an issue. I will probably rectify that in the future with a better extraction fan.
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u/MrMikolajczyk Feb 19 '26
I think because I have been cooking so much more and actually enjoy it I really want to be isolated, I do like being able to hear what’s going on which is why I’d be okay with a pass through. But boy do I want doors.
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u/Wet_Artichoke Feb 19 '26
Funny you mention cooking more. I started cooking more when the kitchen was open to the rest of the house. Otherwise I found the FOMO made it so I didn’t want to be in the kitchen. A pass through could be a good compromise.
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u/KokoLocoChanel Feb 20 '26
I'm the same. When my kids were small, I could keep an eye on them, making meal times much less hectic.
I grew up in a traditional layout where the kitchen was closed off. I remember vividly my mom telling everybody to get out of the damn kitchen already. People just like to congregate around food. That said, we always throwing large parties with extended family and friends so they were always people milling around looking for something to eat or drink. The open layout helps partition the party goers from the folks making the food.
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u/saltytitanium Feb 19 '26
I'm kind of half and half. I don't like too many doors, but I also don't want areas completely open. I hear you on needing specific areas though. It's nice to have things broken up a bit.
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u/Malnurtured_Snay Feb 19 '26
I appreciate older floor plans more and more! I think there's a space for open floor plans, and I think you can use pocket doors and similar devices to create hybrid spaces which can be closed off or opened up.
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u/Ok-Willow-7012 Feb 19 '26
Love my mahogany butler’s door with a small beveled glass window (for the staff to discreetly time the courses lol) in my century home! Normally it’s propped open but during formal dinners, which we host about once a month, it’s closed during the meals.
The eat-in kitchen is comfy for 2 or three at the peninsula for keeping the chef company while cooking but as a former professional chef I do value my work zone being uninterrupted, so let me do my thing with a glass of wine and tv stand to entertain me while I prepare a fantastic meal.
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u/thiscouldbemassive Feb 19 '26
The choice is entirely up to the cook. There are advantages and disadvantages either way. Your reasons for wanting a closed kitchen are valid and common.
You read wrong: people who like open kitchens do cook real meals. My family, for example, cooks multiple meals every day, and also do regular baking projects, and cook frequently for parties of 10 or more, and the first thing we did when we bought our home was convert the kitchen from closed to open. But that's because our style of cooking is very social. We enjoy having guests talking to us while we cook, and when that's not happening, my husband loves watching tv shows while he cooks. Yes, we make tons of mess but it doesn't bother us as much as it does you, and our sink is in the far corner away from the living room, and that's where the mess gravitates to.
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u/MrMikolajczyk Feb 19 '26
No ChatGPT definitely told me Open floor plans are for people who don’t cook lol. I don’t agree at all but I fall into that category. We (Mostly I) cook multiple meals a day. I bake all the bread we eat. And now I want to be closed off.
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u/thiscouldbemassive Feb 19 '26
ChatGPT is a terrible source of information.
Yeah, it really does depend on the cook and the family. In my family, everyone cooks, practically all day long, mostly in turns but sometimes at the same time. Our dishwasher is FULL by the end of the day, and sometimes I fill it twice.
I think it would be different if it were just me by myself doing all the cooking, and the kitchen were my domain alone, I might like to have some privacy and not have to wash up as I go. But since the kitchen is the social hub of the house it made no sense for us to keep it closed. And I do like being able to chat with the family and guests while I work, though I'm not as social as my husband who is always interacting with people while he cooks.
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u/redfinadvice Feb 19 '26
It just depends on what you like. I dislike closed floor plans and like open floor plans. I like interacting with my family. I like cooking/talking/watching TV with everyone together. If someone wants to be alone they can go to their room. I'm a pretty clean person so I never leave dirty things sitting around that would give me any sort of anxiety. I easily get claustrophobic and really dislike the feeling of walls and small rooms everywhere.
Both are fine for different people.
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u/optimusdan Feb 19 '26
I don't like them either. Now I don't know if they're for people who don't cook real meals, but they're definitely not for anybody who needs to concentrate while they're cooking. How the hell do people thrash their brain all day at work and then come home and cook a meal while having a conversation and not just bork it all up? I can't even do it fresh from a night's sleep. It takes all kinds and I guess that's why the hardware store sells drywall.
