I couldn’t get through the article without subscribing. I still like open but there are just two of us and the cats and our open is cozy not cavernous. I can’t see how it works with a family. Our last house was a bit less open with the kitchen pretty much separated from the living areas. That was okay once we remodeled our kitchen and added an island where people could hang out. We’ve always had a walkout lower level with living area so there is a place to get away. I can’t imagine not having an open plan at our lake place where we often have visitors. We’ve had that for 20 years now and I’ve always enjoyed that arrangement.

I was only able to read the first few paragraphs before it asked me to subscribe but I think I read enough to see where the writer was heading.

A lot depends on the size of the house and the arrangement of the rooms or the open space. The home I just left after 35 years was built in 1970, it was large and every room was a room with walls. It was reasonably quiet - the 3 kids and their friends could play in the family room or the finished basement and while I could hear them they weren't so noisy that it interfered with what I was doing. If I was making dinner I could still see them through the open doorway to make sure they were behaving.

I like public spaces and private spaces. In our new home we did remove the wall between the kitchen/eating area and the family room. And we widened the opening into the living room and dining room but when you walk into the foyer or if you're sitting in the living room or dining room you can't see into the kitchen. This house is half the size of our former one, the kids are off on their own and for the most part it's just the two of us. And since it's an over 55 community we don't have to worry about selling to a young family.

We do have an open plan at our mountain home - but we don't have a separate dining room or a 'formal' living room. It's the typical great room - kitchen, dining and seating in one large room with a wall of glass looking out into the forest around us. We designed it that way and it works well for us.

The Boston Globe cut me off mid-article.

I've always disliked open concept houses. However, as I look for a house with much smaller square footage, open concept is almost a necessity. Without being open, the kitchen is too claustrophobic. At least in some open floor plans, the kitchen is in an ell so it's not visible from the front door or most of the living room.

When we redid our home in 2010 we did not take down any walls. But, in our kitchen area we already had a small eating area and a small sitting area. Our contractor thought we should take down the wall into the dining room which would have made the space cavernous but I wasn't convinced that dining rooms were going out of style permanently. I said no. I'm glad I did.

Without even reading it I would say there is a place for both. I have lived in a house that felt like a rabbit warren of small spaces and as much as I loved the coziness (and that was a main factor in buying it) I could not wait to open it up a bit. I've also had a house where there is no delineation at all between kitchen space, casual eating space and casual living space (formal living and dining rooms were indeed separate) and it worked for us at that time in our and our children's lives. The house we built and live in now is quite open visually but each space is clearly defined by large cased doorways and ceiling changes.

Boston Globe is a PIA.

Our 1950s cottage has doors that close off every room. When we remodeled the kitchen and added about 500 sf we kept the new area open. We spend 80% of our time in the kitchen/keeping room. That said, I love having a separate dining room and living room. IMO we have the best of both worlds!

I could've written exactly what DLM did. That's our experience as well. I like an open living, kitchen, and dining. Works quite nicely for us.

I read that article last week. In the Boston area most houses are vintage and have traditional floor plans. Many buyers open up walls to achieve an open floor plan, which I have seen done many times in my neighborhood. Personally, I have always liked a separate kitchen and dining room, We have a large eat-in kitchen with a peninsula, stools and a small fireplace.. People love to hang out in the kitchen when we have friends over, and I am fine with that, but I do not ever want a clear view from our front door to the kitchen.

Catticus, we have a similar scenario and also spend most of our time in the kitchen/hearth room. We have a pass-thru from the kitchen to the dining room which is open to the great room and has 18' ceiling and tall windows. Kinda open and kinda not. We love it!

(dang, I gotta quick clicking on sites that require a sign in. I "continued with facebook" and suddenly I get "breaking news" from the Globe in my email.)

Our kitchen is open to a breakfast nook and family room and is where DH and I live 90% of the time. But we also have a formal dining room and a library/living room. DH also has a study as his away space, I have a craft room as mine as well as a nook in my bedroom. So we get the best of both.

I very much like that our kitchen with breakfast nook, dining room, living RN, and foyer, are connected by doorways. I do wish that the family room were more open to the kitchen, so that the kitchen had a view to both front and back yards, and less open to the service entrances (garage, side door, mudroom) as that view ain't so nice. If only the opening were shifted 2-3' to one side.

I saw this earlier and think it was very interesting. I have never been a fan of open concept -- I like WALLS and I don't want anyone standing at the front door to be able to see in my kitchen and I certainly don't want dinner guests able to see the mess in the kitchen! I do think walls will come back!

I actually like my semi-open plan. It means I can store things on THREE walls in the kitchen, and that there's a wall between kitchen and living (meaning I have a place to put artwork on that shared wall, yum!). I look out over my peninsula to the dining space. This means I only need ONE designated eating space inside my house, which I really appreciate, and I get the benefit of semi open in that I can look out from the sink over the dining table to the great outdoors. (The actual in-kitchen window is at my prep station, a better spot for how I use my kitchen.) A separation from the living room helps get things away from being food-focused or for needing to be an utter neatnik for when someone comes in the front door.

I'm sorry about the cut-off from the Globe. I should have known. I'll see if I can find the article in it's entirety. Thank you for your thoughts, it's good discussion and very informative!

I can agree to a certain point. Having kids in front of the tv, watching something loud and irritating can be very trying. Our floors throughout the entire house are brick, and the walls adobe, both of which carry sound even more. When we had this place built, we had the family room open to the kitchen. I still like that, although we ended up putting televisions in both our kids' bedrooms to help alleviate some of the noise when they were teens (LOL)! I had double French doors put in a couple places to open, or close off, the dining and living rooms to the rest of the main living area. Twenty-five years later, I still like that, too. We've been empty nesters for a few years now, and open concept works for us. With several kids, though, I can see an argument for more walls.

For a similar take, check out this article that was referenced in the Globe article by Kate Wagner of McMansion hell fame. Gives some history and class based analysis of how we live. (In North america)

https://www.citylab.com/design/2018/08/the-case-for-rooms/563216/

“Prior to the last 25 years, an “open floor plan” meant a living configuration without doors; now the term has come to mean a living configuration without walls. ”

That was a great read. Thank you so much, Robo.

Yes, that was a great read, Robo. I grew up in a small ranch, and because my bedroom was the first room down the hall, I often had trouble falling asleep because my parents watched the 10 o'clock news. It became a source of stress for me at an early age. For this reason, I've never liked ranch homes, and today's open concept homes bother me, too. It's just so much shared noise. I also like walls for art. I need walls!

Glad to know I'm not the only one who is not a fan of the wide open concept that is all they ever show on HGTV.

I loved my Grandmothers house-it had a nice entry way that led into the formal living room. Open to the FLR was a formal dining room. From the LR you went into what we called the family room-there was a big table, television and a wet bar. The HUGE kitchen had a bar with a pass through but you couldn't see the kitchen from the LR or the DR.

Everyone would gather in the family room or kitchen, and casual dinners were at the table in that room, holiday dinners were always in the dining room. During parties the older folks would gather in the LR-there was a 12 foot custom made sofa in that room! and the younger people in the family room, the women always in the kitchen. Since I half grew up in that house, it's always been my dream layout.

My kitchen is postage stamp sized and is half open to the dining room, but we're going to open it up and make it an eat in kitchen. I've got a formal LR adjacent to the dining room and at the back of the house we have a huge open family room-it works great. I never wanted to have to hear the TV get louder and louder as I loaded the dishwasher!