I think it depends on the size and placement of the rooms.

I do think that when you combine all three, and the rooms were large to start with, you get an open space that's just too big. But with our vacation home, combining the kitchen and dining area, and opening that space to the living room worked. The spaces felt too tight otherwise.

We went from a house built in 1940 with separate and very distinct rooms to a new home with open living, kitchen, and dining spaces. I love the feel and flow of our new space. It's not overly large and as Ellie points out about size, I don't think I would like a cavernous, open space. But one that is open and allows viewing and interaction with three areas at once is really nice for a change. I don't know that I would want to knock down walls and create this same idea in an old home, though. It seems to take away something of the character of an old place, IMO.

I have a sitting area off of my kitchen which is television free. This is an expanded vacation home with repurposed spaces. Our living room is an addition, now at the opposite end of the house. We are retired. I prefer the separation of the television from the kitchen and dining areas. Give me NPR over the NBA any day.

I don't think the new builds with cavernous two-story open concept kitchen/dining/living will ever be anything but what they are. I don't know if a house with a cramped floor plan that has had walls removed will ever have them re-built as I don't know that anyone would want to go back to poky, little rooms. However, if a home had well-proportioned rooms to begin with and a wall was removed just to create an open kitchen/dining/lounge, I think there is a chance that the kitchen might be re-enclosed at some point.

I've started looking for our forever house. I want to reduce our square footage significantly. It's difficult in my area to find a floor plan in a smaller size that isn't open concept.

I think having the kitchen open to the family room will remain popular with mothers of young children because you can prepare food while keeping an eye on them.

I'm not sure if Everything open plan (living, dining, kitchen, den etc...) will stay in vogue. Unless one goes to a bedroom there is really no quiet space to get away from everyone. Also, if you have out of town guests you are all in the same room the whole time. For those who entertain a lot it is nice having that intimate more closed off dining room as well.

Saying that though, as an empty nester and downsizer I really like my open plan.

We have a small home, about 840 sq. ft. on each floor. Making the LR/DR/kitchen into one open, L-shaped area made a HUGE difference. We don't watch TV in the LR anyway; ours is downstairs in the MBR suite. We only watch TV at night, unless I'm watching daytime NFL games!

Unless one goes to a bedroom there is really no quiet space to get away from everyone.

Not necessarily. We have a number of places besides a bedroom to "escape" to, including a library, office, and media room.

The noise transfer in these open spaces will be something people will be trying to change in the future I think. Along with the open LR/DR/K we have a very open staircase to the basement pool/family room. It is just not easy for adults to have a drink and chat while teens are in the basement. We prefer to keep guests out of bedrooms.

Not necessarily. We have a number of places besides a bedroom to "escape" to, including a library, office, and media room.

Are all those places open? If not, that is not what I was talking about.

OK, I guess I have no idea what you meant then. ;-) Never mind.

I lived in a larger home which had French doors separating the kitchen and adjoining seating area from a large family room, which made the areas private when you closed the door, while still allowing you to see the other room, and another one between the kitchen and living room which served the same purpose. There was a solid door that separated the bedrooms from the living area which could be open for a feeling of spaciousness or closed for more privacy. My ex and I designed the house ourselves and I think it gave us the best of both worlds.

I find it more difficult to create focal points with open concept. Not impossible just harder. My dimension are only 39 ft at the largest so possibly I feel more comfortable with the large spaces because they are not just enormous

I think the tide will turn eventually for new construction. Because the tide ALWAYS turns when it comes to design. Whether people will remodel their open spaces to subdivide (or re-subdivide them), I don't know.

I lived in a large home for 40 years where the dinning room was open to the living room. Very large space. I loved it as I could have a large table when we had a lot of guests. I had louvered doors in the kitchen which could be closed if needed.

I liked the setup.

We sold our house, retired to Florida and bought a smaller home, I plan to gut the kitchen and will move a wall. All the designers and contractors want the kitchen wall removed to open the kitchen to the dinning and living room.

I do not want that! Why?

