I couldn’t care less about granite countertops. Sure, they look nice, but from what I understand they’re not as easy to look after as, say, Corain or Formica. I like the look of SS appliances, but they’re not necessary – a decently-working appliance is my #1 priority.
Then again I’d kill for a six-burner gas stove…
Open concept? My SIL’s house has this, and yes, her house is gorgeous, has cathedral ceilings, all the bells and whistles, etc. Two things off the bat she’ll tell you: 1) It’s a bitch to heat in the winter, and 2) if you don’t like cleaning, hire somebody because everything is out in the open.
My revenge house porn fantasy? One of those couples buys one of these homes and appears the following season wanting to sell it because “It’s too hard to maintain!”
When I was at the doctor’s office the other day, they had one of those real estate shows on, where the couple is trying to sell a house or whatnot. It was a long wait, so I caught two of the episodes.
I felt like a big snob, because I hated every element in both of the houses. White carpet, check. Big empty spaces, check. Granite countertops, check. Ginormous bath tubs with really wide sides that seem to be props out of the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercial, check.
Hell, I AM a snob. Give me a bungalow, Cape Code, or Victorian any day. But these wide, sprawling places lacking any kind of personality or history? I. Do. Not. Like.
I remodeled my kitchen in 2010. My dishwasher wasn’t built-in. I had the cabinet extended so a built-in could be installed. I also put doors on my Island with open shelving and installed a new vinyl floor.
I spent an afternoon looking at various granite and prefab Icounter tops. I choose Wilsonart laminate. The older style where the carpenter glues it on the plywood.
I just like laminate better. There’s more choice in patterns and its maintenance free.
What I really hate is the plastic prefab countertop with backsplashes they sell. They bring them in and just set them on your cabinets. My old kitchen had those ugly things.
Who told you that you can’t spill that stuff on granite? I’ve never had any problem with any product staining granite, even unpolished granite. Plus, it’s extremely durable. Try putting a hot pan down on a laminate counter.
Also, all granite is not gray. Not sure where in the world such an idea even came from.
Granite countertops: meh. They’re nice - but can stain and require maintenance. While I don’t like laminate much, there are other alternatives (we put Corian in our last place).
Open floor plans: I kinda like them - lets people do their own thing, to some extent, but still be part of the group dynamic.
Two-story foyer: we have one, and it’s wasted cubic. With slight layout tweaks, that would be a sitting area off the master bedroom.
Huge master bathroom: Well, I enjoy ours… but I’d like it better if the toilet stall at least was separated from the sink area. I don’t much wanna be on the throne while my husband is shaving. Believe it or not, this is one thing that some cheap hotels got right: the toilet / tub are in a room by themselves.
Step-down rooms: Our family room is part of the kitchen / breakfast nook / family room continuum. It’s separated by the breakfast area by two steps. I’ve tripped over this on numerous occasions, as has my daughter. When I was recently laid up with a broken foot (not from those stairs, however), that’s where I spent most of my time. And it made things kinda rough.
Stainless steel appliances: meh. The one thing that’s awful about them is with fridges: they don’t hold magnets!! Seriously. Our fridge has a ton of stuff stuck to it with magnets. This would drive us nuts. I will admit that when we finally replaced our over-the-counter microwave we went with stainless because we are thinking of replacing our kitchen cabinets someday, and that seemed to give us more flexibility.
A kitchen island: We have one, and yeah it provides a lot more counter space and storage space… but our kitchen simply isn’t that large. It makes it VERY difficult to maneuver around the dishwasher and fridge.
I hate crown molding because it’s become a shortcut instead of good craftsmanship. I’ve seen people put crown up without even bothering to tape and mud the Sheetrock where wall meets ceiling.
Eh. That’s the purpose of trim, in general. Crown is a look that people like, and if they are using it, there really isn’t any need to tape and mud areas that are hidden behind it anymore than you would waste your time texturing sheetrock where the cabinets go. It only makes sense if it’s easier for the texture guys to do it than not.
Open concept would drive me a little nuts. I am a very tidy person so I don’t care about people being able to see into the kitchen but I do like the rooms of the house to be able to have their own character. If I had an open-concept the whole area that was open would have to be very similar in design to the next and chances are, I couldn’t pull that off without making the whole thing boring.
Granite is good because you can just put hot things onto it but we went with Laminate since it had the colour we wanted and was about a tenth of the price.
