Thanks, Liz, for another thought-provoking video. I agree with you about family eating together in a designated spot without all the distractions. That's how I was raised ...and I love being in the kitchen by myself! Grateful that you always show pictures as examples as it helps for those of us that are visual. 🤗
I have never walked into a modern-day open concept plan house and gotten the feeling that I get when I walk into an early 1800s or early 1900s one. There is just something so cozy and comforting about a huge fireplace in the kitchen, with original wood floors, unfitted furnishings, and a traditional dining room with a beautiful table. No granite-topped island is going to cut it. They all end up looking the same, and none feel homey.
Funny because I was thinking the same. I just opened up a load-bearing wall for a more open floor plan but was really battling myself with the decision. Most the time when I see something everyone is doing, I know it's a good time to do the opposite. I can just "feel" the timing. I went with it anyways, however, as I live alone and always wanted a loft but never had one. Not sure how I feel about it right now, but it's pretty easy to put a non-load bearing wall back up if I change my mind.
We had a fireplace in the kitchen area, a rolling island, it was pretty: A-Frame! 1960s/70s I always loved that house, my bedroom was painted orange! Spacious!
I get just the opposite reaction. Everyone has different tastes, so you decide on what’s right for you. The last thing I want to hear from an architect or designer is what you like is wrong unless it’s dangerous or violates code.
You definitely made a lot of good points! I'm currently in the middle of a complete renovation of my very dated compartmentalized 1970s ranch home, and initially I was all about blowing out all the walls I could but the one thing that got me rethinking that plan was the amount of dead space I was going to end up with so needless to say I went back to the drawing room and did decide to go with a hybrid of open concept with large cased openings and one half wall that actually added function as well as just enough of the open concept that I needed!
This is great insight , many helpful points . I’m coming front our first home was a true old farmhouse with most rooms cut up by walls and doorways . That got a little frustrating so the next house we opted for large open spaces ……pretty much felt like you described; very pretty but LOUD and busy with people traffic constantly. Now designing a house with low ceilings over the table and kitchen , a stairway that creates a border and I’m looking at half walls thanks to your video . A big issue I ran into in the open concept was where to place furniture! Some pieces really do need a wall ! Good points , thank you !
Our kitchen is semi open to our family room but we have a separate dining room. I prefer that over the complete open concept. It makes eating at the dining table more special occasion. Its nice.
We are building a new home and I spent over 3 months rejecting blueprint after blueprint until I tossed the whole thing, grabbed a pencil and designed the whole thing myself to get rid of the things that gave me grief. The first thing to go? The open kitchen. An open kitchen is exhausting. No quiet, no privacy and No freaking rest. Too tired to clean the kitchen? Too bad. Someone could/will pop in for a visit and see your dirty mess. I can't even open a cupboard or the flipping refrigerator for fear things are not organized enough. The smells are everywhere. And again, cleaning daily, hourly is the only solution. No room for storage. No room for a decent pantry. Do I want to be a 1930's housewife? Constantly cleaning? No life except for clean, straighten and wash? Heck NO. Hey World! Stay outta my kitchen.
Hate to admit this but our enclosed kitchen also enabled us to put up baby gates to keep the short people out while busy cooking; it even allowed us - because of back door to yard - to keep the new puppy on tile until it learned the 'ropes' so to speak ... love an enclosed kitchen!
My Mother, who spent a great deal of time in the kitchen baking/cooking, and loving it, would never have liked the open concept. She didn't want anyone in the kitchen when she was baking in particular; it was not only her quiet time, she didn't want to be distracted when baking, in case she forgot an ingredient keeping conversation with whoever came into the kitchen. lol
Houses that are open concept remind me of a studio apartment. I lived in two homes that were built in the 1930s. They both had kitchens with glass doors. This let light in and made the space feel bigger. It also kept the kitchen noise and smells in the kitchen.
I’ve had a partial open kitchen more separate from TV room and full open concept. With kids and TV I enjoyed some separation, but now that we are older and entertain more I’ve enjoyed a big open island where we cook together and visit. I can see the pros and cons of both.