I do not like the idea of people seeing into my kitchen when I'm working or haven't cleaned the dishes. Removing that wall would also open the kitchen to the entry of the house. I certainly do not want to open my front door and have people see into my kitchen.

I absolutely hate how sound travels through the space and removing the two kitchen walls would make it worse.

I have wood floors in the living room/dinning room. I have tile throughout the rest of the house. Noise, sound travels everywhere. I cannot listen to music while cooking if my husband has the tv on or is playing his music. Drives me crazy.

In my larger home, we did not have a tv in the living room. Sounds from the living room did not travel to the kitchen the way this smaller house does.

I absolutely would not remove my kitchen walls. The flow would probably work better and look nicer, but I like to work in my kitchen without my guests see if I mess up something, burn something, curse as I ruin something!

I do like the family room open to the kitchen and have that now and will keep that. But I do not want the kitchen open to the living room and entry door.

JMO

Jane

I'm no fan of open concept unless the house is so tiny that it has a rabbit warren of tiny rooms. It breaks my heart to see gracious large houses built in the 20's and 30's with walls removed and more support columns than in Pompei.

In this house our Kitchen is open to the dining room and halfway open to the living room. I like it better then the completely open, or small rooms everywhere homes we have owned in the past. We keep the TV in the basement so the sound doesn't travel too far. I like a little separation, but I still want an open airy vibe.

I prefer some separation--I like Ingrid's description with french doors to separate the spaces. You can still have a nice flow between the rooms without abandoning walls entirely.

But the open concept without walls is cheaper to build (fewer doors, less drywall and trim, etc) so we will continue to see it. Plus, until the phrase "open concept" is removed from every blasted episode on HGTV, builders will keep assuming this is what we want, and those like Fun2Bhere who want some separation will not easily find it.

My friends who live in the open-concept, 2-story family rooms open to kitchen, etc., dislike it for the noise factor. It was nice for a few years when their kids were young and they could keep an eye on them. But toddlers grow quickly and soon don't need to be monitored on a minute-by-minute basis.

I've never found those spaces cozy and welcoming, either, but everyone has a different reaction to a space.

I like semi-open/partially closed plan..the most amazing layout I saw was in my own old place lol-the kitchen is inside, in the back, can be seen from the dining and family but not from the entrance and living(minus-windowless kitchen)...living dining and family are all spaces that can be seen or partially seen together but each takes a certain corner of the main floor, a distinct zone..and the family room is the furthest one from the entrance.

this way, each family member can be downstairs and do his own thing(dine, do homework, read, watch TV, prepare food, etc) yet still feel the togetherness

I like fully open plans in houses that make sense for it..when you can't see dishes in the sink right from the front door...

Unfortunately, today builders put in truly atrocious plans sometimes-I visited several new builds and the layout was awful, awful. Fully open but not big enough to contain that..half a room is taken by a kitchen/ginormous island..another half-wall with a fireplace/connect to TV since all the other walls have either doors or windows on them. Absolutely no space to get away..everything is crammed together, like all that family will ever do is watch that TV while eating dinner.

No walls can be even put in such place..total lack of versatility condemns it to always being the stupid plan built by a builder who-couldn't-care-less.

I think we already see the movement from the open plans, towards (some) separation..few people have houses where the concept supports the fully open plan living..it simply demands a big space and/or the right architecture.

As for young mothers that want to look after the kids when cooking..well as I was once young mother too lol-you take the playpen, put it in the kitchen(of course you need to have space for it then..in eat in, partially open kitchens you usually do), give him/her lots of "real stuff" like metal pot covers, pieces of fabric, and other blah blah and make a dinner to the sound of the pot covers banging one into another..almost like an orchestra:)

Seriously though..you can figure out how to arrange things in your household for several years when you need to watch your kids like a hawk..but then both you and them will start craving some privacy..at least a visual illusion of such.

A house should adapt itself to changes..and I don't see small homes with big kitchen islands and totally open plan adapting too well, to changes of life/different families/different households.

