I have a family room and a living room. Works great...especially in the TV dept. - when everybody has their favorite show. Although I do love the great room plan with the open kitchen to the great room.

What do you like and what do you think the pros and cons are.

I'm not a fan of a great room or family room for me they are a waste of space. I have my tv in the livingroom. I use the downstairs cathedral ceiling master bedroom as my office however alot of my neighbors who have the same style house use it as their family room.

I have family and friends who have a great room and living room. NO one uses the livingroom everyone stays in the great room so again a waste of space. I'm probably not the norm though, I mean I'd rather have a huge pantry then to have a master bathroom lol!

It depends on personal lifestyle preferences. Lifestyles over the decades have become more casual and the trend toward a great room was a move away from formal living and diningrooms that rarely got used. As building costs have increased, it made no sense to pay for square footage that was not used.

The history of the great room can be traced back to the great hall of the Middle Ages. The great room has greater flexibility and can serve multiple purposes. Some older folks, however, still prefer the formal rooms as their parents had with a TV room.

I could go either if there was a basement.... Since my husband refuses to submit to my HGTV required overload - I use the family room TV, and he uses the living room TV. Now - we also have a fully furnished basement - so if we had a Great room, I guess he'd have to be in the basement...

REL, I hate open floor plans,! but that is me. I want a living room, a dining room and a family room.
When I bought in Florida I saw many homes with open floor plans and I nixed them all.

By the way, I am not old, not even near a baby boomer. I feel it is a matter of preferences.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: rker321,

I'm not fond of open concept floor plans. I prefer separate spaces. I like a formal living room, formal dining room and totally separate kitchen. Instead of a family room however, we have a home theater in a bonus room over the garage which works well for all television viewing purposes. If we had a basement, I could see the basement serving very well as a home theater.

When we have family over for casual dining experiences they congregate in the eat-in kitchen and then make their way up to the theater for either conversation, television viewing, Wii or a movie.

When we have formal guests or formal family dinners, we can have conversation in the formal living room without seeing the mess in the kitchen and then have dinner in the formal dining space again without seeing the mess in the kitchen which invariably comes along with entertaining a group of people.

The most important consideration in any floor plan is to find what works best for your family. For me what works is separate spaces which allow for more privacy and greater noise control. For others who like the concept of even formal guests gathering in the kitchen then a great room concept might work best for them.

quote:

Originally posted by rker321:
REL, I hate open floor plans,! but that is me. I want a living room, a dining room and a family room.

We built a house with an intentionally 'closed floor plan.' Lots of pocket doors and a kitchen that was a room all by itself. If you were reading or watching a movie in the family room and people were talking in the kitchen you could just close the door. We really, really liked it.

To answer REL's question it had a family room and library, but no formal living room, which was also fine with me.

When we sold the house people commented on how much they liked the floor plan, but it's a design you almost never see when looking at new homes. More's the pity.

I'm with you guys I don't like open concept homes either, I prefer seperate rooms, I just ordered an arch kit to seperate my dining room and kitchen from eacother they are currently open to eachother which I don't like at all.

Give me a floorplan without a Living Room and Formal Dining Room, it's the most wasted space in our house, whereas the Kitchen/Family Room combo is the most used space.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: berniek,

I prefer a greatroom. In our house the kitchen, dining area and living room (no family room) are all open to each other. It is a small house with just DH and me. I think in a small house (like ours) it gives more percived space than small boxy rooms would. It also makes it less formal, which I like.
The down side is you have to keep the kitchen clean.
Daisy does have a point though. If I had a house full of people I might appreciate the quiet and privacy separate rooms provide.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Blondesense,

what i really would want is a separate kitchen...I don't want my kitchen seen by the world if i happen to leave some dishes in the sink.....

what i prefer is separate spaces....i will say that my DR does go unused most days, but i do love the way it does look....So i take pleasure in looking at it most days...

This reminds me that there is a need for all kinds of styles of homes because we all don't like the same thing.

In general I like the open floor plan in FL but I too would some days just close off my kitchen & forget about cleanup for a few hours. lol I would like to know who needs a bathroom the size of a small bedroom & some a med bedroom. Give me a walk in pantry to store my food & small appliances! I am now going to sell my house & look for one in TN.

Personally, I want it all - a television room (or family room) and a separate formal living room area. Why? because no matter how often I clean, I have a teenage boy and the television room is typically littered with dirty socks, laundry, dirty dishes and three video game consoles and everything that goes with them - including his friends. Thus, despite my husbands protests, I will not have a television in the actual living room that is open to the kitchen and dining room. Having one room free of chaos and that people can walk in and not smell gym socks keeps me sane.

Wouldn't trade my open floor plan. I wash dishes during & immediately after cooking. I don't cook much & it's generally me & BF so not a lot of dishes & I like watching TV & burning up food. I burn something every week, Tuesday I burned some fried potatoes; we laughed & ate what wasn't scarched to the skillet. It's become an event.

I love open floorplans. To me, it feels roomier and just flows better for our lifestyle.

A few lofts we were looking at had absolutely no interior doors, the bedroom was separated only by a short wall, and there was an open mezzanine that overlooked the main living space. Even the closets and bathrooms we're separated by well placed walls. That would probably drive some of you crazy. :P

This message has been edited. Last edited by: fillemoderne,

I prefer open as well, although my home has some seperations for the DR (columns) and the DR cannot be seen from the kitchen even though the kitchen opens onto the LR (hard to describe- but I can leave dishes and mess when formally entertaining in the DR!)
We also have a family/media room downstairs so I can kick everyone (husband and daughter) out and send them down there if I want some quiet!
The open floor plan works well for me as well as my husband is in law enforecment and works strange/non-traditional hours, so my daughter and I are often alone- I can prepare dinner and still see and interact with her when she is reading or playing in the LR.(translation- I can keep her out of my way in the kitchen but still interact with her!) I may want more seperation as she grows up, but I love the open plan for now.

Well, I don't know if I call my home an open floor plan, I have a dining room, a living room and a family room that is connected to the kitchen, Having the TV in the family room and having an open space to the kitchen makes that area open. But I also have the living room and the dining room that are separate from the kitchen and the family room.
I don't think I could function with a complete open area, although I realize that the living room and the dining room are in many ways "wasted spaces". But when I have friends and my husband is watching TV, I feel free to entertain without having to tell my husband to shut down the TV or leave.

rker- that sounds a little my parent's home...their home is open-ish! They have the kitchen which opens onto a family/hearth room, beyond that is a bar and sitting area, across from THAT is the living room- it's open to the bar, but not directly open to the family room. On the other side, the kitchen opens to the dining room via a doorway, but that is all (Mum can leave the kitchen a wreck and no one will see it from either the LR or the DR unless they go to the doorway of the DR) The DR opens to the foyer and across the foyer is the LR again! (okay...that's probably making NO sense at all...) The foyer also has the staircases for both the up and the downstairs (there is a family room/media room down there as well as some guest rooms)so one can see a little bit upstairs into the main hall connecting the bedrooms from the DR.
Anyhow- my point is that her house is somewhat open but far less so than mine...and she has "dividers" like a step down from the kitchen to the FR, etc.