I think I've seen that before. We are guilty of almost all of them...in our new construction home! Oh well, sigh.

My thoughts:
Great rooms can be great for families that want to hang out together, IME. I can cook in the kitchen and keep an eye on the kids in the living room quarters.

Big kitchens are great if you like to cook and want everyone else in there with you (which I do)

Don't know about #3 or #4 but #5 comes in handy when you can't make up your mind about lights right away. As someone who grew up in a low light house, I love the practicality and brightness of overhead "ceiling acne" as I have lovingly come to call it (thanks to some of the other posters ;)

Lol, I love that..."ceiling acne." The thing I really don't like about having too much 'acne' is that they're all on the same switch (in one room) so they all come on at once - sometimes that's just way more lighting than I need.

I do love our open floor plan, but that part of the house isn't way huge either. I do understand the point in the article about noise - sometimes that can get annoying, but then so can too much quiet :)

Either am, or have been guilt of all.

I may be the only one who actually *likes* can lights. Sometimes I just want light in a room, and I don't want it to be a "Feature". Just light, coming from an unobtrusive place, tucked nicely away and flush with the ceiling is great for me!

I've had the great room, and it worked when my kids were littler. Now we don't have that, and I don't miss it at all.

I have no problem with garages, either, as long as they're attractively integrated into the design of the home.

I don't know. All this one size should fit all stuff is a bit troubling to me and doesn't make a great deal of sense, imo. I think we're all being dumbed down.

I hope to find a house that fits my needs as an individual someday.

I would love all those dumb fads in my home. :) I wish I had recessed lighting so I would not need so many floor lamps that still make the room feel funny like parts of the room are dark and parts are lit up. I wish I had a bigger kitchen. I wish I had a great room. I wish my garage was bigger and prettier. :) Thanks for sharing and making me smile.

These are great. I am definitely guilty of the recessed lighting. I have a low ceilinged townhouse, that used to have a ceiling fan AND track lighting. It was like walking into an obstacle course, I ducked every time I came into the living room! The "ceiling acne" (GREAT term!) has solved that problem. I guess a few pimples is a cleaner look (in my opinion) than hanging peduncular appendages that encroach into the little living space that I do have. And I would KILL for a "stadium kitchen". Are these really dumb renovation fads, or are the authors just merely JEALOUS? :-)

~Lynne

What an interesting list.

I do like can lights. Wish I had a couple more in my kitchen and living room each.

I think it is funny for folks to have giant, tricked-out kitchen and eat out all the time. lol I have several friends with great kitchens that are hardly ever used.

Great rooms are terrific for families. IMHO, one of the problems with some of America today is that our houses have too many bathrooms. Look at it this way, in some areas, an affluent child has his own room with his own bathroom. Not to mention his own radio, TV, and computer. Where's the family interaction? lol Where's the learning how to be patient, negotiate (I'll be in the bathroom from 6:15 to 6:40, you can have it before or after.....) or simply share? One the best things we did as a family was move to a one bathroom apartment for a period of time. Our guys were tooooooo funny.

I wish we had another garage. Once you have teenagers driving, you need a few more places to park cars. However, we'd use another garage for storage. lol

Porches....well, I, too do not think you can have too many porches. What I find sad are dinky porches that mimic old-fashioned big porches. I want ROOM on my porches. :0)

I do think the trend for outdoor living 'rooms' is interesting. Seems like overkill sometimes. I love being outside on my porch swing or gardening, but I draw the line (at the moment) at watching TV out on the porch. (There's a family nearby who has a flat panel on the back porch. Interesting to drive by...) Not to mention outdoor refrigerators, cooktops, and decor.

Luckily, I decorate for our own pleasure. I'm often way ahead or way behind a trend.

Here is a link that might be useful: Creative Soul

Yep, that's my house too! I have all those things and love 'em....I guess I'm dumb. LOL! The outdoor living space was at the top of hubby's want list and he is now trying to figure out how to get a flat panel out there too. One of the main reasons we were drawn to our floorplan was the huge open area of kitchen and Great Room. We love it since that's where we spend a good deal of time together as a family. I don't notice an echo at all. To each their own I always say!

