I grew up in Pittsburgh in a very colonial style home where each room was its own room, and there were doorways–wide doorways, but doorways–leading into the living room and dining room and even the kitchen had its own doorway. It always felt charming and intimate to me, but I never knew anything else until I was 18 years old. Chris and I were marathoning an HGTV show the other night and, not exaggerating, every episode they tore down almost every wall to create an open concept. I get it–open concept living is pretty popular now-a-days. And, hey, we’ve been living in an open concept home for the last 2+ years. Truthfully, the layout is great for us, but I wanted to share some pros and cons today because an open concept truly might not be for everyone.
PROS:
It’s really great for entertaining. Having the kitchen open to the dining and living room means no host or cook husband ;) has to feel secluded while the party is going on.
You can easily keep an eye on kids. While I’m in the kitchen doing dishes, the girls can be anywhere all the way into the hall bathroom or Faye’s room and I can see and hear them. It’s wonderful.
We love it because it keeps us together as a family. Even if I’m working with Greta on her homework and Chris is cooking and Faye is playing on the rug, it feels like we’re together even if we’re in separate spaces.
Light can be borrowed from other spaces, unlike in separated rooms where if a room doesn’t have windows or adequate light, it’s dark. Period.
CONS:
If there is, even the smallest mess, your entire house will feel messy. Storage options, and lots of them, are absolutely necessary!
There’s no hiding dirty dishes during all of that entertaining. We have learned to wash as we go and we plan a lot of our party menus around things that can be made ahead of time specifically because we don’t want our kitchen to be a mess when guests come over.
You have to have a really tight color scheme consisting mostly of neutrals. Too many colors, or even bright colors can quickly cause a lot of visual clutter making it hard for your eyes to rest. The same color scheme has to be used throughout the open space so everything flows.
When people stop by, they are walking into your entry, living room, dining room and kitchen.
It’s really hard to photograph. (Ha!) Both of these photos feel cluttered to me because I didn’t crop them in at all and they are merging three 3D spaces into 2D photos. Objects are overlapping weirdly and there’s a lot of visual clutter going on. Even if it doesn’t always feel that way in real life, keeping things to a minimum in an open concept is a must.
Cropping ever so slightly does help, but I wanted to give you some real photos and input today. All in all, we adore our home and the layout and lifestyle it provides us, but it’s not for maximalists. It’s probably not for (lots of) color lovers or someone who doesn’t have the time or care to keep a house very tidy.
Do you have an open concept home? Anything to add?
I agree!! And had the same thought when watching Fixer Upper. I am all for remodeling and updating (and generally love the show), but I feel like some of those rooms could be left to be more original and intimate – especially when it is true to the style of the house – and it has almost put me off shiplap ; )
I am about to build and I purposely shielded the kitchen on the other side of the stairwell from the living and dining. The last thing I want to look at while I am enjoying a meal is the mess I just made! It shouldn’t feel closed off though (fingers crossed) thanks to windows, no uppers on counter side, a slider out to a screened porch on one end and wide pass throughs on the front and back of the stairwell to the living or dining (which open to each other). To buck even more trends – it isn’t a huge kitchen and there is no island. But it is way more than I have happily lived with in NYC for 10+ years!
I grew up a large-ish old farm house and the separate rooms were so great. It’s basically impossible to find a home with defined rooms anymore and that makes me sad. Open concept living especially when TV or loud music are involved is not that convenient.
Our current home is two stories with all the bedrooms upstairs and open concept downstairs and it is a pretty decent compromise.
As my husband and I have renovated our home, we’ve actually closed in rooms and added doors to rooms that once flowed into one another. For so many reasons–all those you listed and others–I dislike open concept floorplans. Perhaps the most notable reason that went unmentioned, our pets, is also the most critical. When you have Border Collies smart enough to figure out how to open the oven and help themselves to dinner or open drawers to find an endless supply of tennis balls, you will quickly decide that a door on the kitchen can be a delightful thing. We also work from home, both of us, and need the privacy and separation of our respective offices to work all day long without disturbing each other when our schedules don’t quite align.
We lived in our house for three years before we actually made move to close in rooms because we knew we would sell within the next five years and feared all the open concept loving folks out there, all of them brainwashed by HGTV (ha!), would shy away from buying an old-fashioned house. Now having made the changes, we are so much happier in our home! Whatever your taste in floorplans, make the changes you want in your home–don’t find yourself living in a monument to some other family’s hypothetical preferences.
We remodeled our first home and made it open concept and we really loved it. We just purchased our second home and it is the complete opposite, closed concept. I am a bit nervous about how it will work out but am also excited to decorate things like the formal dining room and sun room. I am a fellow lover of neutral colors, love your blog!
Some day, I would like to buy a house with, perhaps, just the kitchen closed off. I want to plate dishes without the stress of my guests watching me at a dinner party.
Our guests always just watch Chris in awe. It works. Haha.