I've been in a shit ton of condos and homes as a real estate photographer and realtor in NJ. Well-done open concept layouts are far more attractive and enjoyable than multipe individual rooms in the living/kitchen/dining area. By far.
Not sure I saw any claims in this thread about its cost before yours but open concept IS cheaper to renovate. Adding walls, plumbing, electrical where there aren't any is much easier and cheaper than removing walls especially since you often need to re-route various services or loads.
Really? Because I see it all the time. "This house gives us the option of finishing a basement or adding a bedroom." "This house gives us the option to add a garage." "This house gives us the option of moving a mother-in-law in or expanding our family more."
For you maybe. Not all of us have so much crap that we have issues with storage in our open concept houses and not everyone needs every room to be private. Dust seems to be an odd thing to mention. How do you figure that? If we take two otherwise identical houses and one is open concept but the other isn't your total dust gathering surface area is roughly the same but open concept has fewer hard to clean\dust areas.
Open concepts are not what has driven the demand for increased footprints. Open Concept is a relatively new trend while the average footprint already doubled between 1950 and the early 00s. The increase has basically been linear since 1980 or so so the effect of it on overall footprint is minimal to nonexistent.
https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/pdf/squarefeet.pdf
Open concept does not affect HVAC\door\plumbing requirements. Volume and envelope size does. While Open Concept and high\vaulted ceilings are often used together high\vaulted ceilings are not a requirement for open concept (although its a somewhat vague term)
It's not foreign to me, it's just wrong. If there was a wall between the kitchen and the family room, a noisy dishwasher wouldn't be an issue.
I'm a Chef. Both my wife and I prepare meals and far prefer a separate kitchen. To each their own. I just think kitchen design peaked in the 20's.Well, there's a reason why they build homes with these open floorplans. It's because people want them.
Personally, I like it. It allows you to hang out in the kitchen and watch TV while cooking or gather with friends and family while making drinks or eating appetizers. We have a separate formal living room and dining room and you know what? We rarely spend any time in them. They are two rooms we walk through to get to the kitchen/family room where we spend most of our time (other than sleeping of course).
I'm curious, who does the cooking in your house? Unless you have a hired chef to cook your meals you should ask that person if they would prefer to be isolated from the rest of the occupants of the house when preparing meals.
Well, there's a reason why they build homes with these open floorplans. It's because people want them.
Personally, I like it. It allows you to hang out in the kitchen and watch TV while cooking or gather with friends and family while making drinks or eating appetizers. We have a separate formal living room and dining room and you know what? We rarely spend any time in them. They are two rooms we walk through to get to the kitchen/family room where we spend most of our time (other than sleeping of course).
I'm curious, who does the cooking in your house? Unless you have a hired chef to cook your meals you should ask that person if they would prefer to be isolated from the rest of the occupants of the house when preparing meals.
Whatever you people do don't start arguing about the superior nature of stone countertops with Magnus too.
You're good to go. I'm sure the folks who have no problem blowing a grand on a dishwasher are down with stone counters.off the rails again, but i have to know!
we have epoxy sealed concrete on the regular counters and bowling ally wood on our island.
Scarpozzi brought up cost. You are right it's cheaper if adding walls but, I was talking about renovating a standard house to make it open concept. Open concept is not solely responsible for increased footprints but, it is a factor. When I spoke of options, I wasn't referring to changes made soon after purchasing a home but, several years down the road. How many people do you know who finish a basement 5 years after the move in? Options in houses is like "future proofing" a computer build. It just doesn't make sense. Regarding hvac and other services with open concept you're pretty much forced to buy more expensive single whole house solutions rather than multiple smaller units. Smaller units increase flexibility and redundancy. Dust from outside ( a real problem in many places) accumulates much faster in open concept dwellings due to doors and windows feeding directly to most living spaces. From what I've seen, most homeowners have larger homes than they need if they just used the space more efficiently.
The one my wife has had for 23 years still does great. So there.my 16 year old GE dishwasher that came with house when we bought it new in Nov 2003 still runs fine...granted it only runs about once a month...end up washing the dishes by hand pretty much all the time except when I have friends over (which is about once a month LOL)...
Part of me kind of hates it because sometimes I can't even tell if it's running or not.We have a Bosch and you seriously can't even hear it when it is running. I love that about it.
Part of me kind of hates it because sometimes I can't even tell if it's running or not.
Also as far as quietness, you will see 42db, 37db, 45db, blah blah...
I guarantee as long as you get a decent $400+ dishwasher it will be quiet enough for you - so don't let "Ohhhh this one is even MORE quiet" be a determining factor.