Loved it when I was just out of school. Would not appreciate the lack of privacy now. Plus when we moved out of the loft and into a smaller townhouse, the townhouse felt bigger because we had more discrete rooms.

I would think it would be freezing in the winter!

I've never lived in one, but agree that a reduction in privacy would be difficult to accept. I'm curious about the comment of it being freezing in the winter, though. How come? I think I'm missing something.

I’ve lived in 2 lofts and loved both of them. The first was a full floor of a former fire station in NYC. It did have a couple separate areas for bedrooms. Huge windows, tall ceilings, great big space. Dang I miss living there! So much fun for entertaining. The 2nd place was a former factory turned into condos. Moved in when 8 months pregnant and we created 2 bedrooms at separate ends of the space. Also great for entertaining and kids to ride their bikes thru the space!

We moved into a house for a variety of reasons and look forward to moving back into a loft once the kids have down the nest.

If by "loft" you mean a living space in a repurposed industrial building with high ceilings, two of my kids (separately, and in different cities) each lived in such an apartment. Both on the East Coast, I recall they're saying (and something I experienced myself) that the very high ceilings made them hard to heat in the winter and cool in the summer.

Our loft was in DC, I can attest to how hard it was to cool in the hot, humid summers.

We live in a loft. The building was originally a furniture showcase/warehouse, then offices for decades before conversion to condo lofts a couple of decades ago. It’s a concrete loft, not the brick and timber loft of my dreams, but those sell for a significant premium. I love the big windows. I love our balcony. I love our gas fireplace. I love the modern clean lines.

My ceilings are over 11ft by a bit and I do have open ductwork. My unit has one large kitchen/living room/dining room area as well as two bedrooms that are partly walled off, but the walls do not extend to the ceiling. This is a workaround so they can legally call the rooms bedrooms, as they have ‘natural’ lighting this way, despite not having windows. The window situation is the one thing I don’t like about the loft. Like is very common in my city, the loft is long and narrow with windows only at one end. They’re huge floor to ceiling windows. It’s like having one of the walls be a wall of glass. but that’s it. The other three walls are solid. Corner units are available for sale, but they come at a significant premium in price.

I don’t think this place is harder to keep cool/heat than the house we once owned, if only because the conversion did install modern windows and the walls are pretty thick. I think there must be some insulation in there. The house we once owned did not have modern windows (and we could not afford to replace), so was constantly cold in the winter. I think the quality of the conversion has a lot more to do with how hard it is to heat than anything. Probably if the ceilings were more like 14ft, it would be harder to heat/cool. I will say that my favorite place we’ve lived as far as heating/cooling concerns was a small vintage apartment (775sq ft) that had steam radiators that kept us so toasty warm and could be cooled with a single window AC unit. The loft is harder to heat/cool than that, but easier than the single family house. My current utility bills are significantly lower than my sister’s suburban 3r house. A lot of modern suburban homes have those vaulted living room ceilings or 2 story foyers. I think that would be worse to heat/cool than my 11ish ft. ceilings.

Mostly it’s not too different than a typical ’open concept’ house, other than the bedroom wall situation. I wouldn’t live with a child in this place or with a non-related roommate, because there’s no bedroom privacy to speak of. One of the bedroom doesn’t even have a doorway. We use that one as a secondary living room and sleep in the with the door. But we don’t have children or need to take in roommates, so we’re good there. I don’t like to have guests who spend the night, but if I did, it might be a problem.

So, plus sides to a loft but some negatives. I will say that for the neighborhood we wanted to live in, it was either a loft conversion or a modern-built, high-rise ‘loft style’ condo. There weren’t really any other choices in our price range.

I lived in a loft for awhile, with 2 other people, when I was at school in NYC. It was pretty much all DIY by scrappy 20 somethings with very little money. This was TriBeCa in the late 70s/early 80s before it became upscale. There was one wall of windows that looked out onto a narrow alley and the building on the other side. There were so many empty buildings around there back then and lofts could be had for very little. I'm not even sure we had any heat.

Oh how things have changed.

"My ceilings are over 11ft..."

Plenty of single family homes are built with ceilings at this level.

