What do people think about open plan living?

huskerdu said:
One last point - I am sick of people telling me about a house with a WOW factor. How often can you say WOW when you look at the floor tiles / open plan sitting room / etc etc ?

Do you come down the stairs every morning and say WOW ?

Your house is your home to live in, not a trophy to show off. Planning a space that you and your family feel comfortable in is more important than anything. (Small rant over)
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Well, I don't say WOW every morning , but every evening when I walk into the house I do love the look of it. We've been in our house a year now, and I still get that "loving it" feeling about the house.

I agree with you though, my house is not a trophy to show off... first and foremost, it's very definitely a home that the 4 of us feel comfortable and happy in. But this house is a space that we will spend a huge chunk of the next 40-50 years in, so why should we not have a space that we love the look of as WELL as feeling comfortable in? We'd probably be comfortable in 10 different styles of houses, but this particular style is one that we are comfortable in AND love the look of.
How bad?
 
Jewel said:
Well, I don't say WOW every morning , but every evening when I walk into the house I do love the look of it. We've been in our house a year now, and I still get that "loving it" feeling about the house.

I agree with you though, my house is not a trophy to show off... first and foremost, it's very definitely a home that the 4 of us feel comfortable and happy in. But this house is a space that we will spend a huge chunk of the next 40-50 years in, so why should we not have a space that we love the look of as WELL as feeling comfortable in? We'd probably be comfortable in 10 different styles of houses, but this particular style is one that we are comfortable in AND love the look of.
How bad?
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Not bad, very good. I feel the same about my home, but I object to the idea of sacrificing comfort for something that looks good.
 
Hi,
Our home at the moment, when we bought it had double doors into a dining room from the sitting room, and the kitchen was seperate. After living with this layout for four years we decided to knock the wall between the kitchen and the dining room....we had all the fears of the mess of the kitchen when people were over, and smells etc...but we've never looked back and love the layout.

We are currently in the process of submitting planning permission for a self build for our new home, and have an open plan kitchen/dining/sun room. We do have the option to seperate the sun room as we are hoping to put the sliding doors in - they're called pocket doors I think - that slide back into the cavity of the wall...It's nice to have open plan with the option to close off one area if required? But it's such a personal choice.

Best of luck with it. Planning the layout of your home, can be very exciting, but REALLY stressful at the same time!! Best of luck with it, and hope you're happy with whatever ye decide.
 
I wouldn't buy a house that only had one room downstairs (not including utility and toilet).

No. Way.
 
I go back and forth on this, as I live in London during the week and back in Dublin at weekends. My flat in London is open-plan, and when I moved in I thought 'yes, this is great, love it', but when I'm back in Dublin I love the feeling of moving between rooms that you just don't get with open plan, even with the clever reveals etc that break up the space in the other flat. Think about how you tend to use space - lighting etc can help break up open plan, but ultimately a door will give you more separation.
 
huskerdu said:
I'm sure your American house was fab, but what size was it ?
The OP is converting a 3 bed semi, not building a large house. As he said, going open plan in his house means having one and only one living space downstairs.

It sounds wonderful to have a large open plan living space but in an average size house in Ireland, this means sacrificing any chance of privacy or having 4 people of different ages doing different things at the same time ie one person cooking dinner, one person listening to music and one person doing homework, one person talking on the phone.

Also, the OP has said that they dont have kids. If you are spending time and money converting your house and planning an extension, how long are you planning to stay in it. If you plan to have kids in the next ten years, you should seriously think about planning a house that will be suitable or prepare to sell up and move then you do have them, leaving all your lovely expensive work behind.

One last point - I am sick of people telling me about a house with a WOW factor. How often can you say WOW when you look at the floor tiles / open plan sitting room / etc etc ?

Do you come down the stairs every morning and say WOW ?

Your house is your home to live in, not a trophy to show off. Planning a space that you and your family feel comfortable in is more important than anything. (Small rant over)
Click to expand...

I hope you've calmed now, but a few things: I DO have 2 kids, and they have loads of very noisy friends.........when they're noisy, they're noisy - open plan or otherwise won't affect that, tbh..........if noisy kids are an issue, it's not the house that's the problem.

And selling a house, just because you have/decide to have, kids ? That's the worst idea I've heard since apartments in Bansko ! (no, don't have one of those .......!)

My house isn't american, btw, I just used the floor layout as a template, and tweaked it to our size/taste, and the house looks very Irish.......

My house may not be WoW to you, but it is to me. :)
 
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