So true! We are remodeling and I am all about semi open. I don’t like too closed off or too open. Our kitchen has 2 ( 6 feet entry way) on with a 10 foot wall in the middle. The family room open and then a 9 foot wide opening to the separate dinning room./ sitting area. They are all connected but separate at the same time. Nobody can fully see inside the kitchen or dinning when sitting on the sofa in the family room
We raised our three kids in our current four bedroom, two storey home, with separate living room, family room, dining room and eat in kitchen. When we had the whole family (brothers, nephew, our grown kids and their kids, and everyone’s spouses, at least 20 people total) over for my mom’s 91st birthday last winter, there was no place to be all together. This is my beef with compartmented floor plans. While it was great with young kids, it just doesn’t work for us now. Holiday gatherings are hard, we can’t fit the kids and grandkids in the living room to open gifts at Christmas. We’re just getting ready to build our retirement house, and after 33 years, we’ll finally have an open plan kitchen, dining and living room. It will allow us to have the whole family together for holidays and birthdays, and make the modest (under 1600 sq. ft.) space feel bigger than it actually is. On a positive note, the resurgence of the separate dining and living rooms may improve the marketability of our current home when we are ready to sell.
i would do double pocket doors, i would keep them open most of the time but when i entertain i would close the doors. all you need then is a tv that can have a display like a picture
If you have the luxury of designing the spaces in your home, I find using 45 degree angled walls to be extremely beneficial in getting spaces to flow; I also find it very uncomfortable in moving from room to room if you end up facing into a 90 degree corner. Another consideration is ceiling height as you enter the home. I find it disconcerting if the entrance is into a high ceiling room, and if possible I like to have a relatively short lower ceiling entry way leading into a higher ceiling main room. Varying the ceiling heights in a home adds a great deal of vitality to the living spaces.
As a licensed builder, designer of homes, the open concept is key and always the focal of my designs and yes, it can be done right. The only problem I have with my open concepts is the switching. I didn’t hear you mention that but it is a problem.
As for smells emanating from open concept kitchen, mostly from the cooktop/range, a properly designed hood (commercial quality covering the entire cooktop) with appropriate CFM (eg, around 1000 CFM) to extract the greasy air will take care of the problem. It will require makeup air from the outside directly from the wall adjacent to the cooktop with venting through the hood. 99% of kitchens aren’t designed with proper ventilation because it’s expensive, even more so if it’s a remodel. Hence the smell.
I have NEVER liked open concept. They are like barns/cafeterias. I remember in the 80s houses had loft bedrooms open to the living area below, so literally the only enclosed room was the bathroom. It is noisy and chaotic. Everyone has to listen to every TV, every phone conversation... It is bad for kid's sense of development and confidence to constantly be helicoptered. It is terrible for homework focus. It is catastrophic for working from home. It is brutal for introverts. It is crushing for anyone with sensory integration issues. Honestly I think you could correlate these layouts to increases in divorce rates. Their are a few pros: fewer walls = less cost. Less need for hallways (all egress is built into the room), so that space can be eliminated making for a more compact/cheaper home, or can be added to the room size. I have taken courses and known multiple people in different design fields. It is fascinating to me that landscape designers/architects try to divide outdoor space into rooms, and the interior designers/architects try to merge them together. After traveling in Scandinavia and Asia and looking at how they design homes, I was completely convinced open floor plan was just a bad trend that will be dated by the time I retire.