I am surprised about the comment, "Great Room Craze". In fact if memory serves me correctly, the Great Room goes back to the first homes built were in this style. This is not something new or a fad, but more of a lifestyle choice I think. I also believe that this style of home like any other 1.e. "Craftsman, or Ranch" is something people choose because it fits the way they choose to live.

Almost 30 years ago hubby and I added onto our first house, and made it into a family room. No one had family rooms on the main floor at that time, family rooms as they are now called were usually designated to the basement if you had one, and was sometimes called the 'Rumpus Room".It was many years later before we saw any builder start building family rooms on the main floor of homes. We did that because it suited our lifestyle, in that we had small children and I wanted to have a place where I could keep an eye on them at all times.We wondered why no one else had thought of this idea and thought we were pretty smart. Obviously other people also thought of this idea later and soon they were all the rage.

I dont think this is a craze but just another style of home , granted there are many variations of this style.

I presently have a large kitchen and am very glad that I put in the pot lights, but also have pendants as well.I am sure there are much dumber reno crazes than the ones listed here.

If I take out my canned lights how will I find my toilet cover or bath mat? How will my guests see my fake flowers? Please, I'm so sick of these people and their generalized statements. Can't they find something to write about that makes sense?

Instead of telling people what not to do, why don't they take the time to tell people what to do about improving their lives and/or living spaces.

Canned lights are there as part of the layer of lighting. Instead of them saying that at the beginning of the article, they mention something about layered lighting at the end, but don't bother to tell people the cans have their place.

Another stupid article!!

I've lived in a small house (1150 sq. ft.) for 25 years and only recently added 500 sq. ft.. The house still qualifies as small by most standards. I think a lot of what the article said makes sense when you compare "fad" vs. "the right way."

The only thing I'm not sure of are the recessed lights, but I'm looking forward to the day when I'll be able to use the ones I put in the kitchen and keeping room. I love 'em on the small porches.

I've seen this list before, as well. I do think a home should work with your lifestyle at the phase of life you're in. If a great room serves your needs well then I don't see it as a dumb fad. Nevertheless, I wonder how sustainable some of these features will be if our society must be more and more responsive to energy usage issues and accelerated global warming. I've never lived in a new home that has them so I can only guess, for example, how expensive it is to heat or cool large, open floorplans. In the near future, will people still have multiple cars, or will large garages become space that will be repurposed? I don't know the answers to these questions, but as lifestyles inevitably change home designs will of course change along with them!

I think it's more useful to talk to people about what would make a home work for them. The focus always seems to be mass market appeal. I wonder if this article means the market is changing and they need to prime new buyers for what it is they will really want now, not what they've been seeing the past ??? years. My family has always said that no one is going to want the huge houses going up around here later, and that there's just sooo much work and expense involved in taking care of them. Although they do seem to be getting even bigger!!

I should have mentioned that we had our house with the Great Room custom built to our specifications. It is not as open as the ones many builders are building, and like Squirrel said,it was built for the way we live.Hubby is retired,our lifestyle is more casual now,but we have a formal dining room when we want formality, and this casual room is roomy enough for large gatherings because of the adjacent kitchen.

For the sake of the environment,we chose a gas burning fireplace. I miss the smell of a real woodburning one, but feel we have to do our part for the environment.At this stage of our lives we have a home that is right for us and right for our time of life.

If you recall, Johnboy and the rest of the Waltons basically had a "great room", so I guess it is not that new! I think a lot of the article actually made sense. Those huge soaring ceilings can be hard to heat, cool, light and paint. The idea of having spaces that can function seperately, but come together could be great if done right. Can lights are fine, but sometimes there are just way too many. I totally agree on making the garage less of the main feature. Porches really CAN negatively impact the interior rooms if not well planned. In terms of the kitchen, well mine is WAY too small, (I think they used to call it a "step saver") and yet everyone still wants to hang out while I'm cooking! I think a bigger kitchen can be functional and work well for the family, but I am sure there are some with such gargantuan proportions, that they really aren't functional. I recall reading about a kitchen with something like 5 or 6 sinks...one for each zone. I had to wonder if you have to duplicate half your kitchen tools and appliances to avoid doing laps between zones to collect all your equipment before making cupcakes.