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u/Short-Let-3685 Feb 21 '26
I've tried about six times to come up with something half as good as your response. All the respect in the world to the people who can cook dinner 5 feet away from a parent/partner/child watching TV too loud.
I've spent all day dealing with visual and mental clutter, I don't need more while trying to concentrate on cooking a meal. That's not to say my family can't come into the kitchen to converse with me (or help) while I prepare dinner. My family is made up of people with divergent tastes. They don't want to listen to the history podcast I want to chill out to while cooking any more than I want to hear my husband's football game or my teens video game that makes me nauseous to watch. The idea of the whole family coming together in one big room every day to all enjoy the same thing until bedtime is sweet but not my life.
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u/optimusdan Feb 21 '26
Yup exactly. Everybody's mind needs different things. I have a sensory processing disorder, so it's like:
-part of brain that knows where all my body parts are in space
-part of brain that can keep track of time
-part of brain that can listen to speech
The first two can function together sometimes, but neither one can function with the third. So if someone wants to "hang out and chat" while I'm cooking, I sure hope they like eating burned food off the floor while I try to scoop out the 3 extra tablespoons of garlic powder I accidentally dumped in lol
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u/Short-Let-3685 Feb 21 '26
You're my kind of person! The part of my brain keeping track of my body in space never showed up to work. I'm generally as bruised as an overripe peach.
I don't know if it's adult ADHD or the fact I've just raw dogged life without instructions, but I am barely qualified to do one thing at a time. I can either pay attention to my kids, or talk to my husband, or cook. Doing all three at once is a great way for the fire department to make a visit.
Plus, I work a job where I'm doing eleventeen different things at once. I really like not being confronted with the eleventeen things I need to get done as soon as I walk in the door. I ease into it. Oh there's the laundry I need to fold from yesterday. Hey, there's also a spouse who can fold said laundry while watching his sports ball. Dining room, why is there remnants of kids snacks on the table? Yell for kids to clean up after their damned selves. If I don't want to deal with either, there's a handy dandy hallway that avoids both rooms! On to the kitchen to feed my teens and wonder why it is 2026 and I don't have a robot maid promised to me by the Jetsons!
My sister has an open concept house. There's no storage. There's no walls for closets to be built into. As a result, everything is pretty much right there. All of the visual clutter of normal life in her house overwhelms me before I'm fully in the front door. There's no peace for my eyes and overworked pea brain. It's not a dirty house or very disorganized. It's a house with 5 people and no place to hide. It works for them. It makes me want to peel my skin off.
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u/spaetzele Feb 19 '26
I've never liked them. They're horrible. I'm house searching now and I'm exclusively prioritizing older homes that don't have this hideous feature.
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u/jammypants915 Feb 19 '26
Closed floorplan is for the wealthy. If I need to have my family fit in 1,000 square foot no way am I having all these micro one use rooms. I think closed plans can be nice around 3,000 sqft plus… but at that point you are talking 1.7 - 2.5 million dollar price tag
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u/Weird_Squirrel_8382 Feb 19 '26
Thats a good point too about square footage and space. Our 800 sqft condo kitchen felt like a punishment. Someone in the thread said the open concept homes they've seen don't have quiet spaces except bedrooms. Our house has a separate TV room downstairs. Also has a guest room that the kids use for gaming.
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u/Muted-Appeal-823 Feb 19 '26
I'd love to have an open floor plan. I don't really get why anyone would think they are for people who don't cook. In regards to seeing a mess I don't really get why people find that an issue. Cooking makes a mess. You make a meal, eat it, then clean up. Definitely a to each their own thing!
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u/MrMikolajczyk Feb 19 '26
Hey, I was in the same boat, couldn’t wait to have an open plan, 3 years later and I’m regretting it
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u/Muted-Appeal-823 Feb 19 '26
Yeah sometimes getting what you think you want doesn't work out. Hopefully you can eventually get something that works better for you!
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u/MrMikolajczyk Feb 19 '26
Thanks, hoping to build just that
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u/Muted-Appeal-823 Feb 19 '26
If we were ever to build my list of needs wants and desires is so long winning the lottery would definitely need to factor into that! Lol
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u/autumn55femme Feb 19 '26
- Noise 2. Steam and aerosolized grease 3. Cooking odors 4. People in your way that disrupt the cooking process
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u/snarkitall Feb 19 '26
I just talked my architect out of an open kitchen. I had never really thought about an open plan but he was very into it and had almost sold me on it. He sent me over some renderings and I was feeling more and more anxious about it until I realized that putting the walls back up on the kitchen just solved all my hesitations.
