fdl

I really like open concept layouts, but I am wondering if there are any downsides to it.

I can think of three - smells from kitchen will more easily get into other rooms, furniture, etc.; it will be noisey ; and it harder to decorate/furnish.

Any others?

teg_to_bike

I like "open" houses, my parents' new house have no walls between the kitchen, foyer, family room and sun room.

One PITA is cleaning the floor. The kitchen is always the dirtiest room, but the dirt travels into the other rooms.

Yeah, and furnishing it is kinda weird... their old furnitire looks odd in the new house because it relied on more wall space.

bl^5

So long as your bedroom is set far off from the living spaces you will be fine.

I myself don't like the formal dining and living room layouts. I would rather have one huge room with kitchen, huge dining area, and huge living area.

That being said, now that I have kids my next house will have a seperate living area for the children to play/flight/destroy in.

GreenMonster

My moms house is like that... Open kitchen, dining room and living room. I like it...

One thing that I don't like is that the "big room" is in the middle of the house, and has cathedral ceilings, so the attic is split from the cathedral ceilings into to small rooms.

wstevens

I've always liked open floor plans because, when I have friends over, I'm usually in the kitchen cooking. With an open floor plan, I don't feel cut off from everyone.

chef chris

Heating/Cooling needs to be considered. Depending on what type of ceiling you have...9 ft, cathedral, etc...you may need to incorporate ceiling fans to control the temp more accurately.

berlinrl

You can't beat it for entertaining.

Daily living is another matter, since you can't close rooms off for different
people doing different things at the same time.

TBone2004

Surround sound may lose some of its punch.
Hard to paint walls - where to end one color and start another.
Furniture placement and now must all kinda compliment one another.
Its always one big party - cause everyone is always in the same room essentialy.

jz-97-c7

the only downside to our open floor house is that we have to keep the kitchen spotless because you can see the stack of dishes from the couch. but other than that, like berlinrl said, you can't beat it for entertaining

fdl

Perhaps, somethign in between would be the best of both worlds. Walls, with large openings and passthroughs, etc.

jz-97-c7

was something like that...he has a pretty open floorplan but the kitchen is seperated from the fam room by a wall but the eating area is still open to the living room. the bedrooms are all off to either side of the living/family room
very similar to this house: http://www.pensacolamls.com/property...eferrer=search