Think of it this way, ladies. If Better Homes & Gardens had an article on investing and the author indicated your investments weren't sound, would you be upset?

Hopefully, NO!! ;-)

Personally I love my canned and track lights but I also have other light sources, so I do agree that most people don't realize you need a mix of lights for rooms.

Nobody can hit their heads on our track lights - they're 18' off the floor, LOL!

Lighting can be tricky, because so much of it depends on how dark your furnishings are. Dark woods and patterned rugs can really "soak up" a lot of light inside a room if you're not careful.

It was an interesting article, although I enjoyed the link to saving money on This Old House remodel a lot more. Now that was creative and useful!

I think paneling and popcorn were some of the dumbest trends. Stuff that SO many people are stuck with and cost so much (time and money and effort) to redo.

Guilty. Pass the Retin A....

{{!gwi}}

The "dumbest renovation fads" are those done as a result of reading articles and NOT as a direct reflection of one's own lifestyle and personal taste...period.

In our new home, we will have a great room and I don't think our kitchen would qualify as "stadium-large" but it's large. Only 1/3 of our garage doors will be visible from the street, the other 2/3 are side-loading. We will have porches all along the back side of our home, which faces south. I realize that makes the rooms darker, but hence the reason for can lights! But we'll also have chandeliers, sconces, pendants and uplit tray ceilings, plus a few table lamps.

Your hubby is an electrician, isn't he ;)

Ha ha!

My great room was once two rooms, each with a two story ceiling. It was remodeled into one huge great room, with a total of, wait, 24 pot lights! They are on two separate switches, and dimmers. But we don't use them much at all. It is a bit like being in an auditorium! It is somethin' else! 20' wide by 34' long!

As much as I love Candice Olson - she uses potlights way too often.

Marie, are you saying those are the combined lights of the two rooms? That would make sense. That's one huge room you have now. You can't tell the size of the room by the shot of just the ceiling. I'm sure when standing in the room and looking up they don't look so close to one another. That is a lot of lights. I wouldn't use them because I'd be worried about having to replace them when they burned out and who wants to get way up there? HA!

As for Candice, how do you think she makes those designs of hers look so gorgeous, with the help of all those pot lights. Lighting, when done right is worth it's weight in gold.

Yes those are the # of lights in total (was 12 per room more or less--I counted the two lights over the fireplace). The room originally had a see thru fireplace but they tore it out and made the new one you see now. The ceiling fan is right in the spot where the older chiminey went. The rooms split between the two eyeballs over the fireplace.

I never turn them on. I like ambient floor light. I didn't design or redesign the place tho. My Dh has a really tall pole and uses a ladder to change them.

I will say great rooms can be LOUD. That I don't like and didn't really expect. We have carpet. If it were wood I think it would be even louder.

I love White or cream beadboards that go half way up the wall but I do not like most panelling since it reminds me of our dark family room that was paneled with cheap dark paneling that made the room so dark.

I have popcorn ceilings in my townhouse that helped me fall in love with it. But now that I have it, I find it a pain to clean, a pain to paint and a pain to put lighting in the ceiling since electricians tell me it would be so costly due to the popcorn ceilings. The painters have been too lazy to spray paint the ceiling so when it is painted (first when I moved into my home 10 years ago and then about 10 months ago), little styrofoam balls fell off and were a pain to vacuum and if paint was on them, some of them stuck to other places on the wall or trim.

We deliberately moved out of a house with the "preferred" configuration of smaller rooms with lower ceilings connected by French doors to one featuring the #1 Dumb Fad. For the two of us, our dogs and occasional guests, it's both practical and fun to have a large, light and open room in which to hang out, cook, eat, watch tv, play and listen to music, read, entertain, and be entertained by our grandson when he's here.

There are smaller "away" rooms available if someone needs serious quiet. We don't play video games or do homework. It only gets too noisy when the dogs spot a deer or a rabbit outside and start barking all together. Double-glazed windows and foot-thick walls keep the temperature pretty even.