When I think of a industrial "loft", I imagine open airspace up to 20 feet or higher. If you want to know what that's like, maybe you know of someone with a cathedral ceiling or a staircase and balcony setup open to a second floor in their homes. Ask them what it's like to cool the upstairs on a hot day if they don't have a separate AC system for the upstairs. It's also why many homes so designed do well with a strong ceiling fan in the atrium/open area.

We sold our home, put everything into storage, while shopping for the next house and rented a loft above an office in an industrial area. It wasn't an open space. It was chopped into 2 little bedrooms, one bath. The downstairs entrance had a large closet and spare room we stored boxes in.

What we liked: our friend charged a small price for it. The kitchen had an awesome gas stove and I purchased a NEW GE SS frig for it. It had AC & it's own thermostat for heat. Utilities were included in the rent.

What we didn't like: Next door was a hot rod car mechanic. Every evening @ 10pm they burned rubber around the neighbor hood, running over dogs & cats....leaving racing stripes where they ran the cars in circles....screaching loudly until 1am! Totally illegal, but we didn't want the building owner to lose his renter, so we never reported the activity. The guy down the street had his cat run over....he didn't report it....neither did the dog owner. We were only there two months.

My house,in north-central Alberta, is not a loft but the kitchen, dining room and living room are one large open space with a high peaked ceiling.

There are ceiling to floor windows on the east wall. The basement is a walkout with large windows. It (the basement) has ten foot ceilings and is pretty much one large finished area with radiant heating built into the floors. We built the house in 2002. The ceiling fan on the main level runs year round. In the summer, it moves the air to create a cool breeze and in the winter, we reverse it to push the warm air off of the ceiling.

It is a cool house in the summer and a warm house in the winter. I like the openness of it as furniture can be moved to accommodate large gatherings. Something that we hadn’t thought of when building it, is that it is going to be a good house to grow old(er) in. There are virtually no barriers in the living space.

If I've understood correctly, I think you're running your fan backwards. I checked because I have a home with fans and I do it in the opposite direction as you've described.

I think you'll get more comfort having the fan blow air downward in the summertime (to create a breeze for people underneath it, the temperature of the air doesn't matter) and blowing upward in the winter - to pull the cool air off the ground.

See this video from someone who sells fans. I guess he could be wrong but a few other sources said the same thing.

Elmer, our fan blows down in the summer and up in the winter. It works for us.

In the winter, the air is pushed to move off of the ceiling, where the warm air naturally rises. It is pushed toward the ceiling and forced down along the walls.

eta I see how I explained it wasn’t clear, my bad.

Then I misunderstood what you wrote - I thought you said air direction was up in summer, down in winter.

Do you live in an area with hot summers?

A hot summer is a relative thing, isn’t it?

We can get days of 30 c. plus. It is not my favourite time of the year.

......I thought you said air direction was up in summer, down in winter.......

No, it was not what I said. You did misunderstand.

The ceiling fan on the main level runs year round. In the summer, it moves the air to create a cool breeze (down)and in the winter, we reverse it (up) to push the warm air off of the ceiling.

Haha, I understand you now. Not to be too pedantic, I think hot and cold are absolute, while hotter and colder relative. If you "can" get days of "30 c plus" , sounds to me like a place with relatively moderate summers.

Next two days are forecast to be 86 and this area just considers it spring like. For here it would be a really cold summer.

If your wondering about living in big ...open...spaces with high ceilings...? My last house had 22' high ceilings in the whole upstairs with an open concept. Loved it!

Lars, I love your posts.

I know someone who lives in a loft. Since it's a commercial/industrial building, it gives space for work which takes up space like art, construction projects, etc. in addition to living space. So basically, you live at work.

I lived in a loft apartment for two years after selling the family home and loved it. I lived on the top floor and the unit faced south west and had lots of sun so it was very inexpensive to heat even with 18 foot ceilings. Cooling it was more difficult. I just kept the blinds closed all the time. I was pretty footloose back then the always going away for long weekends or overnights somewhere so it didn't matter. What I didn't spend on heat I spent on cooling.

I've always thought the idea of living in a loft would be so cool. But I really don't like open-concept homes. We have several old factories that have been turned into lofts.