Hello,
My wife and I visited a model home park for prefabricated houses yesterday, and we noticed that each house offered various features and floor plans whose practical benefits I don’t quite understand. That’s why I’m starting this thread, hoping you can explain the advantages of these choices or point out what I might be missing and why it still makes sense to design a house that way:
1. Almost every house had floor-to-ceiling windows installed. What’s the purpose of these? I imagine they would be terrible both in summer and winter. Wouldn’t it get extremely hot in summer? And in winter, don’t you constantly have to lower the blinds so that anyone passing by can’t look directly into the living room or inside the house? Also, isn’t the effort to clean those windows huge? Am I missing something? Do they have advantages that I don’t see?
2. There wasn’t a single house where the kitchen and dining area were separated from the living space; at best, the kitchen was separated from the dining area. I understand that having everything open makes the space appear larger and is better for hosting many people, but isn’t it very impractical? If I’m frying or cooking something in the kitchen, doesn’t the whole living room end up smelling like food? It would also bother me that as soon as my wife or I have guests over, the other person couldn’t sit in the living room and watch TV quietly, for example. This might sound a bit picky, but for me, it’s important that everyone can invite their friends without the other person always being within earshot or needing to get out of the way somehow. Why are open-plan ground floors so common? What are the real advantages?
3. The balconies on the upper floor are always accessible from one of the children’s bedrooms and the parents’ bedroom. Doesn’t that significantly affect privacy? I can’t imagine it’s great if my child can constantly knock on our bedroom door via the balcony, for example. Also, if you have two children, wouldn’t the one without a balcony be at a disadvantage?
I don’t want to bias you with my opinions here—I’m completely open to your views because I’d like to be convinced of the benefits. So I would like to know your reasons for including such features in your plans. Alternatively, has anyone built in a more “traditional” way and can speak to the practicality of these layout choices?
Best regards
My wife and I visited a model home park for prefabricated houses yesterday, and we noticed that each house offered various features and floor plans whose practical benefits I don’t quite understand. That’s why I’m starting this thread, hoping you can explain the advantages of these choices or point out what I might be missing and why it still makes sense to design a house that way:
1. Almost every house had floor-to-ceiling windows installed. What’s the purpose of these? I imagine they would be terrible both in summer and winter. Wouldn’t it get extremely hot in summer? And in winter, don’t you constantly have to lower the blinds so that anyone passing by can’t look directly into the living room or inside the house? Also, isn’t the effort to clean those windows huge? Am I missing something? Do they have advantages that I don’t see?
2. There wasn’t a single house where the kitchen and dining area were separated from the living space; at best, the kitchen was separated from the dining area. I understand that having everything open makes the space appear larger and is better for hosting many people, but isn’t it very impractical? If I’m frying or cooking something in the kitchen, doesn’t the whole living room end up smelling like food? It would also bother me that as soon as my wife or I have guests over, the other person couldn’t sit in the living room and watch TV quietly, for example. This might sound a bit picky, but for me, it’s important that everyone can invite their friends without the other person always being within earshot or needing to get out of the way somehow. Why are open-plan ground floors so common? What are the real advantages?
3. The balconies on the upper floor are always accessible from one of the children’s bedrooms and the parents’ bedroom. Doesn’t that significantly affect privacy? I can’t imagine it’s great if my child can constantly knock on our bedroom door via the balcony, for example. Also, if you have two children, wouldn’t the one without a balcony be at a disadvantage?
I don’t want to bias you with my opinions here—I’m completely open to your views because I’d like to be convinced of the benefits. So I would like to know your reasons for including such features in your plans. Alternatively, has anyone built in a more “traditional” way and can speak to the practicality of these layout choices?
Best regards
Grym, the wood stove used to be in the kitchen and ran all day long. My grandmother had an electric stove, and I can only remember her using it once. She didn’t like it.
So, summer and winter, the wood stove was running. Daily for hot water, potatoes for the pigs, food for us.
Ah, my grandparents also had a slaughter and dairy kitchen, so they had a second kitchen.
