Was watching a real estate channel on one of our local TV stations and they were showcasing these beautiful new homes just built in one of those planned communities in Round Rock, Texas. YUK!!
One house was called the “upside down house”. Why? Because of the floor plan. The kitchen and living areas are on the top floor. The bedrooms are on the bottom. Right? Because when people come to my house, I want them to walk straight to the bedrooms!! What genius nutcase architect floor planner thought that up??!!
There was another house I visited (this wasn’t on the TV program) and you were greeted by the laundry room as soon as you walked into the house. Right? Just want I want people to see and smell when they come to my place. Dirty laundry!! (O.o)
But here’s the main rant of this post. Open or Closed?
I don’t like “open ____” … uuuhh … something or other goes in the blank. I forget what it’s called. Just focus on the word “open”. Open means that your kitchen and your living areas where you entertain guests, family and friends, don’t have any “dividers”. No walls in between to separate the rooms. They say it makes the area look roomy and spacious. Forget that! Who wants to look at a room that’s usually messed up most of the time??
I can’t stand that layout! It’s horrible!! (My opinion.)
Perhaps some of you live in a home like this and you’re happy. I’m not dissing your taste. I’m just saying I don’t like it. Why? What are the two dirtiest rooms in your house? The bathroom and the kitchen! Is that how you want to greet visitors to your humble abode??
That’s why there is a guest bathroom in many homes. Because there has to be one bathroom that’s kept clean for people who don’t live with you to be able to use when they drop by.
As far as the kitchen. I don’t want visitors to be able to see a pile of dirty dishes as soon as they walk into my house. “Open” is OK if it’s a restaurant because I’d like to see what’s going on the kitchen. But not at my house. I’m funny like that!
OK. Now to end my ramblings with a true story. When we relocated to Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, we had the opportunity to live in a short term rental for about 3 months. It was a home located in Bethesda, Maryland and it was a house straight out of “House Beautiful” magazine. It was two level-home and the house was enormous. Even for a family my size. At that time it was me, my husband, and seven children.
You entered the home and went directly into the living room which had a fireplace. To the left was a door opening which led to a reasonably sized kitchen with an eat-in area and if you kept walking through, an opening from that kitchen led to a formal dining room. You could also enter the dining are by way of the living room. The kitchen backdoor opened to a two-car garage.
From the living room area, to the right there was a staircase that led downstairs OR if you wanted to go to the upstairs bedrooms, just walk down the hallway. Master bedroom was to the left, and two smaller bedrooms were to the right.
Downstairs on the lower level was a huge family room, a huge laundry room, a huge library (Oh yeah! The house had a library / office.) and two or three more bedrooms.
Can’t remember if it was 5 bedrooms or 6 bedrooms. It was a lot of bedrooms.
But do you know what the best feature of that house was? The laundry chute!!
On the top level, there was this opening in the wall. You open the little door in the wall and drop your dirty clothes into the chute and they fall into a laundry basket in the laundry room. I never had to tell my kids to pick up their dirty clothes. They loved being able to drop their clothes down that chute!! 🙂
LOL. Aaahh … sweet memories. We lived in Maryland from 1988 to 1995.
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I designed our house and this is how it is. You enter into the living room. The living room is connected to a narrow hallway that leads to the kitchen, our master bedroom, the toilet and the upstairs. .This tiny hallway connects everything. There is also a way to get to the first floor from outside. There is a narrow hallway upstairs too that connects to the two bedrooms, the toilet and the terrace. We do not have attached toilets.
In other words there is total privacy.
WOW! It must be sweet to be able to design your own home. Most of the houses we've lived in were already built. We never got to do a brand new home from scratch! That's cool! :)
We gave up our city life and moved to a semi rural tow, just so that we could get cheap land and that is how I could fulfil my dream of designing our home.
You're brave. I grew up in a cosmopolitan city, Miami, Florida. Our first relocation was to a major Texas city, Houston. From there we went to the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. We left D.C. and lived in El Paso, Texas for a couple of years. But we determined to move to Austin, the capital of Texas. We've been here since 1998. I don't think I could give up the city life. My husband always laughs at me about that. He saves I could never survive if I didn't live in a city. I'm afraid he's right about that.