Ditto

I agree about the noise. I have a split level home with an almost open floor plan if that makes sense. We have the family room down a few steps where the TV is. Sometime I feel lonely being upstairs in the kitchen and then sometimes I escape all the family room noise and such and bake with the radio on. I couldn't do that with an open floor plan.
So, I do understand both ways.
Also, with Italian family, we all talk at the same time no matter how open or closed the floor plan is. LOL

we took the wall out between the kitchen and living room,years ago..i love it being open. we have a standard 1 floor,3 bedroom home, which i think is 900 sq feet. i hate being closed in.

the only drawback to this layout, is you loose a wall, for when you want to change the furniture arrangement. i can live with that!

the kitchen has a wood floor and the living room is carpet..we had the floors meet, by curving them..giving the rooms a sense of separation but not really..i can't wait to get rid of the carpeting..i hate it!

a few girls that post here have been to my home..i should ask them what they think of it!

if i had my way, all the bedroom doors would be stored in the basement! (we are empty nesters now,no reason to close doors)

Perhaps you should look into items that will help absorb some of the noise. Some nice big quilts on the walls, carpets/rugs on the floor, etc. That will cut down on the noise.

Open is having access to everything all at once. Call me crazy, but it makes me feel happy to walk in our home all the time. I love our home so much and that is not only reason, but because my husband built it for us. We are so blessed he has such talent. Wall or no wall, I love being home every minute of it.

Have 2 homes..One colonial and One semi colonial a bit more open...I like the closed off concept...I'm with you I want my own space, quiet time and not having the steam or if frying grease going in all directions of the hse...

Have lived in both types of homes, and I love, love the separate rooms now in our smaller home (1500 sq ft). At this stage of our life, its nice to be able to close off rooms, and have different colors, etc. Easier/cheaper to heat/cool, and easier to keep clean for us, too. To each his own!

I love the open floor plan and have my first one after years of living in older homes with chopped up rooms. I hope to never have anything else!

We lived in closed concept for 32 years, loved it. The rooms were large and huge kitchen worked just fine. Now we have open concept in our downsizing (lol only 5000 sq ft). I truly love the huge eat in kitchen, big island and open to den concept. Large two story windows on back side of house with backyard and pool visible from all areas. It is my indoor/outdoor oasis. We love the noise; it means our home is full of friends and family instead of just the two of us as during weekdays!!!

We bought an old house with a very small (and dysfunctional) kitchen at the back, totally separate from the living room, even had a swinging door into the dining room. I hated being shut off from what the kids were doing, or company gathered in front while I cooked (too small to have two people in the kitchen). Twelve years ago we knocked the back wall off the house and put on a 20x22 addition. We greatly expanded the kitchen, added a walk-in pantry and a nice family room. Love it. Now that it's just DH and me, this is where we spend most of our time. The front part of the house with dining room and living room is still all chopped up, and we only use it if there's a large group.

open concept..we did ours after buying the house. It is some noisier, but we have a 2 story entrance, that makes it more of an echo..we love it though.

We have a kitchen dining room area that is okay. I would like for the dining area to be larger in my next house. I love my kitchen though. It is big but not too big and uses the triangle concept for sink-stove-refrigerator. Just right for cooking. We also have lots of counter space for helpers. It isn't noisy in here, but I do miss the conversation if they are in the living room. Oh well!

Open for us! We had a lot of trouble finding a house here as everything was all chopped up into tiny rooms. Not what we were used to from CA!

I think carpet on the floors would help with the echos, but we added hardwood floors, and area rugs.

My last two homes have been open concept and I love it. I say if you want to close it off go for it. Especially if you have no plans now to sell.

The open concept is great in one sense for big gatherings, as everyone can file through the line of food, and continue to find seating. Easy access too.

But, then you brought up good points in the other sense as well - I do like quiet - no noise to keep from hearing/watching tv. Or "alone" time to think, sing, hum, whatever your daydreaming takes to make you a happy person.

So, it has it's ups and downs; about like everything.

To feel more private, you might try putting some full plants on the counter. i.e., A palm looks lovely as a room divider.