I prefer closed concept! When I first saw an open concept (big) house in the US, I was amazed. It seemed all white, all new and shiny (I couch surfed with a friend). The house that I stayed at for most of my visit was an older house with a closed concept design. At that time, I was neutral about it. Now that I'm older (and somewhat wiser), I prefer the closer concept. I like my walls & separation of space. Even now, my small rented flat is more of a closed concept design - the kitchen isn't visible from the entrance & living area. The kitchen can be a bit messy if I don't want to clean ASAP. Based on the comments, there are many who also like the closed design. Thanks for the vid! 👍
@@lizbiancoismydesignsherpamaybe now that your kids are older, you can modify your house & make it more of closed concept! 😊 I enjoy your vids & your humour. 👍
I don’t think there's a right or wrong answer, and everyone should do what works for them. As someone with ADHD, I cannot stand people distracting me while I'm in the kitchen, and I just cannot work well with anyone watching me. I WILL mess up, forget something, have my timing thrown off, or worse yet, burn myself. One Thanksgiving, I completely forgot to make the stuffing because everybody wanted to yak with me while I was trying to concentrate on the 50 things I needed to do! It's like I wanted to say, "I love you all, but for the love of God, please go away!" Because of this, while designing our kitchen remodel, I decided to get rid of the island, and along with it, the seating that gave people a place to watch/distract me while I cooked. Instead, I opted for a peninsula (with extra storage instead of seating) to help separate and define the kitchen and dining areas of my open concept, older home. Yep, I'm one of those lucky gals that have the bowling alley home concept going on! *SIGH* My problem is, the 36 inch wide peninsula will sit butted up next to a partial load-bearing wall, which has been the bane of my existence through this whole process! It's a very unique design challenge, and I've spent many hours with little luck looking for inspiration photos of kitchens with a similar design issue. A very elderly cabinet maker said he'd never come across that problem before, and my friend with house-building experience said, "just cheap it out and move!" 🤣 but I'm determined to make it work to suit my needs! (Although moving _has_ crossed my mind several times! 🤣😂🤣)
My 1939 house has more doors than rooms. And of course there’s a separate room for everything. It would probably give a modern buyer great anxiety. Open floor plans are initially impressive. But it requires then seeing another for it to remain impressive. This never stops because each open floor plan is so easy to get wrong.
I hate open concept. Always have. Homes became houses. All the coziness was lost. We used to have living rooms, family rooms, tv rooms, dens and studies. Now we have these awful, cold, echoey 'great rooms'. So glad people have started to push back on this trend!
For me, it depends. In a LARGE house, I want rooms. But in a small house, open concept all the way. I have friends who have a huge open concept house - their "great room" is bigger than my entire house! It's awful. But my little 770sq/ft place would be terrible if the living room, dining room, and kitchen were tiny little spaces. I also think it greatly depends on how many live in the home - but that goes into size too.
It makes sense to have a combined kitchen/dining room separate from the family room/living room. A dining room separate from the kitchen and the family room/living room makes no sense in the context of contemporary lifestyle and as much a dinosaur as a separate parlor/living room.
I've been done with the open concept for years. When in the kitchen, I want to listen to music, but the kitchen is in the living room and Football is on TV. Making Thanksgiving meals is a messy job, so when we sit down to eat, we can all gaze upon the mess. Yup, for me this was an awful floor plan.
I swear...if you are someone who is very "particular" & can somehow swing it, having 2 kitchens will save you from the asylum. Many of the old 1st generation immigrants (Italians and Greeks for sure) had the secret, crappy 2nd kitchen where most of the heavy cooking was done in their basement or even better, in a scullery type situation off of "the good kitchen". We used to tease them for never using their "good kitchens" for anything other than making coffee, but you know what....dinner is a lot more relaxing when you sit down with your family in your pristine kitchen without a giant mess and pile of dirty pots and pand staring you in the face. It also used to keep company more relaxed because they didn't have to bear witness to the chaos behind the scenes. And it also gave you a safe space to do the polite thing and talk about people behind their back without anyone hearing. It's called "good manners" people.😜
The concept of separate wet and dry kitchen spaces is also used in south asian (Thai, Malaysia, etc.) and Indian kitchens. If you're a devoted cook, prep a lot of food from raw foodstuffs, or into food preservation of any sort, you might want to look into wet/dry kitchen design.
Hey Liz, I watch all your videos and thank you for your time and energy in making these, it helps as I prepare my own home! But may I recommend you, as a professional video editor, to add less inserts (small videos and pictures when you talk). I feel it becomes a bit overloaded and aggressive. Too much information as many picture appear fast and you talk at the same time... take it more peacefully, the quality of your videos won't suffer, and your content is wonderful ! That being said, thanks again and cheers !
