Open-concept remorse?
We’re renovating (not gutting) a 2-family brownstone (20×55) that has 2 identical floor-through units, and we are really struggling to decide which, if any, walls to remove. Both units are 5 rooms deep (the middle one being the bathroom w/airshaft). Both units still have the original small kitchens in the back left of each floor, right next to a bedroom, and with the front two rooms of each unit being used as a connected living/dining area. Our architect’s first round of schematic drawings show a completely blown out back half of the unit, which keeps the kitchen in its current location, but essentially removes all of the walls to create a very open plan kitchen/kitchen island, dining, living space (and the bedrooms have been moved to the front).
I know it’s the trend these days to remove all the walls, and I understand that light is at a premium in these long brownstones, but having grown up in a house with many rooms, I am concerned that we will regret losing the distinction between different spaces; the feeling of leaving the kitchen and retiring to a living room a fter dinner; the ability to slam a door in anger, or just occupy different parts of the house. Not to mention removing walls means losing all the original detail of door frames, molding, plaster walls, etc. Most of all, I do not want this to feel like a modern condo when we’re done.
I am curious to hear experiences from those who have chosen to either: 1) keep more/most walls and distinct rooms vs. 2) remove lots of walls and create an open plan space. Has anyone had open-concept remorse?
I feel like we are going against the grain in not tearing all the walls down, so I am looking for perspectives/solidarity/encouragement that we can create a warm, light, functional space while still keeping walls (unless we can’t?).
bbrc
in Renovation 5 years and 5 months ago
33
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33 replies
decadesinpreservation | 5 years and 5 months ago
KlausK, you are on the money! We had several bidders on our house because we’d left it alone. Some changes are necessary, but we did not paint all the woodwork white, or replace it all with plain boards painted white, or rip out the mantles and replace them with white pre-fab boxes, or rip out the staircase to replace it with a railing that’d look good in a fire stair, or live with white walls and amorphous rooms which need furniture to give the spaces shape. We could close off certain rooms for privacy, or parties, and setting up a tree at Christmas without everyone seeing what we were doing… And our home did not look like everyone ‘s on the block, or in the real estate adds.
halvzbljopqijek | 5 years and 5 months ago
One additional consideration is children. We have a semi-open floor plan (original pocket doors/ thresholds retained, but we keep them open), with kitchen in the rear on the parlor floor. We decided against a number of homes with completely closed layouts because it would potentially create problems with monitoring young children while preparing meals (particularly at dinner time afterwork when the schedule is compressed).
FWIW – We have found that the pocket door openings provide subtle lines of demarcation and definition without closing off the space completely. A nice compromise.
anotherposter | 5 years and 5 months ago
For me, storage was far more important than the open plan. All those walls allow for more cabinets and powder rooms and coat closets. When living in an open concept place, my non-minimalist amount of kitchen stuff just ends up meaning we stick more furniture in to hide stuff (including bike bags, umbrellas, dog towels, etc.). Put in good lighting and fans/ventilation.
sherewhatdeal | 5 years and 5 months ago
One of the most eye-opening things I ever read was in an older edition of the AIA Guide to New York where there was a comment that Fort Greene was so well preserved (back in the 80s-90s) because people there had been too poor to modernize their homes with every decade’s changing fashion. I never understand why someone who prefers to live an “open concept” lifestyle doesn’t just opt for one of the many new, contemporary condo apartments available in most Brooklyn neighborhoods nowadays – they are usually designed for exactly this style of living, and they are designed to suit the midcentury modern furniture that seems so common these days. That would surely be better than destroying what detail remains in an historic brownstone — these antique houses should be cared for and brought into the next generation as intact as possible rather than being denatured to suit some passing lifestyle whim. I am sure that future owners will rue these re-muddled brownstones m uch the way people in the 80s and 90s regretted the “modernizing” damage inflicted on brownstones earlier in the 20th century.
panda10 | 5 years and 5 months ago
@cate I get your point of view but it’s narrow and assumes layouts that are not always the same. I don’t see a front door from my sofa. My entire living room is in the back with a giant window into my yard. Partially all window. My sofa faces a wall in a logical way for a TV. Most townhouses people struggle with TV placement and if you don’t need one no problem. I love television. My kitchen is in the middle in its own zone and flanks my dining room. I’m just saying there are open concepts that work for lots of people. And besides, everyone had their own room now and had private space. We have plenty of nooks and crannies elsewhere. But when the family is doing life as a unit it’s nice to have the open plan IMHO. But really. It’s not for everyone. I stand by my earlier statement. If you have a shred of doubt don’t do it. It won’t be worth the time not to mention money if something goes wrong.
Guest User | 5 years and 5 months ago
I am under contract to buy a very similar sized home (18′ x 55′) and am debating the same things you are, so thank you so much for this thread. One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about is flow, which is to say, trying to create functional and logical ‘zones’ rather than using a binary of ‘open’ and ‘closed’. For example, the kitchen and dining room are currently at the rear (side by side, galley kitchen has one rear window and dining room has two), so I am thinking of combining them in some way. Maybe not completely taking down the mid-span wall, but creating a large archway or something similar to facilitate flow between the two rooms.