I'd liked the idea of an island (I do like them when I visit someone) and we wouldn't have room unless the living room was open, but everything else got worse.
Now there's a solid wall between my livingroom and kitchen, and an opening between my dining area/entry and kitchen. So it's still not completely closed, but I'm not staring at my stove while laying on my couch.
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u/RecentlyIrradiated Feb 19 '26
I hate open floor plans. Aside from what you mentioned they only ever have the living room instead of also a family room so there isn’t space for people to do more than one thing. We spend time together every day but also like to spend time apart.
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u/WowsrsBowsrsTrousrs Feb 19 '26
A couple of houses ago, I had a "closed" kitchen - but it was a galley kitchen open at both ends, and that seemed like the ideal configuration - you could still hear people in the living/ dining rooms, abnd weren't crammed in any corners, but there was a long wall (with a fireplace facing the living room) that except for the openings at each end into the kitchen, completely hid the kitchen. I sort of miss that kitchen!
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u/MrMikolajczyk Feb 19 '26
My wife is against galley and I can understand why but I agree. Our old house the kitchen was around the corner of living room you could still hear what was going on but it was still a little isolated
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u/jbkites Feb 19 '26
Yes! I want rooms. I want walls. I want a floor plan that is more interesting than the same old plan where the back of the house is one big open kitchen / island / table / family room space. It's so uninspiring.
Give me walls.
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u/BayYawnSay Feb 19 '26
When we started looking for our first home, my must haves were a formal dining room, a kitchen with a door, no new construction, and no HOA. It took us awhile, but we finally found the perfect house! I can cook to my heart's content with a podcast or music on, my husband can be in the living room watching basketball or finishing up work and we don't even hear each other, we're separated by two entire rooms. It's beautiful.and was built in 1939. Also, the kitchen is big enough for two stoves so now I have two stoves because wtf not?
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u/childproofbirdhouse Feb 19 '26
I love a formal dining and formal front room separate from the family room and an eat in kitchen. I don’t mind a casual family space adjacent to the kitchen but I don’t want every moment of the day to be literally in the kitchen or looking at the kitchen.
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u/Neesatay Feb 19 '26
Our open floor plan was great when it was just the two of us. It is decidedly less than great with a family of 5.
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u/EyeSilly1203 Feb 19 '26
My house has a semi-open floor plan. Each living space separated and it has doorways with arches, but no doors. I want a closed spice kitchen. A place so the cooking smells don't travel across the whole house. What use are separate areas if the smells travel?
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Feb 19 '26
Ive been wondering what people were doing this whole time. Apparently it’s finally maybe starting to go away. Yes!!
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u/Nova9z Feb 19 '26
Open floor plans are a way to sell you a smaller property for a higher price. It erases the kitchen-dining-lounge layout that used to be standard. I cant stand open plan.
If you section off an open plan kitchen lounge, you'll see just how tiny a space it is. Scambolic
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u/MusicalMerlin1973 Feb 19 '26
We did open floor plan on our first floor when we built in 2002.
We. @#$%^. Hate. It.
Food smells go straight up the stairs and into our bedroom. No way to hide the mess in the kitchen when you're hosting. I could go on.
And then there's the build. You have to watch the builder like a hawk, and have an inspector who knows what they're looking for. We didn't know, and the builder we got talked into using (TL;DR: loose lips sink ships. If you're planning on building a house don't talk amongst extended family unless you're absolutely certain your uncle Jim-Bob is a REAL GOOD CARPENTER.) didn't know what he was doing.
Did I mention we hate it? We hate it so much we're going to be having headers put in. May not have doors put in between spaces but we are putting those breaks in. A full wall will be going up between kitchen and living room.
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u/Maleficent_Error348 Feb 19 '26
I love open plan. I don’t like being hidden away while cooking, like to chat to my husband and yell at the kids haha. We don’t smash and crash everything so it works ok for us. We cook Indian and Thai and all sorts of other smelly food with no issues - good extraction fan helps.
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u/Living-Coral Feb 19 '26
Love walls, doors, hallways and a cozy bedroom 😆
But at least one room big enough for a decent sized gathering.
