Things I Never Understood #2: Great Rooms

The Great Room 

A dozen years ago I found myself arguing with a church committee in charge of designing and building a new church parsonage. They had planned for the front door to open into a great room that encompassed the living, dining, and kitchen area.

I was appalled. No parsonage family wanted a parishioner to come to the door and be able to see their private living space. And parishioners did sometimes come to the door to see the pastor. Sometimes strangers with needs came looking for the pastor.

I imagined myself snuggled down in my robe and slippers for a long evening's quilting when the doorbell rings. I would have to scurry into hiding before the door opened, and remain in hiding until they left. What about the toys scattered about, or the dog fur that still needed to be vacuumed up? I would be open to judgement. 

No, I explained, a door opening to show the entire house was against parsonage codes requiring privacy for the pastoral family. They changed to plan to include an entry hallway and a french door to the great room.

Today's Detroit Free Press has an article by Carol J. Alexander about housing trends to come, and she wrote that "open floor plans are out." The pandemic has people working at home and she notes that 

"This year, expect to see homeowners spending less time knocking down walls to open up shared areas, and more time transforming spare rooms or nooks into dedicated spaces. That might mean adding a home office or home theater, for instance, or transforming a nook into a space for distance-learning.Closets have been turned into offices, and extra bedrooms, and basement nooks. People need a room of their own to work in." 

Will the pandemic knoll the end of the Great Room trend?

For most of history, people lived in a shared space, and in many cultures and social strata, shared one bed. The idea of a room of one's own came much later in history. "Privacy was an eighteenth-century innovation," Fernand Braudel wrote in The Structures of Everyday Life. Houses became divided into receptions rooms for entertainment, a public room for show, and private family rooms. Samuel Pepys had his closet where he wrote his diary and kept his books, which he often mentioned in his diary. The concept of privacy gave us houses with many rooms.

So why the Great Room trend? According to television reality show home buyers, it's so that mothers can work in the kitchen and see what the children are doing.

Golly. When I was a tot, Mom set me into a chicken wire fenced area in the yard, gave me some toys, and went back inside to do whatever she was doing. When I became tired and complained, she threw a baggie of crackers out the window. (Of course, those were also the days when parents spanked kids for whining and being defiant and I don't recommend this.)

Me in the yard

When our son was playing outside in the sandbox, I kept an eye on him from the window or the enclosed porch. But when we were indoors, I generally could tell what he was up to without seeing him every minute. And if need be, I set him up with Mr Rogers or Reading Rainbow or Mary Popkins for a while. The hyper-vigilant 1990s Moms thought we were awfully lax. 

And so, open spaces became listed as the number one must for all home buyers. You could watch the kids. You could visit with company while preparing the meal. Women were not isolated in the kitchen while everyone else socialized.

But, all I could think of was the noise! The echoing, endless noise! 

I grew up with walls and rooms in houses built in 1900 and 1920. Our current 1966 home has a living room separate from the eat-in kitchen, which is open to the family room with doors to the patio. This is as 'open concept' as we can tolerate. Hubby complains he can't hear the TV in the family room over the electric tea pot boiling. 

My office is in the largest bedroom, furthest from the television room, with several walls and a hall between me and the kitchen. I can look out the front window and see the pear tree in bloom, watch for deliveries and the mail. And I can write in peace.

What a luxury! To have a room of my own. (And note the colorful walls, also on trend!)