If this #1 Dumb Fad is really such a dumb fad, then why has it been around for so long, why do new houses continue to feature it, and why do so many families prefer it?

People are not nearly as formal or interested in "civilized manners" as they were in days gone by. So casual dress, casual decorating, casual life is the "in" thing. So the Great room combines all life functions.
The Great Room, though, was designed to help make a small house seem bigger. It was in the days when home mortgage interest rates were like 15-20% and so to help sell houses the builders had to cut square footage - big time. The invention of the great room. Before that a house had a living room, a separate dining room and a family room plus a big kitchen with a breakfast nook. A great room combines family, living, and dining rooms. Plus today many people want a theater room - another room gone. The great room concept was a way to sell houses - make small SF look much bigger.

I think they've got a point.. Well, 5 points actually.

The problem wasn't the great room per se -- but rather the notion that trying to cram all of those activities into the same space at the same time is chaotic. Watching TV while someone else is trying to do homework at the table while someone is cooking and carrying on a conversation -- all in one big open space? That would definitely UP my stress level. Their suggestion to have ways to divide up the space to reduce 'noise pollution' is, IMO, a great one. Or failing that, just move the TV to a room where SpongeBob won't drive you looney!

Pot lights are wonderful! But they aren't the only type of wonderful lighting out there, and a room whose only lighting option is "all pot lights on" or "all pot lights off" is much less inviting than a room with multiple lighting options -- pot lights on dimmers, a few sconces, a table lamp or pendant, maybe some cove lighting... There are so many gorgeous light fixtures available that it's a shame to have only cans...

I also love a big garage. But not on the front face of a house. A house is for PEOPLE, not CARS. Cars should use the side or rear entrance if possible, please.

Stadium kitchens? OK - I guess my 13 x 23 space is larger than strictly necessary. But my personal working zone is a wonderful 9' x 3', with short side trips to the fridge, oven or pantry. There's room for two cooks and a helper or two or three, and the space really WORKS -- we cook at home, and have 'regular' appliances. But so many builders are building IMPRESSIVE kitchens -- kitchens where the island blocks the path from fridge to sink, or where a second sink is added in the dumbest possible location. HUGE honking appliances - "kitchen Hummers" - that gobble energy and cost a fortune to buy and repair and leave a huge hole when they die. Kitchens whose main function is to impress, not to cook.

They didn't really have anything against porches -- only porch-placement issues. And they've got a point. It seems builders today are using porches to make the statement that their houses are approachable and friendly and that their neighborhoods are 'neighborly'. But to whom? All those evening stroll pedestrians? Or maybe it's so the moms can sit on the porch and watch the kids playing in the street?

Well - I think they made some good points.

Lol sweeby, another new phrase I like - "Kitchen Hummers". Excessiveness does seems to be the theme of most of the 'Dumb Fads'.

Good point about the porches. We have one placed in the front and it isn't placed there for getting the best light or shade - it's there so we can watch the kids play out front. At least that's why I think it's there, who knows why the builders put it there. Or what it the heck they were thinking when they gave the home a 1,000sqf master suite but a 200sqf kitchen! (I might be exaggerating a bit because it ticks me off so much!)

Squirrel,

I sold 400 3" can lights to a builder a few months ago. I personally delivered the rings and spot bulbs so I could get a look at what was going on there. OMG.

The painter was complaining (I tried the b-word) because the electrician had installed them before she got there. I asked her how it was going with the ceiling stipple and she said, "I'm carefully working my way through this f...... mine field!" It was a "sight" to behold, indeed. Ouch. I didn't know a painter could talk that way. *grin*

Michael

Do any of you have the plastic casing trim around doors and windows. You know, the kind with laminated wood look? I used to love to estimate those jobs because it always turned in to a complete new trim AND paint job.

Michael

The one trend I do wonder about is the open kitchen...I have one in both my present home and the one we're building. DH and I are empty nesters and its the best configuration, when it's just the two of us.

But there are times when I'm doing a big holiday meal when I wish I could work my magic behind closed doors and ...TA DA! present my final work without everyone having been in on all the prep.