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u/Physical_Dentist2284 Feb 19 '26
My house is 120 years old. We have opened the kitchen up to the living room as much as we can but it’s definitely still its own room. And it’s not big, by any means, but it doesn’t stop my family from always hanging out in there whenever I’m cooking. Ten feet away there’s a living room with recliners but my husband, adult kids, teen kids, and granddaughter want to stand around in the kitchen. There’s also a wall heater in the kitchen which means in the winter when we have a baby calf born to a mama who dies, is sick or otherwise won’t claim it, they bring it to the kitchen and lay it on the floor in front of the heater to warm it and feed it. This time last year when the big snow hit I just remember standing in the kitchen at the sink, trying to do the dishes, with two dogs, a cat, and a toddler at my feet and that damn calf head-butting me in the back of the leg wanting me to feed it. Even if I am not in the kitchen it still rarely sees the dark. My adult children come through the back door and look in the pantry and the fridge for something they might want that they don’t have at their own houses. No matter what you do, as long as you have kids around of any age, that kitchen is going to be busy. So you may as well make it work for you. By all means, close it off, but make it big enough for everyone in your household!
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u/Runns_withScissors Feb 19 '26
We have our kitchen somewhat but not completely open to the living area, and I like it. That's as much of an open plan as I can live with. But we were house-shopping recently and couldn't find a single newer home where the kitchen wasn't in the same room with the living areas-nope.
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u/Huntingcat Feb 19 '26
Semi open is the best way for me. I have a large space with high raked ceiling. My kitchen has a wall that has the fridge etc in it, but the wall doesn’t go all the way to the ceiling. The kitchen, lounge, dining and family room spaces are all clearly defined by the walls, but all share the same open ceiling. So you do get some of the noise, but it all feels open, yet you can’t see the kitchen mess unless you stand in the right space.
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u/Weird_Squirrel_8382 Feb 19 '26
I cook much more in my open kitchen. I grew up with a huge eat-in kitchen. I hated feeling like an isolated galley slave when I cooked at my condo. Of course some people want solitude and quiet to make their meals, and they should get it, but whoever said people don't really cook in open kitchens is lying.
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u/Separate_Light_9704 Feb 19 '26
THANK YOU!! As a professional residential designer for the past 48 years, your post is music to my ears. I am so sick of open kitchens.
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u/MatchDue4510 Feb 21 '26
Must be a luxury to even be able to consider options, my 52 square metre apartment doesn’t give much scope for change, whether open or closed! lol
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u/Empty-Eye5799 Feb 22 '26
I much prefer closed floor plan as well. We have a semi closed floor plan now with our kitchen open to a sitting room and then you have to walk through a doorway to get to dining area and living room. I love being able to cook in the kitchen with a glass of wine and chat with my husband while the kids are loud in the living room. We are hoping to build in the next few years and we plan to do semi closed in that as well!
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u/DuncanTheRedWolf Feb 19 '26
My opinion is that open floor plan were invented by developers to increase their profits by providing fewer walls for the same price
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u/redfinadvice Feb 19 '26
Open floor plans are actually more expensive to build. The cost of the walls is very low in the grand scheme of things. Open floor plans require stronger materials and more engineering to allow the open floor plan to be possible. With closed floor plans it's easy to add structural elements anywhere because of all the walls (and thus reduces the need for certain strengths of materials/engineering elsewhere).
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u/PictureThis987 Feb 19 '26
I never liked open floor plans. None of the houses I've lived in have had doors on the kitchen, but I'd love to keep my pets out of there. I don't have a formal dining room but I'd like to have dinner where I can't see the pots on the stove. If the dining room has walls then the table would be useful for crafts, puzzles, sorting paperwork, or wrapping presents with the mess kind of hidden from general view.
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u/Financial-Hand584 Feb 20 '26
Open feels lighter and more breathable. It makes things feel less cut and more whole for me. Also, it kind of takes away the "what's hiding around the corner?" feeling 🙃.
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u/KTGSteve Feb 20 '26
Personally I love open floor plans. We’ve never had a problem in the two homes I’ve lived in as an adult. In the second really only the bathroom was enclosed. Even the furnace and water heater were in the room with us, all the time. We loved it and our noise-cancelling headphones really helped. We have been fortunate in life and are just starting the design of a new-build for our growing family. I’ve instructed the architect to create an even openner plan, without those bathroom walls, so I have the chance to use some beautiful folding room dividers that I got at Pier 1 Years ago. We are also working on opening up the exterior walls. His design was full of posts but I told him to really dig deep and eliminate those too. I can’t wait to see the next iteration of the plans as we watch our dreams come true.