It says to you "ok you need to leave soon". what's that concept of McDonalds? It's a home..ideally, it should be good to enjoy for many years. Withstand additions in the family, kids growing up, parents aging..of course not every home will suit every family, but to build something highly uncomfortable, that is clearly there to change hands all the time precisely because it's uncomfortable, seems very wasteful and not very smart.

(PS and they ask quite a lot for these stupid plans here too plus 3 types of HOA fees. Lol. And zero lot. And zero public transportation. )

What works for some doesn't work for others. I'm glad that we have so many options when it comes to choosing the type, size, and location of the home we want to live in. For instance, there are only two of us living in our home and its partially open plan and zero lot line suit us perfectly. Someone else will require space configured another way, as well as different amenities. To each their own - and what a privilege it is to be able to choose!

@Aprilneverends - But these homes are working for people.

Entertaining in the home has become very common and casual. This is where kitchens with large islands that open to the living area really shine.

We generally have guests over every other weekend. I love being able to stand in my kitchen and have people gather around the island (which can seat up to 8 comfortably), while others, relax on the couch near the fire place. It allows everyone to be comfortable and participate at their own pace.

It's actually one of the things I love about open concept.

But, we also don't have a TV in the living area. Ours is downstairs in the family room and you can't hear it on the main level. I love the separation.

There is too much of a good thing though. If there's an echo in your space, well- maybe that's just too open.

Ah, april, you're a woman after my own heart! A playpen! What an "unusual" idea! I remember when we finally took down the playpen in the kitchen (it was the old square kind), I felt I'd built an addition onto the house! After the playpen, they were in the basement playroom. Frankly, I did not want to keep my eye on them while cooking dinner - hate to think how dinner would have turned out if I were that distracted.

Apparently, basement playrooms are out of fashion today as well - need to see those little snowflakes. I love what my DD called her basement play room - it was a "no-police zone" - they could play without her worrying about anything being broken etc. She has two boys 28 months apart in age. That basement play room is now a teenage play room - TV, pingpong table and it's still a "no-police" zone!

I prefer open spaces. I think it has to do with the fact that my first place out of college was an open warehouse loft, which I loved. Several years ago, we lived into a Victorian home with lots of division and small rooms. With young children, that layout did not work for our family. I like to be in the kitchen interacting with my family and talking to them as we are preparing meals. In our current home, we tore down one half wall where the fireplace was, but our current living area is a long narrow room that is approx. 65x20 and everything is open.

I used to entertain at home quite a lot (no island)..and everybody loved the plan and said that my place is perfect for entertaining. It wasn't completely closed off..as I described it was partially open but in a versatile, making sense way. We pretty much describe the same thing here:) Make it open plan if you wish-but make it a smart open plan, with good flow, and areas that can be used simultaneously and give people some choice as to how lead their lives in their own space.

Some of these homes are working for people. Mine-was working for people:) The new builds we saw-uh uh, they won't work for people as well. It's like two dresses..say, one is little black dress and another one is a little black dress. One you wear for years..when a young girl, and when pregnant, and after having two kids..some minor alterations, and you're good to go, and you're glowing again. I had a dress like that. And another, is good to wear it only once, is cheaply made, and looks like a rug after the first wash.

There is a general concept. And then there is an execution.

IdaClaire I spent almost all my life in cities of all sorts..apartments etc. Then we had that condo (wait..still have it lol) with a very very small lot. It's not that I have to have a lot..I don't even have to have a house to tell you the truth..I'm a big city kid.

But yet again..there is a concept, and there is an execution.

If you've nothing to escape to..not inside the house, not outside the house..it's not exactly like in a city, and not exactly like in a good condo community, and not exactly like anything that makes some sense..yet you're still supposed to pay low 600s or whatever they think these new starter homes are worth here, and 3 types of HOA fees.

I prefer separate rooms, as I have in my 1937 Cape. There is a french door between the kitchen and the dining room, and one at the other end of the dining room to the small foyer. There's also a french door to my office off the living room. These doors are seldom closed, but I like having the option to.

It's nice that there is a style to make all of us happy!

