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Actually, I think this needs an image so everyone can visualize the much more recent phenomenon being talked about here.
Unfortunately, most of the available images of this design trend are copyrighted, but I did find one on Wikimedia Commons. This photo is of a shower stall with a tub inside it from a hotel room in Las Vegas:
Bathroom in Aria Resort and Casino, Las Vegas, by Sarah Stierch via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 4.0)
These are also called "wet rooms." More commonly, the tub within them is not embedded in a tile nest the way this one is but totally freestanding within the shower enclosure.
Do a Google search on "shower with tub inside" and you'll find tons more images.
That's the opposite of free standing though. Take away everything in that picture except the bathtub. Then put a shower head in on one of the walls to spray water everywhere. That's an anti wet room. Note the enclosure to keep the water in the shower. Wet room take that but put the bathroom in it, so your toilet, mirror with some shelves for storing toiletries is all in that shower stall. Now it's a wet room rather than a shower stall.
There's a freestanding tub without a shower. Note that as mentioned above it's the newer style that at least the water can't go under it like on an old-fashioned claw foot tub.
HGTV could die. I might not notice, since I don't have cable now.
Countertops and built-in cabinets could become less common. Hiring someone to install them may become too expensive when some freestanding furniture can work well enough, and is easily replaced with better furniture as budget allows.
Open concept has been around since the Viking days. lol!
I hate a lot of closed off little rooms. Makes them harder to heat/cool and a pain to arrange furniture in, and often they go unused as you tend to want to gather in one of the larger rooms. Like the kitchen. I prefer the kitchen and at least dining room to be open to each other to make it easier to serve and converse. If the living room is open to the dining room around the corner, all the better. I'd love to remodel my lower floor like this:
Large master suite. Even in my 1800 s.f. house, the master suite is 600 s.f. It WAS a small bedroom with a tiny en-suite (basically a small closet that has a shower, toilet and sink) but with two of us trying to get ready for work in the morning, it was damn near impossible to use together. So now we have space to move around. And the bath section of that suite has a 16x16 shower and tub combo:
BTW, that master bath was built in 2007, so it's not some recent trend. And it still gets compliments to this day when people walk in there.
I've lived in open floor plan homes before and they were terrible for heating. The front door opened directly into the living room, so there was a blast of cold air every time it was opened. Because the whole floorplan was open, you could feel that cold blast throughout. The heat from one room flows readily to the next so it's impossible to control it with either zones or shutting off the heat to unused rooms. The open staircase to the second floor meant all the heat downstairs went upstairs. The first floor was always cold, the second floor unbearably hot. The traditional home divided into rooms was a very practical approach. Different rooms can be heated differently to suit their use or occupants. A front hall or vestibule helps control the heat loss when the door is opened. And this ignores all the other problems (like noise).
I do believe that as heating and cooling become increasingly expensive, people will want more traditional floorplans again to help control costs.
Well, if you look at traditional house styles for an area, you'll see what is most effective in the area.
In the desert Southwest, wide overhangs, white roofs, small deep windows reduce solar load. In New England, the Cape Cod cottage is the ideal layout - low ceilings, few windows, compact layout to reduce heat loss and allow a central source of heat to work for the whole house, two stories so the bedrooms take advantage of heat rising, steeply pitched roofs shed heavy rain and snow. In the Southeast, wide overhangs, large windows allow cross-ventilation with reasonable control of solar load. Etc.
If you see a house in New England with a flat roof and floor to ceiling windows, you know the builder failed the intelligence test. If you see a house in Texas with big unshaded windows facing the Southwest, ditto.
Basically the only advantages of the open floor plan are:
1) It's cheaper to build
2) Less-skilled architects can design these houses because there's less need to package rooms properly
3) It fits with a theory of how people are "supposed to" live - all one big happy noisy family all of whose members never want to be alone or quiet or do concentrating mental work, but all they ever want to do is to all be together all the time in a huge kerfuffle of boisterous racket and commotion. Which is fine for the fraction of people who like to live that way but fails miserably for the rest of us.
Basically the only advantages of the open floor plan are:
1) It's cheaper to build
2) Less-skilled architects can design these houses because there's less need to package rooms properly
3) It fits with a theory of how people are "supposed to" live - all one big happy noisy family all of whose members never want to be alone or quiet or do concentrating mental work, but all they ever want to do is to all be together all the time in a huge kerfuffle of boisterous racket and commotion. Which is fine for the fraction of people who like to live that way but fails miserably for the rest of us.
1) except for the larger beams necessary to support an upper floor or open span. Which means more engineering for point 2).
3) you act like bedrooms, dens, etc. are not separate closed off rooms that people can sit in isolation in. Especially when those rooms are on separate floors from the open 2-3 room areas. Your kid wants to do their homework in peace? In their bedroom where it's quiet. You don't want to watch TV when everyone else does? Primary bedroom or den.
Many times the open parts are the family room-dining room-kitchen and there's a separate "formal" living room that is not connected to those rooms. It's still open concept, though.
But hey, lets keep a closed mind about things that aren't perfect for YOU.
My aunt has/had an open floorplan and she had a bunch of kids at various times (whereas I never have). The tv would be blaring, the kids would be loud, and in the kitchen you'd trying to have a conversation but couldn't. And because of that open floor plan the sound was loud enough that no, just closing the bedroom doors would not keep the room quiet enough.
Floor joist sizing is relatively standardized and simple. Not much complicated engineering there. A piece of wood a certain size, grade, and species can be used for a set span, all based on tables.
My aunt has/had an open floorplan and she had a bunch of kids at various times (whereas I never have). The tv would be blaring, the kids would be loud, and in the kitchen you'd trying to have a conversation but couldn't. And because of that open floor plan the sound was loud enough that no, just closing the bedroom doors would not keep the room quiet enough.
And my experience has been completely different than that. At any rate, it's not a new trend and has been around in one form or another for hundreds of years, especially in smaller homes. See some of the '50s examples attached... There are open straight spaces and open L shapes spaces. I lived in a '50s home with an open L shaped space (with the dining room at the corner of the L). Small homes tend to do that to maximize floor space without having rooms that are to tiny.
Quote:
Floor joist sizing is relatively standardized and simple. Not much complicated engineering there.
I'm not talking simple floor joists. I'm talking the oversized beams necessary to span large open areas without pillars or being visible in the room. Engineering definitely does have to be done to make sure upper floors don't fall into the open space. When we did my addition, there was engineering done with engineered beams in the garage so that there weren't any posts in it supporting the beams that supported the upper floor. 117 years later, nothing has settled, due to the engineering done.
And my experience has been completely different than that. At any rate, it's not a new trend and has been around in one form or another for hundreds of years, especially in smaller homes. See some of the '50s examples attached... There are open straight spaces and open L shapes spaces. I lived in a '50s home with an open L shaped space (with the dining room at the corner of the L). Small homes tend to do that to maximize floor space without having rooms that are to tiny.
I'm not talking simple floor joists. I'm talking the oversized beams necessary to span large open areas without pillars or being visible in the room. Engineering definitely does have to be done to make sure upper floors don't fall into the open space. When we did my addition, there was engineering done with engineered beams in the garage so that there weren't any posts in it supporting the beams that supported the upper floor. 117 years later, nothing has settled, due to the engineering done.
Please share with us the secret to your fantastic longevity.
I was told hardwood floor is a dying trend as well after 30 years. As an apartment renter I am happy to hear that because hardwood floor is far more noisy! You drop a phone and it sounds like 50 pounds!
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