So, summer and winter, the wood stove was running. Daily for hot water, potatoes for the pigs, food for us.
Ah, my grandparents also had a slaughter and dairy kitchen, so they had a second kitchen.
We solved it so that everything is open, but the kitchen, dining room, and living room are clearly visually separated. The living room is also set back slightly, and the kitchen has somewhat taller cabinets that block the view of the countertop.
For me, this is the perfect compromise between fully open and completely separated.
For me, this is the perfect compromise between fully open and completely separated.
I’m telling you, nowadays nobody does it like they used to. Wood stove. Hot water in the kitchen. Pig feed. Along with hearty, greasy food for hard-working farmers and field laborers.
Today, it’s high technology that operates quietly and efficiently.
And right now, the only thing you can smell is fresh coffee, nothing else…
Today, it’s high technology that operates quietly and efficiently.
And right now, the only thing you can smell is fresh coffee, nothing else…
Grym schrieb:
Or you could build a cozy L-shaped layout, so from the living room you can just see the dining table, but nothing more.
Large open-plan living areas were not structurally possible in the past, or in kitchens servants worked who you didn’t want to see, only the finished food.
Nowadays, technology is very different and of course you can’t use loud and low-quality appliances like those from IKEA. Many people also no longer mainly cook greasy, heavy, and smelly food, but instead, for example, steam vegetables or prepare raw salads. When odors do occur, they are quietly and efficiently extracted by systems like Berbel or Gutmann, not by the IKEA Molnigt.
I still remember from my parents’ and grandparents’ generation that the kitchen always smelled. There would be homemade fish soup again, or a big meat stew, or something else — all dishes we wouldn’t really consider nowadays (a lot of meat, greasy, unhealthy, bland …).
Nutrition is quite a trending topic right now, as anyone who occasionally reads a newspaper will have noticed. Even local papers have articles about paleo, vegan, gluten-free, clean eating, etc. – though usually very superficially handled.
And contrasted with these healthy or supposedly healthy diets is, for example, the now permitted import of the world’s most widespread toxin: high fructose corn syrup. Because it’s extremely cheap, it will soon be included in almost all ready-made meals.
So, if the right technology is available, working quietly and efficiently, I don’t see a reason to dedicate specific rooms for certain everyday activities. Of course, if you make fish soup every other day, a separate kitchen might work better for you.Yesterday we had mussels without Berbel… and there was no smell.
Paleo on Mondays, vegan on Tuesdays, stew on Saturdays — it doesn’t smell, and although it’s cooked with oil instead of margarine, it’s otherwise just as healthy as grandma’s meals back then.
I don’t really see why, in your opinion, people don’t cook as much anymore. Not everyone relies on a Thermomix for cooking or steaming — I only know households where almost every day there’s warm, home-cooked food on the table.
At grandma’s, it didn’t smell, but I admit the food was greasier. I think one of my grandmothers didn’t even have a range hood over her gas stove.
Why should cooking be done less often? Using a steam cooker or a non-stick frying pan is also cooking and is actually much more common nowadays than in the past. Hearty stews, fatty meats, and so on are still much more typical for my grandparents’ generation than for us or among our circle of friends and acquaintances.
I didn’t say cooking has decreased—in fact, it has changed. It’s healthier, lighter, with less meat, less fat, and therefore overall fewer odors or smells. At least when I compare our grandparents’ generation with ours.
But these are just general trends. That doesn’t mean there aren’t 80-year-olds who eat a raw vegetable salad now and then, or young people who slow-cook a rich roast in the oven for several hours. Trends, not absolute statements...
I didn’t say cooking has decreased—in fact, it has changed. It’s healthier, lighter, with less meat, less fat, and therefore overall fewer odors or smells. At least when I compare our grandparents’ generation with ours.
But these are just general trends. That doesn’t mean there aren’t 80-year-olds who eat a raw vegetable salad now and then, or young people who slow-cook a rich roast in the oven for several hours. Trends, not absolute statements...
Similar topics