[vundercind]

Ugh, open plans. Wow factor for listing photos and naïve buyers when they walk in, way worse than having rooms with doors unless you host, like, lots of parties I guess. And even for that, having rooms with some sound dampening to spread out into is nice.

[zdragnar]

I grew up in a house with a separate dining room, kitchen, and living room. I now have an open floor plan, and you'll only be able to take it from me from my cold, dead fingers.

If you want privacy or quiet, there are other options in the house. Living room, dining room and kitchen are all social spaces for me, and the only separation I have between any of them is a very slight inset wall essentially forming a massive arch between the living and dining room.

I wouldn't want it any other way.

Edit: FWIW I'd prefer to not have the arch between the living and dining room, but the dining room was added on by a previous owner so it wasn't exactly an option.

[Groxx]

Hard disagree, having used both I exclusively want everything as open as possible. The only exceptions are for bathrooms and maybe bedrooms (but honestly I like open lofts better).

Open is wildly more useful and more flexible. If you crave a room, put up a couple bookshelves. And I agree with zdragnar: every space is a social/community space in my house, so the easier the access and movement is, the better. And it's not for parties (I'm really not a fan of parties), it's just for normal living.

E.g. my house right now has a wide open upstairs bedroom and we've just divided it up to add an office. Which we've adjusted several times to make it just like we want it to be. Because we can, there aren't walls and doors to limit either space, and it's fantastic.

[RHSeeger]

> Open is wildly more useful and more flexible.

It's very much a matter of personal preference. I prefer individual rooms

- Kitchen and living/family room together means that someone doing the dishes (or the dishwasher running, depending on your model) can make enough noise that using the living/family room (for something like watching tv, but also reading) can be difficult

- Bedrooms without doors lack privacy

- Office without a door lacks the ability to block out noise when on calls (or just trying to focus)

- Office and bedroom together (without a wall) makes it harder for someone to sleep while someone else is working

Clearly, open works for some people, but it's definitely not for everyone.

[Tanoc]

Open plan houses are the noisiest places to be. And for some reason the same people who like open plan houses also hate carpet and love high ceilings. Meaning you get the plate reverb effect on everything you do. How living in a place like that doesn't give you tinnitus I'll never know.

[Groxx]

The general strategy to avoid this is to have fabric walls and/or ceiling drapery. It cuts noise down to normal house levels, because yeah, if you leave everything bare it's just an echo chamber.

Loud sounds leak through still of course, but echoes and background clatter drops off extremely quickly. Particularly if you use two layers.

[Loughla]

We have a nice mix in our house of main rooms (living, dining, kitchen, office) separated by large archways instead of just no walls at all.

All the benefits of open floor plan, with seemingly large square footage, but most of the benefits of doorways, with separate spaces.

I don't know why more houses aren't built like this one.