I am a closed in person, I love my old house with each room within its own walls. My sister bought a huge house a while ago (each of the 4 bedrooms has it's own bathroom) and all I could think was "who's going to wash all these windows" Her house is wide open and she loves it as much as I love my house.

I love having the two rooms together-they are separated by counter and cupboards, but I can watch tv with my husband or check the quiltingboard while I cook. When we have company, everyone can congregate and converse while I finish meal preparations-I don't miss anything that way. We do have a formal diningroom, which is the first thing anyone sees when they come in the front door, and it's easy to keep it clean, since we don't use it everyday-always in order, so if the kitchen is a mess (like it is at the moment!) if anyone comes to the front door, it appears that I'm fairly organized. Works for me!!!

I agree I like a separate kitchen. But I am one of those that likes the way the old houses were designed big eat in kitchen, farmhouse style. I found my all time perfect house just couldn't afford it. Big square rooms and a kitchen in the center of the house. Lots of long windows.

Ditto! froggyintexas

I have open concept and I hate it. If you are in the dining room for a formal dinner, you have a magnificant view of the dishes and pot stacked in the sink. If you are in the family breakfast area you can see my garbage can and the stove and the washer and dryer. Because there is so many hard surfaces, the sound echos everywhere. This kitchen area was remodeled about 4 years before we bought the house. I wasn't happy, but the house had other appeals so I thought I could manage it, but I'm not happy.

I like my kitchen also.....if it gets messy and it does.

it's only the kitchen that shows it...........

We have the open concept and I hate it. If we do entertain I find that most people are in the kitchen part so they can talk to me. I have to walk around them and I can't get things done. If I am cleaning up after dinner and the family is watching TV it becomes a war of them turning up the TV so they can hear and me trying to be quiet with the water and pans. Sometimes I try and wait until the show is over but by then I'm too tired and it doesn't get done. Even if I'm watching TV and someone on the phone or just talking in the kitchen part the sound carries. I hate, hate ,hate it.

With a remodel we created open concept room, otherwise rooms prior to knocking down walls were too small. I love it for entertaining, the more spacious feeling, and people enjoy sitting at the huge island while I prepare food. Downside as you stated is no where to hide dirty dishes but people don't seem to mind that-I do. Also we have a view which is now visible from the kitchen. Makes me keep a very clean kitchen which is a good thing.

Interesting comments here. In our open combined rooms, we have extra quiet dishwasher (a must) and put TV in lower family room. Our house was a 1920 bungalo and only way to get more spaciousness was remove walls. My huge island is my cutting area, designed with no sink, no stovetop, and totally flat with good lighting, a great work area. Downside is I can't leave things there for days.

Our house is a mix of both. All the bedrooms, baths an sewingroom are on one end of the house. The rest of the house is like a huge question mark - squared instead of round. The livingroom goes across the top, open to the diningroom on the back side which is open to the kitchen which is the down stroke. My kitchen is huge and I like it. Because the livingroom and kitchen are separated by a 14' wide wall, the noise factor is not an issue. Like many homes, this one came with an island which had two levels.....working and seating. In theory it was pretty but in practice, horrible. We took it out and replaced it with a full 3x8'island with the cooktop located to give me a maximum amount of space on one end and 16" to the right of it. I like counter space and when I bake I'm everywhere. My dream kitchen would have a baker's pantry with a sink.

My sister has open concept and I have an eat in kitchen separate from family area. I don't particularly like her open concept, but she loves it. She doesn't cook much though, so the noise from appliances and clanging pans and dishes isn't a problem. I think all the noise I make in the kitchen would bother people watching TV or reading!

Pat

Open concept & vaulted ceiling are two different architectural features. I have an 8' ceiling.
My dirty dishes are washed by hand as we don't have a dishwasher. Can you see Mom cleaning? Than you'd better help. :)

I have an open kitchen family room but on a different level than the living room, works great, I shoo everyone in the living room and do my cooking in peace.