Thanks for the advice! I’m an absolute novice so any and all input is welcomed. I get so bored looking at my mug or cuts or transitions from all my mistakes🤣
@@lizbiancoismydesignsherpa Not that my opinion matters, but I was thinking about telling you some constructive criticisms I thought about during this video, but didn't want to hurt your feelings... but at the same time, I want to see you succeed, because I think you know what you're talking about, and your response to the other viewer convinced me that you're open to suggestions! 😀 (And I promise not to be offended if you'd like to give me some constructive criticisms of my long rambling sentence structures! 🤪 🤣) Your content and sense of humor are awesome, but coming from the viewpoint of someone who's trying to learn from you, there are a couple things that would make the *experience* of your videos even better (at least for me, haha!) I have a little trouble hearing you sometimes, so if you could somehow make your voice a little louder that would help a lot. I find that I have to turn up the sound on some of your videos higher than I do for other videos I watch... I wish I knew how to explain it in technical terms, but I don't know a thing about that stuff! 😂 Secondly, and more than anything else, it would definitely help if you could leave pictures and things we might want to read on the screen a LOT longer. Sometimes I pause the video and "rewind," hit play, and then try to pause at the right spot to be able to see or read something, but it gets frustrating to have to keep doing that, especially when they are only flashed up there for a very short time. I LOVE having enough time to take in the details of a photo while someone who knows what they're talking about (like you!) discusses the details of why or why not the design elements in the photo work. Most people are visual learners, so letting your viewer's eyes linger on a picture you have supplied to illustrate your point is SO appreciated! A picture's worth a thousand words as they say! It's not necessary for viewers to see the person talk, but seeing WHAT that person is talking about? Priceless! Thank you, thank you, thank you for your hard work! You're amazing and your content is gold!! I can't wait to see what else you come up with! ❤
@SweetStuffOnMonarchLane thank you for the help! I worry I’m boring the average viewer and too slow for TH-cam! Slow down, story of my life 🤣 The audio is something I’m working on. When I remember the 🎤🤫 it’s maddening. 😜
@@lizbiancoismydesignsherpa Girl, you are definitely NOT boring! 🤣 It's SO hard to slow down when you're used to quick, quick, quick all the time; believe me, I know! Awe, thanks for saying my opinion matters! ☺️
There are those of us who get claustrophobic in traditional rooms. There is no way I can live in a house that is not open, Cathedral ceilings, 9 feet perimeter walls up to at least 14' or higher and TONS OF WINDOWS. Some of us HATE small spaces because it feels like a prison. I can sit on a couch or in my sitting room in my bedroom or in my bed when I want to be cozy. When I go to other people's houses with lots of rooms, I can't wait to leave. But again.... I'm claustrophobic.... But my biggest pet peeve is when you entertain, the kitchen isn't usually large enough to accommodate a crowd and I always HATED being stuck in the kitchen while the party was going on in the living area. In the house we are getting ready to build, there is a designated dining area but open to the kitchen. There will be an 11 foot island for eating breakfast and lunch at. One of my most favorite thing though in all my last houses we built, all our ceilings have white pickled wood on them even in the bathrooms and pantry. (good automatic vents though is a must). When people visit, they always comment on them.
Thanks, Liz, for another thought-provoking video. I agree with you about family eating together in a designated spot without all the distractions. That's how I was raised ...and I love being in the kitchen by myself! Grateful that you always show pictures as examples as it helps for those of us that are visual. 🤗
Thanks so much. Kitchen is my empire and I love my time in there 🤫
I have never walked into a modern-day open concept plan house and gotten the feeling that I get when I walk into an early 1800s or early 1900s one. There is just something so cozy and comforting about a huge fireplace in the kitchen, with original wood floors, unfitted furnishings, and a traditional dining room with a beautiful table. No granite-topped island is going to cut it. They all end up looking the same, and none feel homey.
You’re so right! It’s hard to make the space cozy with no walls!
Funny because I was thinking the same. I just opened up a load-bearing wall for a more open floor plan but was really battling myself with the decision. Most the time when I see something everyone is doing, I know it's a good time to do the opposite. I can just "feel" the timing. I went with it anyways, however, as I live alone and always wanted a loft but never had one. Not sure how I feel about it right now, but it's pretty easy to put a non-load bearing wall back up if I change my mind.
We had a fireplace in the kitchen area, a rolling island, it was pretty: A-Frame! 1960s/70s I always loved that house, my bedroom was painted orange! Spacious!
