Anyone have open floor plan?

[DISNEYLOVER70]

My in-laws have given us their country farm house. The house needs a lot of work, but because it is a gift, we can afford to put a lot of money into it. Our "plan" is to use the main house as bedrooms and put on a large (addition) that will be the "great room" and kitchen. I want it to be open but yet not "too" open if that makes any sense at all. I have been looking at floor plans on line for days and it is hard for me to envision what it would look like. If anyone has a picture of their living room/kitchen that they would like to share, I would appreciate it. I am having a hard time explaining what I am looking for (if you can't already tell! ) so a picture would be great!
Or if anyone has a website they know of that I could go to. I have been trying to look up real estate listings with virtual tours/pics with open floor plans but haven't had much luck.

Thanks! Hope someone out there can give me a clue!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Renee

 

[Alaska Catdog]

We own a home with an open floor plan, we currently live somewhere else so I can't give you pictures. My advice is that if you are designing your space be very detailed down to the furniture because not all furniture works in an open floor plan and if you don't know that, you might end up with an awkward layout because your current furniture doesn't work in that space. Also, get very quiet appliances. It's hard to hold a conversation in the living room if it shares space with a very loud dishwasher. I did like the openness of it but it took some getting used too. Our front door led right into the great room, if I had designed the house I would of put in a foyer or entrance where we could leave our shoes and coats. Good luck.

 

[DISNEYLOVER70]

Wow, you made some very good points. Definately need a foyer of some kind. We get awful winters here and could potential ruin some wood floors if we didn't plan for a foyer. Also about the appliances being noisey--very good point. The home I live in now is about 3000 sq ft with 12ft ceilings, very big, 2 livingrooms, large eat in kitchen, dining room, so it will definately take some getting used to for us. I guess that is why we decided to go into the open floor plan idea, because the main house has very low ceilings and smaller rooms. We can "get away" from each other in the house we are in now, and while I want the open feeling, I would also like to be able to have a conversation with my daughter in the kitchen without interupting my husband and son's television show kwim?

Thanks for taking the time to give some thought on this. I really appreciate it.

 

[DisneyCowgirl]

Here is a house on a real estate website that a friend is looking at. It has an open plan. You can see the kitchen/living in pic 9, 10 and 12.

http://search.har.com/engine/dispSearch.cfm?mlnum=1059705&class=1&leadid=6&sTYPE=0&backButton=Y

 

[DorkyDisneyMom]

We have an open floor plan. Our garage leads to a laundry room. The front door leads into the living room/kitchen/dining room. We don't have a foyer, we just have a closet right by the front door. Our house is a prefab, so you might check on one of those website for pictures.

We don't have a scanner or I'd post a pick. I loved having the open floorplan with little ones I always knew where my kids were. We have a bar island that separates the kitchen from the dining room and the living room. We put that in the place of a wall. I like it for the most part. The only part I don't like about it is that if each section is not clean then the house looks messy. It especially bad in the kitchen.

Hope that helps a little bit.

 

[Beth76]

Just don't do what my MIL did. Her "open floor plan" is just one big room. I'm not exaggerating. You walk in (from the garage--yes the garage is the front door ) and it's one big square room that has the kitchen in one corner with an island then 2 big dining tables and a sectional sofa with a tv.

You may want to have your kitchen open only to a breakfast room and a hearth room. Then have your family room separate. There's a lot of noise that comes out of a kitchen. It's best to keep that pretty separate from where your tv is.

 

[DISNEYLOVER70]

DisneyCowGirl- Thanks for the link. I checked it out. I like the pillars that give a little divide to the kitchen.

DorkeyDisneyMom- I never thought about checking out prefab houses for ideas. My sister has one and it kinda has a open floor plan. That is a great idea. I will give that a look too. I was worried about what you said, if one part of the room looks messy, the whole thing is a mess yee ha.

Beth76- That is exactly what I am trying to avoid. I don't want it to look like one big room with no definition. And yet I do want some type of open plan. Sometimes I drive myself nuts. Not to mention my husband, poor guy.

Thanks, I am still on the prowl. If I find something that looks workable I will post it in case anyones interested.

Thanks again dis'ers.