..as an honest person I must add-the deeper you go into such new community-the better become the plans, and generally everything. At least you feel like you can breathe. But. Then it's already high 800's..:)

@ IdaClaire

We had family at our house for Christmas dinner, and as DH and I bustled about in the kitchen, my dad, who was seated in the living room, said, "Is this what those HGTV people mean when they say they want an open space for entertaining? Because I'm sure finding it entertaining watching the two of you do dishes while I just sit here being lazy."

Haha, should of asked him to help ..lol..

I think open concept is one of those different strokes things. I like boundaries and the acoustics of large open spaces bothers me. We worked with a designer on our current house. There is a visual diagonal that connects the living room, dining room and kitchen. The visual of the kitchen is made possible with a pass-thru. That diagonal also makes it possible to peak at the TV from the kitchen.

When my children were young, I did want to keep an eye on them but by no means did I want them anywhere near me when carrying a knife or a pot of hot water. That is why I appreciated being able to block off the kitchen easily with a baby gate.

One of my major regrets in our house design was not incorporating an away room a'la Sarah Susanka. That was a financial decision but boy do I hunger for such.

My last house was so darn closed between the kitchen and rest of the house (separated by a hallway which had the entrance to the basement along it) that I am super happy to be back into a house that is open. In my last house, I had to always disappear into the kitchen when I had guests and with just me entertaining, that wasn't cool. The kitchen was too small and folks ended up trying to cram in there, awkward.

That said, a doorway is enough of an opening for me. I don't want my well-used kitchen on display all the time for sure. Our current home is partially open, the kitchen is in the middle and on one side it has a sitting room open to a small formal dining room, and on the other side the kitchen is open to the casual dining space and family room. It's "half open" as there is a half wall of cabinets and a bar on one side, and I really like that set up. I would hate it though, if it was a two story thing, that costs too much to heat and cool, and I think we inevitably will go back to being able to close off rooms when not in use due to saving on heating. I think that's why my house is best of both worlds, one side that is open for daily use, and another side that is closed for privacy and entertaining but doesn't need to be fully heated when not in use.

I was never watched by a hawkish mother when I was a child, but I spent time quietly in my bedroom or else outdoors (in central Texas) and no one really paid that much attention to what I was doing. However, I grew up on a very large farm, and the nearest neighbor was almost a mile away. I guess it is different for children growing up in cities (I always wanted to live in a city as a child) or in cold climates where people spend more time cooped up indoors.

I like for the kitchen to be a separate space, and when I used to prepare Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's condo in Redondo Beach (Wife had to work on that day), I found it particularly annoying that the husband would want to watch football on the TV, and I had to listen to it. I HATE the sound of football crowds and told him that if he want TG dinner, he would have to keep the TV quiet while I was working in the kitchen. Of course if I could have closed a door and had separate music in the kitchen, that would not have been an issue.

I like the Bauhaus architecture of the 1930s that had somewhat open floor plans, but there was still enough separation that one did not feel like one was in a barn, and the separate spaces had interesting relations with each other. I once lived in a commune (in the early 1970s) in San Francisco in a converted storefront that was mainly one huge room (It has been a dance studio before), and while the cavernous space was great for parties, it was not so good for anything else, and privacy became an issue.

I think if open floor plans are thoughtfully done, like Mies van der Rohe, they can be nice, but if they are open space just for the sake of open space, then they can lack character and intimacy. I lived in several flats in San Francisco that had double pocket doors between rooms so that space could be make more open or more private, as needed. I've seen houses in Palm Springs that made good use of open space while also providing intimacy, but it takes a competent architect to achieve this.

We completely renovated our house 6 years ago and did not go open-concept even thought many of the contractors that we talked to assumed that we would and should. We finally found one that agreed with us and said not to do it. For one thing, I am not convinced that dining rooms will not come back into style and I wasn't giving ours up.

Our last house had both types of spaces and I plan to do the same thing again if we build. The kitchen was in the back middle of the house. On one side of the kitchen you walked through a door to the den/library/tv room. The other side of the kitchen opened to a large vaulted space where we had a huge dining table and another sitting area. The house was not huge (less than 3000 sqft) but the layout was very versatile.