I get just the opposite reaction. Everyone has different tastes, so you decide on what’s right for you. The last thing I want to hear from an architect or designer is what you like is wrong unless it’s dangerous or violates code.
You definitely made a lot of good points! I'm currently in the middle of a complete renovation of my very dated compartmentalized 1970s ranch home, and initially I was all about blowing out all the walls I could but the one thing that got me rethinking that plan was the amount of dead space I was going to end up with so needless to say I went back to the drawing room and did decide to go with a hybrid of open concept with large cased openings and one half wall that actually added function as well as just enough of the open concept that I needed!
Perfect!
This is great insight , many helpful points . I’m coming front our first home was a true old farmhouse with most rooms cut up by walls and doorways . That got a little frustrating so the next house we opted for large open spaces ……pretty much felt like you described; very pretty but LOUD and busy with people traffic constantly. Now designing a house with low ceilings over the table and kitchen , a stairway that creates a border and I’m looking at half walls thanks to your video . A big issue I ran into in the open concept was where to place furniture! Some pieces really do need a wall ! Good points , thank you !
Glad it helped!
Our kitchen is semi open to our family room but we have a separate dining room. I prefer that over the complete open concept. It makes eating at the dining table more special occasion. Its nice.
I totally agree! That's the best way to get all the benefits and still have a special place to eat!
thanks very much really timely reminder of these areas. So agree on family eating together
We are building a new home and I spent over 3 months rejecting blueprint after blueprint until I tossed the whole thing, grabbed a pencil and designed the whole thing myself to get rid of the things that gave me grief. The first thing to go? The open kitchen.
An open kitchen is exhausting.
No quiet, no privacy and No freaking rest.
Too tired to clean the kitchen? Too bad. Someone could/will pop in for a visit and see your dirty mess. I can't even open a cupboard or the flipping refrigerator for fear things are not organized enough.
The smells are everywhere. And again, cleaning daily, hourly is the only solution.
No room for storage. No room for a decent pantry.
Do I want to be a 1930's housewife? Constantly cleaning? No life except for clean, straighten and wash? Heck NO.
Hey World! Stay outta my kitchen.
Preach!🙏
Agree 100%
Same. I’m currently in the process of finding a floor plan but it’s been impossible to find one with a closed of kitchen. 😢 I just want a cozy feel
images.app.goo.gl/JhQnrMtKQznZtDai6 this wasn’t half bad minus the curves and the bay window
Hate to admit this but our enclosed kitchen also enabled us to put up baby gates to keep the short people out while busy cooking; it even allowed us - because of back door to yard - to keep the new puppy on tile until it learned the 'ropes' so to speak ... love an enclosed kitchen!
I grew up with collie puppies in the kitchen every year! 🐶 💕
My Mother, who spent a great deal of time in the kitchen baking/cooking, and loving it, would never have liked the open concept. She didn't want anyone in the kitchen when she was baking in particular; it was not only her quiet time, she didn't want to be distracted when baking, in case she forgot an ingredient keeping conversation with whoever came into the kitchen. lol
Your mom and I would get along great!👍
I completely understand and agree with how your mom felt! ❤ 😊
Houses that are open concept remind me of a studio apartment. I lived in two homes that were built in the 1930s. They both had kitchens with glass doors. This let light in and made the space feel bigger. It also kept the kitchen noise and smells in the kitchen.
Love that idea!
I’ve had a partial open kitchen more separate from TV room and full open concept. With kids and TV I enjoyed some separation, but now that we are older and entertain more I’ve enjoyed a big open island where we cook together and visit. I can see the pros and cons of both.
My views have definitely changed, like a fine wine 🍷
I can't wait for the vaulted ceilings to go too.
