Open Plan Living - the only option?

Out,_Vile_Jelly

I once rented a trendy modern flat with open plan (tiny) kitchen, lounge and dining area. It's the shortest time I've ever lived anywhere. You don't realise how useful walls are until there's an annoying lack of them. It was a shared rental, so the lingering cooking smells weren't even my choice of food, and I had to listen to my flatmates' pants in the washer most nights.

You know you're getting middle aged when you fantasise about a house with a pantry and utility room...

The_Logans

I'm right there with you in my dislike of open plan, for the reasons you have described. I sew, and my husband and son have a model railway. We looked at some new builds but I just couldn't see where we would hide all the 'mess'. We've gone instead for an older house with a converted garage we can use for hobbies and also a separate sitting room where the kids toys can live. The kitchen/dining is open plan though and I like that.

beedeedee

artyclarty wrote: »

From the looks of it beedeedee its just a bit of mdf with padding and the fabric stapled into place (perhaps a small wooden spacer to get it a bit away from the wall). Easy to make yourself for a couple of £, very moneysavingexperty!

Thanks artyclarty, but we can't make it ourselves anymore, or indeed put one up (long story) but would be happy to buy one ready-made and hope a friendly neighbour might help out. Can only find box pelmets online so far though.

hazyjo

Considering buying an open plan house. Desperately trying to convince ourselves it won't be a prob. It has a thru-lounge, and a kitchen off the dining bit, but I'm pretty sure there was just an angled gap into the kitchen, not an actual door, and it goes out the back of the house a bit so not like you could merge it with the dining room. We're used to a kitchen-diner which is lovely.


Really tough decisions ahead. Could split the 2 rooms again, but that separate kitchen may be the nail in the coffin The location is absolutely perfect so it's a very tough call.


Model railways are perfect in loft spaces. Doesn't have to be a full on conversion (ie to sleep in), just a very good job on boarding it out so someone can 'play' up there!


Jx

maisie_cat

We have an open plan family kitchen/dining/informal living room that we use the most. The original sitting room isn't used much except if somebody wants quiet. We also started with a study but moved the washing machine in there and it's now a study/utility (it was too loud in the open plan) The food smells are not an issue with a cooker hood and my husband quite often does hobby stuff on the dining table even though we have bedrooms spare. The advantage of open plan is that the family can all be there together even if they are not doing the same thing & that is why it gets used the most.

penguingirl

People are much more flexible in their living nowdays. We have an open plan back room (that was extended) and it has a kitchen, dining table and a sofa and a couple of chairs/ table, and an electric piano (so can be used with headphones) in. We do also have a proper lounge at the front which I wouldn't be without, but we rarely use it before teatime as the back room is much more sociable and gets lots of natural light. When we lived in a flat we made do with one L shaped space and it was fine.

OH works from home, but desk is next to the spare bed. I'm also working from home today and am using the laptop at the dining table. Very few people I know have a big pc anymore- most do laptop working which is much more flexible, and it's easy to plug in a monitor and use a wireless keyboard/ mouse if you prefer working in a desktop style, and those can be shoved in the cupboard under the stairs.

Hobbies similarly get put away and taken out- my sewing machine is under the spare bed. I also know people who make space in landings for bookcases or a small desk. Of course most people I know and of my generation (30s) would love extra space to have dedicated activity areas, but it is just unaffordable.

DiamondLil

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

When we lived in Spain, we had a washing machine in the downstairs loo - Spaniards wouldn't dream of having laundry in the kitchen!

My washing machine and drier are plumbed into the downstairs loo; and have been for 30 + years.

DiamondLil

Nebulous2 wrote: »

My girls became seriously interested in model railways, particularly building intricate scenery.

We got a large sheet of ply, framed it underneath for stability and they built a very impressive train layout. Thule - the roofbox and bikerack company do a nifty pulley mechanism for storing your roofbox in the roof of your garage. We attached it to the roof of our spare room and cranked the whole train set / scenery / track up out of the way when they weren't using it. It wasn't the prettiest thing in the world, looking at the bottom of this wooden board on the roof, but it was an effective solution for sharing space.

Oh, this has taken me right back to my childhood - my dad built me and my sisters a huge train layout - three oval shaped circuits, one for each sister, signal boxes, platforms, station buildings the lot; all attached to a massive piece of ply. He attached a timber frame to the dining room wall, and hinged the plywood to the timber frame. Clips on the opposite edge to the hinges so the whole thing folded up onto the frame and clipped securely when not in use, and folded back down to rest on the dining table when we were playing with it.

cloo

My husband has a mania for knocking everything through! I guess people like it as it can make the flow of a house nicer (especially in deep, narrow Victorian houses) and it's nice for entertaining. But I totally understand reservations, a) about noise and different activity spaces and b) it gives you less wall space for pictures, books etc (though maybe people now have less of those so are less bothered).

As it happens we have recently knocked through a bunch of rooms in our terrace, but I was only OK with this as it had a third reception room at the front we can put a piano in! The back space definitely flows more nicely than the original which was very linear and also rather dark. But we did see a lot of houses when looking that I found *too* open plan, and often with kitchens that were more suited to a 2-bed flat than a family home.

penguingirl

DiamondLil wrote: »

My washing machine and drier are plumbed into the downstairs loo; and have been for 30 + years.

We have family who have just bought a large family new build home with a combined downstairs toilet and utility room, apparently they saw a few with this set up so could be becoming fashionable here too. Makes sense that all the plumbing is together and it is a good sized, whereas if they were seperate they'd be tiny.