Then there are two back-to-back rooms in the front which I plan to combine into a living room, since it’s nice to have a living room that’s bigger than 10′ x 10′. This leaves a central, windowless room which I am thinking might be nice as a library or something similar. It will have a purpose (the only room on the ground floor that one can fully ‘hide’ inside, for reading or quiet contemplation), and will also break up the front ‘living zone’ from the rear ‘eating zone’, which I hope will make the house feel more ‘house-like’. With such narrow widths the temptation is to try to create big open spaces (maybe by removing all the walls) but I think there is something unique and special about leaving some rooms.
cate | 5 years and 5 months ago
I vastly prefer to use the original floor plans of houses dating from about 1880-1920. I think they are far superior. There is nothing uglier than a kitchen in the middle of a living room, and I don’t want to see the front door from the couch. As well, when used in their original configuration rather than chopped up into smaller units, the Victorian plans are open with pocket doors and a gracious flow from room to room that makes the home feel larger than it would if gutted. From the description of your floor plan, it sounds like originally the intent, at least in theory, was for a double parlor in front, a bedroom in the middle, and dining room in rear with the kitchen along the side. If you enjoy the current layout and wish to use the first two rooms as living room and dining room, I say go for it. I agree demolishing walls will remove all the detail and make it look like a modern condo. I wouldn’t change it myself, and I wouldn’t rent a gut renovated apartment, and there are plenty who agree. Ten years from now the intact apartment with appropriately updated wet rooms in good condition will hold its value, whereas a gut renovated one will need another renovation. Also the bedroom in the center will be nice and quiet and dark. That’s a plus. fWIW there are also inbetween options. For example it is possible to widen doorways between rooms without removing the wall or the crown molding detail. Another option is flipping the kitchen and middle bedroom so the kitchen, dining, living are all next to each other in the front and the two bedrooms next to each other in rear— but depends how narrow the rear bedroom would be. Besides, you’ll save a fortune keeping everything where it already is. It can really be so beautiful!
solehappy | 5 years and 5 months ago
smaller footprint home here and open concept remains a no brainer for kitchen / living areas
bbrc
in Renovation 5 years and 5 months ago
@dork – I, too, like the kitchen at the back. We had considered moving the kitchen to the center to achieve a more connected-kitchen/dining/living feel (keeping bedrooms at the back), and this would allow us to make minimal changes to existing walls, but it just doesn’t feel right to have the kitchen in the center of the house. Even more so, there’s a door in the existing small kitchen leading out to a back deck, which we would love to keep!
@all – Some logistical and design questions if we do decide to remove walls in some places (and maybe add a few in others to create bedrooms):
– will it look strange to have a mix of plaster and drywall throughout the house?
– what do people do about matching up the original parquet flooring where the wall was removed? Did you repurpose original flooring from a closet, or do you install new/very different material in the “scar?”
– has anyone attempted to keep the wide door frames and moldings while creating large cutouts th roughout that give a more open feel/flow, while also retaining some of the character?
– once opening it up, is there ever an issue with sounds and smells carrying and filling up the whole space?
dorkofwindsor | 5 years and 5 months ago
I personally prefer the open concept with the kitchen in the rear. The light is definitelely one important aspect, but also sources of either fresh or recirculating air in those small rooms. Indoor air quality was not a consideration with these windowless and (dare I say soulless) middle rooms – if you insulate at all or have tighter windows (eg a “tighter house envelope”) then this concern is even more exacerbated.
As for the detail, I know people fret and if you have what was originally a house built for the wealthy then that is a consideration of how to repurpose. Many people fret about the uninspiring original detail of south slope, windsor terrace, kensington etc which were really just mass market working class tract housing around 1900 and I have no problem saying good riddance.
Having said that, I see it as essential for a single family house and may not make sense for a rental or a single floor dwelling only as personal space would be lacking. Two or more floors alleviates that concern for me though.
panda10 | 5 years and 5 months ago
I think if you have a hint of doubt don’t do it. I am an open concept proponent and so is my wife and we are both extremely happy with it. We blew open the entire parlor floor and yes, we lost the plaster ceiling, the original door frames etc. However, the place had been carved up before and mixed in with original detail were cheap details that you can replicate from Dykes lumber very easily and in my mind not worth saving. There are preservationists that would shudder at what we did and I’m sure the “condo” comment is a real fear. But I have much higher ceiling height. Smooth drywall. HVAC with hidden ducts and no walls whatsoever in my parlor floor and I have distinct zones that help with the way we live. Nooks and crannies are nice but we kept feeling like keeping the floorplan means trying to change the way we actually live to suit the house instead of the other way around. No regrets here but that doesn’t mean everyone should do it.
Guest User | 5 years and 5 months ago
I am an avowed fan of open concept living and have been happy with that layout for a long time, though I only like it on the main floor. Bedrooms and upstairs rooms should be there own thing. For us it was all about the light, but from the sounds of it, like Bob Marvin pointed out: you sound like you should not do it. Do not allow yourself to be dragged towards something that is the wrong fit. You will regret that!!!
RobertGMarvin
in Renovation 5 years and 5 months ago
I think that you have enough doubts about using a trendy open concept plan to indicate that you should avoid it. I suspect that future generations of brownstone owners will say to themselves “what could they have been thinking?” when they put walls back into their remuddled houses.