So true! We are remodeling and I am all about semi open. I don’t like too closed off or too open. Our kitchen has 2 ( 6 feet entry way) on with a 10 foot wall in the middle. The family room open and then a 9 foot wide opening to the separate dinning room./ sitting area. They are all connected but separate at the same time. Nobody can fully see inside the kitchen or dinning when sitting on the sofa in the family room
Oh and most importantly I can always add sliding door or French door for even more privacy if need be :)
We raised our three kids in our current four bedroom, two storey home, with separate living room, family room, dining room and eat in kitchen. When we had the whole family (brothers, nephew, our grown kids and their kids, and everyone’s spouses, at least 20 people total) over for my mom’s 91st birthday last winter, there was no place to be all together. This is my beef with compartmented floor plans. While it was great with young kids, it just doesn’t work for us now. Holiday gatherings are hard, we can’t fit the kids and grandkids in the living room to open gifts at Christmas. We’re just getting ready to build our retirement house, and after 33 years, we’ll finally have an open plan kitchen, dining and living room. It will allow us to have the whole family together for holidays and birthdays, and make the modest (under 1600 sq. ft.) space feel bigger than it actually is. On a positive note, the resurgence of the separate dining and living rooms may improve the marketability of our current home when we are ready to sell.
There you go! 🍋 to lemonade! Different stages or uses can make the great room a necessity!
i would do double pocket doors, i would keep them open most of the time but when i entertain i would close the doors. all you need then is a tv that can have a display like a picture
Great idea!
If you have the luxury of designing the spaces in your home, I find using 45 degree angled walls to be extremely beneficial in getting spaces to flow; I also find it very uncomfortable in moving from room to room if you end up facing into a 90 degree corner. Another consideration is ceiling height as you enter the home. I find it disconcerting if the entrance is into a high ceiling room, and if possible I like to have a relatively short lower ceiling entry way leading into a higher ceiling main room. Varying the ceiling heights in a home adds a great deal of vitality to the living spaces.
As a licensed builder, designer of homes, the open concept is key and always the focal of my designs and yes, it can be done right. The only problem I have with my open concepts is the switching. I didn’t hear you mention that but it is a problem.
Yes, the walls! Oh how I miss them🤣
Thank you. Inspiring. Even after watching it over again.
Oh you’re my fav! Watching again!
As for smells emanating from open concept kitchen, mostly from the cooktop/range, a properly designed hood (commercial quality covering the entire cooktop) with appropriate CFM (eg, around 1000 CFM) to extract the greasy air will take care of the problem. It will require makeup air from the outside directly from the wall adjacent to the cooktop with venting through the hood. 99% of kitchens aren’t designed with proper ventilation because it’s expensive, even more so if it’s a remodel. Hence the smell.
I don't buy that. I had the mackdaddy of blowers and still, my house smelled of chicken cutlets!
@@lizbiancoismydesignsherpa What are you putting in those chicken cutlets? 😁
@ 🤣🤣 nothing but love 💕
I have NEVER liked open concept. They are like barns/cafeterias. I remember in the 80s houses had loft bedrooms open to the living area below, so literally the only enclosed room was the bathroom. It is noisy and chaotic. Everyone has to listen to every TV, every phone conversation... It is bad for kid's sense of development and confidence to constantly be helicoptered. It is terrible for homework focus. It is catastrophic for working from home. It is brutal for introverts. It is crushing for anyone with sensory integration issues. Honestly I think you could correlate these layouts to increases in divorce rates. Their are a few pros: fewer walls = less cost. Less need for hallways (all egress is built into the room), so that space can be eliminated making for a more compact/cheaper home, or can be added to the room size. I have taken courses and known multiple people in different design fields. It is fascinating to me that landscape designers/architects try to divide outdoor space into rooms, and the interior designers/architects try to merge them together. After traveling in Scandinavia and Asia and looking at how they design homes, I was completely convinced open floor plan was just a bad trend that will be dated by the time I retire.
They also cost more to heat and cool 😎
My house is a 150 year old farmhouse, so no central heat or air. We heat would wood, so smaller rooms are easier to heat.
