Does Open Plan work with older kids/teenagers?

fabforty

peachyprice wrote: »

And surely you wouldn't base the layout of your whole house that you're going to be in for decades for the convenience/inconvenience of teenagers who are going to up an leave eventually?

But surely a house should work for all those who are living in it now - assuming there are no other overriding factors such as cost, etc.

My parents downsized from a 4 bed house to a 3 bedroom flat when my siblings and I were barely into our teens, because they wanted to invest in property abroad for their retirement, which was absolutely their right. They were thinking of their future. However with five children aged 10-15 sharing two small bedrooms (a single and a small double) and no garden to spill out into, my parents then did nothing but complain about the noise, mess, clutter and arguments which followed. 'Yes' we left home eventually, but we still had to live there in the meantime.

It's not a question of convenience for OP's teenagers, it's about what will work for the family as a whole.

tori.k

If they are anything like mine your barely see them outside of meal-times, mine when home are usually camped out with their computer's in there bedrooms.
I have a love/hate relationship with our open plan, it's fabulous for entertaining but not so fabulous that you can't shut the door on the mess afterwards, and it's a swine to heat during winter.

kafkathecat

It is funny in our house as it is dh who wanted the house to be open plan downstairs and now he is the one who complains that he has to go upstairs on the rare occasion that ds has a group of friends over. Ds's room is too small. Hopefully we will be able to extend to solve this problem.

Ames

My mum's house is almost exactly how you describe - long lounge diner going the lenght of the house, then a sun room and kitchen in an extension behind. It's not quite as open plan as you suggest though.

It's always been a mare to heat, and heating bills are horrifically high. Although it doesn't help that the stairs are open plan too, so the heat gets sucked upstairs.

I suppose it would depend on insulation etc, but I wouldn't go open plan in anything other than a small flat, because it's just too cold in winter.

Norma_Desmond

Personally I'd hate open plan.

The only time it's in any way acceptable is when you're 17 and living in bedsit-land.

I don't want to hear the washing machine at full spin when I'm reading or watching TV, last night's washing up is not a good look from your sitting room, cooking broccoli would stink the whole house out.......and what about a bit of good old fashioned privacy now and then?

There's a lot to be said for doors.

ash28

We lived for 18 years in a house where the living accommodation was open plan...large open plan living/dining room with large archway to kitchen to a large kitchen, we had a separate utility room and had a study off the hallway. We also had a room behind the garage that we used as an occasional room/bedroom.

Our kids were 11, 12 and 13 when we moved in....it was absolutely no problem, each of the areas got well used......the kids each had their own rooms and tv sets.

By the time we moved into the house the kids were at an age where they took their friends up to their rooms, they usually just popped their heads round to say hello and could they have some food. They didn't often watch tv with us.

We loved the house and found it a very social house, if you know what I mean....currently we have a house with a very large kitchen diner, a separate dining room, a separate living room and a study and utility down stairs....we spend most of the day in the kitchen diner and tend go into the living room in the evening.....we have a 12 year old grandson lives with us and when his friends come round they tend to go up to his room.....the dining room is a bit of high days and holidays room in this house.

We are currently toying with the idea of making the kitchen diner and dining room into one large living/dining/kitchen.....

tyllwyd

We are a family of 4 with what was a typical 1930s house, with a small front room and a room behind. We've built a kitchen/diner across the back of the house and the back wall of the back room has been taken down, so we've got a small living room and an L shaped family/dining/kitchen. Pianos and guitars go in the back room so other family members can escape! We tend to all watch tv together, or the kids go upstairs to do their own thing.

The big room is south facing and well insulated, so it is actually the warmest room to sit in (when the sun shines). It is nice to have two separate living spaces so we can get away when someone else wants to watch something very annoying on tv. It would be nice if they were a bit more evenly sized though - the front room is a bit too small. We might eventually move the wall of the front room and steal a bit from the back room, but I don't think we'd want to knock it down and only have one living space for the entire downstairs.

lostinrates

I dislike open plan.

Its expensive to heat, for keen home cooks the smell of what you have cooked is nice in the kitchen, not so nice in the sitting room IMO, especially when its cabbage .


Even living in an all adul house hold we find the benefit of having different daytime space.

There are times and places I'd do it, but they are ones I have fought against.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Open plan works very well for me. Means when the guys are round for rehearsals, I'm not going to and from a kitchen; they can just wander over to the fridge and get drinks, nobody ever needs more than being told turn right in the kitchen and you'll find the bathroom door and you can fit far more people and musical instruments into the area (even had people sitting on the stairs playing a few weeks ago). The acoustics are pretty good as well.


It's a newish property with good thermal efficiency, so it doesn't get that cold - if it did, I'd just buy a rug for the main area.



I like it - and it made the DD's birthday party much, much easier because they had so much space to wally about and be teenagers.

lostinrates

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Open plan works very well for me. Means when the guys are round for rehearsals, I'm not going to and from a kitchen; they can just wander over to the fridge and get drinks, nobody ever needs more than being told turn right in the kitchen and you'll find the bathroom door and you can fit far more people and musical instruments into the area (even had people sitting on the stairs playing a few weeks ago). The acoustics are pretty good as well.


It's a newish property with good thermal efficiency, so it doesn't get that cold - if it did, I'd just buy a rug for the main area.



I like it - and it made the DD's birthday party much, much easier because they had so much space to wally about and be teenagers.

Where as for us, I like having somewhere I can get away from rehearsals, give my poor aching head a break, and I know my resident parent does!

We're very lucky our kitchen Is large enough to host a rehersal or small party in anyway, if we wanted. When we weren't so lucky, it was hardly difficult to go next door to the tiny kitchen, or loo.

Different things suit different people. Great to have choice, huh!