Cooking and baking is therapeutic for me at times, and I would like to hole up in a room, turn on my favorite music and bake up a storm without worrying that someone will ring the doorbell and there is my big flour-y mess that I cannot hide behind a closed door!

Since I can't have both a hidden AND exposed kitchen, I've chosen the latter. But I can foresee a time when folks will have had enough of that, and want their kitchens separate from the living area again.

"The problem wasn't the great room per se -- but rather the notion that trying to cram all of those activities into the same space at the same time is chaotic. Watching TV while someone else is trying to do homework at the table while someone is cooking and carrying on a conversation -- all in one big open space?"

I completely agree. My new home has a large great room and the kitchen and dining room are very open to the great room. So while my 9 year old does homework at the dining room table, that means no tv for anyone since it's too distracting. I wish these rooms were a little more closed off. Also, try watching tv while someone is in the kitchen running the water doing dishes, or cooking. It's just too loud and distracting.

I think fads in general are the problem. 10 years from now when people are looking to buy in the existing house market there will be a zillion open floor plan houses in the area they want and nothing else. Or in my case i'm looking for a little ranch and for some reason they almost all seem to be on slabs here. When i asked why I got answers from, well I think its the water table, I think there's rock to a realtor who finally told me "well back when they were doing these in 50's it was the fad at the time for the builder to tell people a basement would lower the value of their home because of potential water problems"
Bingo. There were basements before that. There are basements now.
There there was the tri-level fad. (whose idea was that!)
People should quit following fads. Its essentially letting someone else tell you how to live your life, what you want and what you like. Come on people!

P.S. I do not like open floor plans - there's no walls! No kitchen cabinets, furniture placement is hard.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA - "kitchen Hummers" - I LOVE it! (I'm also amused to see how many of you are using "ceiling acne"...)

Our new (new-to-us, built in 1900 and not well rehabbed last year) house has can lights and I detest them. I hate the way they look, I hate the way they function, I want them GONE. Most of them aren't in locations where I could convert them to pendants or regular ceiling fixtures, unfortunately. The kitchen is pretty good-sized IMO in terms of square footage but it is way smaller than the "stadium kitchens"; the actual cooking area of our previous kitchen was much smaller but it was far more functional - we have more counter space here but most of it is peninsula so it's not that useful to us. There's only a few feet where you could put small appliances.

I suppose theoretically we have a "great room" since PO took down the wall between the kitchen and the DR, but I think the idea's pretty darn laughable. I don't like the whole "one huge living space" thing, perhaps because it reminds me of a glorified version of the studio apartments I lived in in my younger years, plus I also just plain like my alone time and don't want to be with people all the time. (Oh, right, usually when you have a house with a great room you also have at least half a dozen other "sitting areas"!) The living room here is a little bit bigger than my last one so I should be able to host about 9 people in there, with the kitchen's sitting area (which would otherwise be the dining room, if we were to use such a thing) I think I could get another 5 or maybe 6 more in there. Not very "great", a lot of you have bigger breakfast nooks!

I have a porch I really like, but it's well situated so as not to block light coming into the living areas - it wraps around the tiny entry and hallway and a bit of the kitchen. Someone really thought about that.

I do somewhat resent the assertion that just because someone doesn't want something and thinks it's rather ridiculous, they're "jealous".

"I didn't know a painter could talk that way. *grin*"

You didn't meet our painter. ;-)

marys1000 wrote:
"P.S. I do not like open floor plans - there's no walls! No kitchen cabinets, furniture placement is hard."

And most importantly, no doors to slam!

NOW you tell me. My first open floor plan ever, and now I must immediately put it on the market. No way. As much as I have kvetched about open plans all these years, and how noisy and intrusive they must be . . . this is working great for just the two of us. With kids, it could be maddening. But two adults? Perfect.

I think great rooms as we know them are a concept borne over the last 30-40 years but there were keeping rooms and hearth rooms long before we were embryoes.

lol Brushworks on all those lights! What a show and pain to paint!

I have been removing the metal door casing here. Have never seen it in plastic, though. I would probably have prefered the plastic, as long as it was painted. Definitely easier to get rid of. This stuff takes a power saw.