I prefer closed concept! When I first saw an open concept (big) house in the US, I was amazed. It seemed all white, all new and shiny (I couch surfed with a friend). The house that I stayed at for most of my visit was an older house with a closed concept design. At that time, I was neutral about it. Now that I'm older (and somewhat wiser), I prefer the closer concept. I like my walls & separation of space. Even now, my small rented flat is more of a closed concept design - the kitchen isn't visible from the entrance & living area. The kitchen can be a bit messy if I don't want to clean ASAP. Based on the comments, there are many who also like the closed design. Thanks for the vid! 👍
Glad you enjoyed it! I find I like the open concept less and less as I get older. Privacy is underrated🤣🙏😜
@@lizbiancoismydesignsherpamaybe now that your kids are older, you can modify your house & make it more of closed concept! 😊 I enjoy your vids & your humour. 👍
I don’t think there's a right or wrong answer, and everyone should do what works for them. As someone with ADHD, I cannot stand people distracting me while I'm in the kitchen, and I just cannot work well with anyone watching me. I WILL mess up, forget something, have my timing thrown off, or worse yet, burn myself. One Thanksgiving, I completely forgot to make the stuffing because everybody wanted to yak with me while I was trying to concentrate on the 50 things I needed to do! It's like I wanted to say, "I love you all, but for the love of God, please go away!" Because of this, while designing our kitchen remodel, I decided to get rid of the island, and along with it, the seating that gave people a place to watch/distract me while I cooked. Instead, I opted for a peninsula (with extra storage instead of seating) to help separate and define the kitchen and dining areas of my open concept, older home. Yep, I'm one of those lucky gals that have the bowling alley home concept going on! *SIGH*
My problem is, the 36 inch wide peninsula will sit butted up next to a partial load-bearing wall, which has been the bane of my existence through this whole process! It's a very unique design challenge, and I've spent many hours with little luck looking for inspiration photos of kitchens with a similar design issue. A very elderly cabinet maker said he'd never come across that problem before, and my friend with house-building experience said, "just cheap it out and move!" 🤣 but I'm determined to make it work to suit my needs! (Although moving _has_ crossed my mind several times! 🤣😂🤣)
🤣I was looking on Zillow last night because of the engineer’s proposal! Settling is a tough pill to swallow!
@@lizbiancoismydesignsherpa Awe... I could laugh 🤣 and cry 😢 with you at the same time! 'Tis a tough pill indeed... 😮💨
My 1939 house has more doors than rooms. And of course there’s a separate room for everything. It would probably give a modern buyer great anxiety.
Open floor plans are initially impressive. But it requires then seeing another for it to remain impressive. This never stops because each open floor plan is so easy to get wrong.
Finding the balance is the challenge! Thanks for watching🙏
Old houses are the best! Very true lots of doors and windows but I will trade them for nothing.
@psa0309 the stories they tell are my favorite 💕
You are cracking me up😂.
I do not like open concept kitchen. Thank you for this video!
I hate open concept. Always have. Homes became houses. All the coziness was lost. We used to have living rooms, family rooms, tv rooms, dens and studies. Now we have these awful, cold, echoey 'great rooms'. So glad people have started to push back on this trend!
Me too!
For me, it depends. In a LARGE house, I want rooms. But in a small house, open concept all the way. I have friends who have a huge open concept house - their "great room" is bigger than my entire house! It's awful. But my little 770sq/ft place would be terrible if the living room, dining room, and kitchen were tiny little spaces. I also think it greatly depends on how many live in the home - but that goes into size too.
So true!👩🎨
It makes sense to have a combined kitchen/dining room separate from the family room/living room.
A dining room separate from the kitchen and the family room/living room makes no sense in the context of contemporary lifestyle and as much a dinosaur as a separate parlor/living room.
That’s the way I’m designing my Reno!💪
I've been done with the open concept for years. When in the kitchen, I want to listen to music, but the kitchen is in the living room and Football is on TV. Making Thanksgiving meals is a messy job, so when we sit down to eat, we can all gaze upon the mess. Yup, for me this was an awful floor plan.
Me too! Yankees ⚾️ vs the 🌍 yelling every night!
I swear...if you are someone who is very "particular" & can somehow swing it, having 2 kitchens will save you from the asylum.
Many of the old 1st generation immigrants (Italians and Greeks for sure) had the secret, crappy 2nd kitchen where most of the heavy cooking was done in their basement or even better, in a scullery type situation off of "the good kitchen". We used to tease them for never using their "good kitchens" for anything other than making coffee, but you know what....dinner is a lot more relaxing when you sit down with your family in your pristine kitchen without a giant mess and pile of dirty pots and pand staring you in the face.