We are older and retired. We have an open living room and dining room. Love it. When family and kids come over we can all be together. When husb is working on table I can watch TV or sit in a comfy chair in living room and still be with him. We have a kitchen and small familyroom when we want to be by ourselves or he is watching another program on TV than I am.

When we are in out tiny trailer in FL the open concept is fine with me - living room, ktchen, and table are all in an area of about 22 x 11 feet.

It's actually easier to keep that tiny area tidier than our bigger place in MN. Probably because there is a lot less STUFF there.

In MN, I would love to be able to close off the living room from the kitchen/eating areas. Mostly because of the noise. DH and DS both talk VERY LOUDLY and it drives me nuts.

We lived in Arizona for 30 years and every house we lived in there had an open-space plan. In Arizona it was lovely; lots of light and a spacious feeling. When we retired to East Tennessee, a more traditional sort of home seemed right for the area so the house we built here has a pretty enclosed kitchen. What I have found, though, is that everyone comes to the kitchen when we have family gatherings. I do like it though and I know exactly what you mean about those quiet times. My big kitchen window looks out over the mountains and I revel in the time I spend, all to myself, doing little chores.

My current home and last one had the open concept and it is what I prefer for all of the pro reasons that you mention. I really like being able to cook etc in the kitchen and not be removed from the rest of the family while they are watching tv, chatting etc. I feel like I am included instead of 'stuck' in the kitchen away from activity. So far I haven't experienced any negatives.

Different strokes for different folks.

I prefer a separate kitchen. I don't want to look at the mess when we are relaxing in the living room!

Ours is an open floor plan...large living room, with kitchen & dining room open off from it. I had always had a separate kitchen. My DH won the coin toss for buying this house. While I do have to say that I have found it to be great for entertaining, everyday life, not so much. Too much noise interference. DH, Mr. "I love this floor plan so much we have to have it", cranks up the TV volume everytime I am in the kitchen. Guess running water, pans clanking, cupboards closing, are just too much noise competition for him.

I, for one, will not have a floor plan as open as this one ever again. Might not want a totally separate kitchen, but I want to at least be able to work in the kitchen without the TV drowning me out.

After 17 years with a kitchen/den (my nest with Tv) plus a separate living rm (hubby's big screen TV room) and dining rm., we've moved to a smaller open concept house. I perfer the separation for our live style. In the new house I have set my sewing room up as my den and that works out OK. I'm adjusting and can see pros and cons to both. The noise of the open concept gets on my nerves. I need some quiet. Also when my husband and I have separate company the other one has to either go to another room, to the back porch, or something. He doesn't want to hang with my HS friends and I don't want to intrude when he and his guy friends get together. We are 67 and 69 so you still need your own space when you get old :>)

I have lived in both and each has an advantage. I like being part of the conversation when preparing a meal. But when my husband was watching TV in the living room and I was preparing dinner around the corn with just the two of us in the house he was always complaing about the noise I was making in the kitchen. He had a partial lost of hearing and friends didn't think I was noisy in the kitchen but he was always complaining about the noise coming from the kitchen to the point I was tiptoeing (so to speak) around in the kitchen. He had put cushions on all the doors and drawers but I have never been a drawer or door 'banger'. It's hard to take a pot or pan out of a drawer without a bit of noise. I don't think TVs nor kitchen have any business being close to each other. LOL Bars are a great way to privatize (?) the kitchen somewhat to hide the dirty dishes or whatever but I don't like being walled in, I guess, so for me it's 'open spaces' with a bar.

We had the seperate rooms for 10 years then opened it up to one big room. With the children grown and gone, now we wish we could afford to seperate the rooms again. They have been open for almost 25 years now.

I find the kitchen to be a busy, noisy, dirty, sometimes greasy room. There are always shopping bags and packages and dog food and human food coming in and going out. Every time I walk in the kitchen, 2 springer spaniels follow me. We call it The Food Room. They just know.

I want that room off in its own space. I don't want to look at it when I'm not in there. And I don't want anyone to know that i soak my dinner dishes while I enjoy some time in the chatroom in the evening. (Uh-Oh oops! Now everybody knows!)