I don't think the pendulum will swing back to smaller individual rooms anytime soon, as it's my understanding that the small room concept came from the need to keep rooms warm in the colder months, cooler in the warm months and/or vented, such as in a kitchen. With older heating, cooling and venting systems, this made a lot of sense. These days, not so much.

Our last home was a large, older, one story adobe home with a rabbit warren of individual rooms (but a huge, gorgeous backyard- LOL). Although we did knock down one wall between the kitchen and family room, and added many skylights, it still was too closed off and dark for my liking. I do understand the noise factor, though, especially with kids. The floors in this house were Saltillo tile in the front and carpeting in the back.

So, when we had our current home built, I opted for open concept . . . but with French doors to close off some of the rooms when needed. I had a double set put in the study/library, which is right off the front foyer. Another double set from the front foyer into the open concept living and dining rooms. A double set from the open concept family room and kitchen into the living and dining rooms. And a single, pocket French door from the kitchen's bar and pantry area into the living room.

This has worked very well up to a certain point. While our thick adobe walls inside and between rooms do insulate from heat, cold and noise, our brick floors throughout, even with their large Middle Eastern rugs, do carry sound more than carpeting. So, if I'm in the living room reading with all the French doors closed, I can still hear the tv going in the family room, albeit muffled. So, although French doors do help, hard floors in those areas will counteract them to some degree.

I moved into my first open concept house about 6 months ago. I have the same complaints as others mentioned. The clanking, banging of pots and pans, the fan noise means the other person can not hear the tv anyway. The view of a messy kitchen from the front door and common spaces.

I looked at many new houses, they were all open concept, so if I want something different it will need to be a remodel or custom .

Must haves will be kitchen on an outside wall with the sink below a window to the outside, instead of the main sink in the island, a great room / kitchen open concept would be ok, if the kitchen was not visible from the front door. A small great room with no tv, and the tv in different media room would work. Also, a kitchen with wall space on 3 walls for more cabinet space.

Although I have young kids I am an old fashion mom, I have a square pack and play that has a one year old in it and her three year old sister is alone in the basement play room as I sit closed off in my kitchen typing. The doors to my separated rooms are open so I hear everything but I go crazy when the three kids are on top of me for twelve hours per day. I am also a nap nazi, I do not care if those under six actually sleep but they must stay in their rooms for two hours per day resting! I think my need for privacy and space a lot of the time actually explains my preference for a more closed off floor plan....

We just built our home with one of those open floor plans. If I was doing it again, I would wall up one of the 'rooms' and have it slightly less open. It's nice to have walls to put stuff on or against. If you get rid of them completely it can be hard to work with. Our kitchen is open to the eat in nook which is open to the great room and formal dining and then formal sitting room. The formal sitting room I would make completely separate. I have to wait a few years till my dear hubby gets over the fact that we just built the house and hopefully it wont be too hard to do it.

I would think the separate room concept would come around again as most things do cycle through again when people get tired of what's been around for awhile. When I was a kid our house was quite open - one big LR/DR space and an adjacent kitchen that had a large arched opening into the dining half of the main room.

We bought two different homes last year and both are open. I love this compared with previous homes I've had with separate rooms. I like to cook and socialize and enjoy being able to do so within earshot of what's going on with others. Plus everyone likes to be in the kitchen and I find them less underfoot when they can be in an adjacent open space. In our case both places have beautiful views that are viewable from the kitchen sink as well as the living spaces. I love it all!

The houses we have now are what we plan to take us into retirement years. They have one dining space - no dining "room" plus kitchen dining other than an island and a peninsula dividing the kitchen and dining space. We have other architectural details that prevent the one big cavernous room feeling - different ceiling levels, flooring, pillars, etc. The houses are also not huge so when you put it all together it's quite cozy and nice.

It's just the two of us and our cats though - no kids - so that may reduce the need/desire for more separate rooms. We also don't have a TV in our main floor living areas - our weekend lake home doesn't have a TV at all. We also have other non-bedroom spaces on the upper or lower levels where one can "get away" if desired - a family room with TV, cozy loft, etc.