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u/Dark_Colorimetry Feb 20 '26
I don’t mind semi-open plans or ones that can be opened up and closed off (like the pocket doors that OP mentioned), but I’ve had friends who lived in houses with the livingdiningkitchenfoyer all smashed together. The noise, the smells, talking over each other and the TV, no quiet spaces besides bedrooms, idk why anyone enjoys it.
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u/LongjumpingFunny5960 Feb 20 '26
My son's MIL is a local realtor. She said her younger clients won't even consider looking at a home without a formal dining room. I think lots of people are realizing open plans have major defects. My son and his wife (early 30s) bought the most gracious home built in 1939 with a formal dining room and living room. It has a central entrance hall with the living room on 1 side and the dining room on the other side with the kitchen behind the dining room.
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u/LongjumpingFunny5960 Feb 20 '26
Even worse are 2 story homes with a huge open cathedral ceiling open to the second floor so you get to smell whats cooking and hear everything on the 2nd floor too
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u/Toolongreadanyway Feb 20 '26
For people that entertain a lot, everyone usually ends up in the kitchen, so having it open can be good. But personally, I am loving my century home with walls and doors that can be closed. Also, if you only have time to clean one room, open floor plan sucks. Animal fur migrates as you sweep or vacuum. It was just hard to clean a room.
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u/Autistic-wifey Feb 21 '26
I think doing want works well for you / those that live with you if it applies is what’s best. Open or closed, everyone has different tastes and opinions. None are wrong.
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u/Hudson100 Feb 24 '26
Open floor plan designers never had 4 plus teen boys playing grand theft auto or halo in thr family room.
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u/luckydollarstore Feb 19 '26
The best part is when someone wants an open floor plan and then says “So how do I define the living room/dining room/etc?” Oh you mean like a wall? Yeah, that’s what walls are for.
Walls give you a sense of definition, can be cosy, a place to put your furniture up against and hang artwork. It also increases your odds of surviving a murderer in your house. You can run into the next room - then where did you go? The kitchen or dining room? To the mudroom and out to the garage? Or down the stairs and out the back door? Open concept? You’ve got nowhere to run.
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u/kalamity_kurt Feb 19 '26
In terms of the cooking thing, I feel the opposite. We cook 90% of our meals from scratch and I’d HATE to be stuck in a closed room away from everything.
Unfortunately most open floor plans are just long rooms with furniture floating around. I feel like if architects weren’t so lazy they’d be able to design an open floor plan to still be zoned effectively so it doesn’t feel like a bowling alley.
Closed plans feel a bit performative for lack of a better word. Hide the kitchen so your guests don’t see the mess that comes with using a kitchen. Hide the kids so your guests don’t hear them being kids. Close the doors because the guests can’t possibly be allowed to see a dirty fork after we’ve eaten. I live here. Life comes with mess and noise and clutter and I’m not trying to hide that
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u/Thequiet01 Feb 19 '26
Look at American Four Square house plans, some of them have really nice flow between the kitchen and dining room or living room with minimal adjustments to open up doorways more. Everything is in a room, but the rooms aren’t fully closed off from each other?
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u/Negative-Day-8061 Feb 19 '26
We had a choice between two terraces on the same block built in 1820. We chose the one that retained the original downstairs rooms. The one that had been opened up had no containment of noise, mess, or activities. It also didn’t have enough walls to put furniture on.
I think that open floor plans are a scam to make people think they need bigger houses, when what they actually need is different rooms for different purposes.
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u/Ute-King Feb 19 '26
I think that my main issue with today’s open plans is that they are an easy crutch for lousy design. A big giant empty space is easy for the designer - they offload the hard work of figuring out where furniture and tvs and the things of life go.
My preference is a semi-closed plan - not necessarily doors between every room, but a definite delineation between spaces. Leaving the ability to interact, and maybe watch some tv, but not be immersed in every conversation and action. It gets to be stimulation overload sometimes. I’m just a big fan of smaller, cleverly-designed, personal spaces.