It also used to keep company more relaxed because they didn't have to bear witness to the chaos behind the scenes. And it also gave you a safe space to do the polite thing and talk about people behind their back without anyone hearing.
It's called "good manners" people.😜
The concept of separate wet
and dry kitchen spaces is also used in south asian (Thai, Malaysia, etc.) and Indian kitchens. If you're a devoted cook, prep a lot of food from raw foodstuffs, or into food preservation of any sort, you might want to look into wet/dry kitchen design.
Hey Liz, I watch all your videos and thank you for your time and energy in making these, it helps as I prepare my own home! But may I recommend you, as a professional video editor, to add less inserts (small videos and pictures when you talk). I feel it becomes a bit overloaded and aggressive. Too much information as many picture appear fast and you talk at the same time... take it more peacefully, the quality of your videos won't suffer, and your content is wonderful ! That being said, thanks again and cheers !
Thanks for the advice! I’m an absolute novice so any and all input is welcomed. I get so bored looking at my mug or cuts or transitions from all my mistakes🤣
@@lizbiancoismydesignsherpa Not that my opinion matters, but I was thinking about telling you some constructive criticisms I thought about during this video, but didn't want to hurt your feelings... but at the same time, I want to see you succeed, because I think you know what you're talking about, and your response to the other viewer convinced me that you're open to suggestions! 😀 (And I promise not to be offended if you'd like to give me some constructive criticisms of my long rambling sentence structures! 🤪 🤣) Your content and sense of humor are awesome, but coming from the viewpoint of someone who's trying to learn from you, there are a couple things that would make the *experience* of your videos even better (at least for me, haha!)
I have a little trouble hearing you sometimes, so if you could somehow make your voice a little louder that would help a lot. I find that I have to turn up the sound on some of your videos higher than I do for other videos I watch... I wish I knew how to explain it in technical terms, but I don't know a thing about that stuff! 😂
Secondly, and more than anything else, it would definitely help if you could leave pictures and things we might want to read on the screen a LOT longer. Sometimes I pause the video and "rewind," hit play, and then try to pause at the right spot to be able to see or read something, but it gets frustrating to have to keep doing that, especially when they are only flashed up there for a very short time. I LOVE having enough time to take in the details of a photo while someone who knows what they're talking about (like you!) discusses the details of why or why not the design elements in the photo work. Most people are visual learners, so letting your viewer's eyes linger on a picture you have supplied to illustrate your point is SO appreciated! A picture's worth a thousand words as they say! It's not necessary for viewers to see the person talk, but seeing WHAT that person is talking about? Priceless!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your hard work! You're amazing and your content is gold!! I can't wait to see what else you come up with! ❤
@SweetStuffOnMonarchLane thank you for the help! I worry I’m boring the average viewer and too slow for TH-cam! Slow down, story of my life 🤣
The audio is something I’m working on. When I remember the 🎤🤫 it’s maddening. 😜
@SweetStuffOnMonarchLane your opinion matters!
@@lizbiancoismydesignsherpa Girl, you are definitely NOT boring! 🤣
It's SO hard to slow down when you're used to quick, quick, quick all the time; believe me, I know!
Awe, thanks for saying my opinion matters! ☺️
I love broken plan
Open? Or broken?
I never liked open plan.
There are those of us who get claustrophobic in traditional rooms. There is no way I can live in a house that is not open, Cathedral ceilings, 9 feet perimeter walls up to at least 14' or higher and TONS OF WINDOWS. Some of us HATE small spaces because it feels like a prison. I can sit on a couch or in my sitting room in my bedroom or in my bed when I want to be cozy. When I go to other people's houses with lots of rooms, I can't wait to leave. But again.... I'm claustrophobic.... But my biggest pet peeve is when you entertain, the kitchen isn't usually large enough to accommodate a crowd and I always HATED being stuck in the kitchen while the party was going on in the living area. In the house we are getting ready to build, there is a designated dining area but open to the kitchen. There will be an 11 foot island for eating breakfast and lunch at. One of my most favorite thing though in all my last houses we built, all our ceilings have white pickled wood on them even in the bathrooms and pantry. (good automatic vents though is a must). When people visit, they always comment on them.
Sounds beautiful! Thanks for watching🙏