I don’t get the whole ‘buy the perfect home’ thing at all. I am pretty sure that when (if) we move again, I will have to redo the kitchen to suit my cooking and storage needs. I will probably have to tear out the bathroom and I will certainly have to repaint every surface in the house. That is just part of the cost of moving.
I’m not crazy about open concept houses for one main reason- noise. Anything that is being done in any room is being heard everywhere. I prefer separate rooms, so someone can go into the living room to read if someone’s in the kitchen or family room doing something potentially distracting. Also, those “fabulous two-story grand entrances” absolutely suck if you’re trying to sleep upstairs and anything so much as a conversation is occurring downstairs- it’s actually noisier upstairs.
Not crazy about granite- I just don’t like the busy-ness of the look- all the veins of color and waviness of the grain and what-not just hide stains and spills. I prefer to look at my counters and be able to see that they’re clean. Plus, in the winter they’re cold (if it runs along an exterior wall).
Stainless steel? Looks industrial to me, which is not what I want my kitchen to look like. Give me white, thank you very much.
I like crown molding, but that doesn’t mean I want it in every room. As a trim feature in a room or two, it can make the room stand out. Doesn’t mean I want it in every room on the first floor.
And extra sitting areas in master bedrooms are a huge waste of space to me. I spend practically no time awake in my bedroom- we go into it at night to go to sleep, and in the morning we leave the room until that night. I don’t want to spend more time in my bedroom, I want to spend it in the rest of the house with the rest of my family, or better yet, doing something outside.
I guess it depends on your concept of “open”. The trend I’m seeing is for there to be a great room, which is an open kitchen and family room, plus maybe a dining room/area.
Bedrooms and offices are still kept separate. And, in fact, the master bedroom might be a separate wing of the house (for people who aren’t overly protective of their precious little darlings). And maybe even a separate formal living room, if the house is big enough.
But few people like to have the kitchen boxed off as if it were some shameful place that you don’t want guest to ever see.
I acknowledge that there can be attractive granites, but that example doesn’t appeal to me at all. If that was in a house I was considering buying, I’d immediately start thinking about how to replace it with something else.
I hate granite countertops, hate open floorplans, and really, really,really hate bedrooms with skylights or huge windows. I prefer to sleep in total darkness and don’t wake with the sun. I would need custom blackout curtains to sleep in alot of the bedrooms I’ve seen on HGTV.
I despise open concept, because I want a door I can close so people will stay the hell out of my kitchen. And I want a kitchen on the small side so I can justify keeping people the hell out of my kitchen.
I currently have Formica, but I like granite and other solid surfaces well enough, because I do a lot of baking and I think it would be good to roll out dough on, as well as being able to put pots down on, as others have said. I think I would like to have quartz.
Stainless is no big deal to me. I wouldn’t go out of my way for it. If it’s there, it’s there.
Also, those “fabulous two-story grand entrances” absolutely suck if you’re trying to sleep upstairs and anything so much as a conversation is occurring downstairs- it’s actually noisier upstairs.
Yes x a million. This is why I always have a hard time sleeping at my parents’ house. They leave the family room TV on at all hours of the night and day, and coupled with any conversations that happen to be going on down there, all that noise resonates upstairs to the bedrooms. The house is just way too loud sometimes.
It is also hard to heat the house properly because of all that open space. I think that’s why they’ve killed two HVACs already.
While I was watching that HGTV show about the people selling the houses, I noticed they kept saying “media room”. Is this a new concept? How is it different from a family room?
On the other hand, back when I worked with a contractor, we constantly had calls from people who wanted us to fix their stained granite.
Who told me? Well, aside from numerous websites, manufacturer’s installation and maintenance instructions, some former clients seemed to have managed large stains quite nicely.
I usually keep my hot pans on the stove, thanks.
And while granite may be more heat resistant, if you break it, it’s at least four times more expensive to replace that the laminates.
I didn’t say that - I have seen some very nice granites. Unfortunately, I sometimes got to see them after they were stained or damaged.
I live in a very cold climate. I also have an open floor plan, with cathedral ceilings.
Our house is neither cold (in fact, it gets too hot if we don’t watch it) nor does it cost an arm and a leg to heat.
I can understand why people might not like open floor plans, but I don’t think it has anything to do with heating them, unless you live in a warm climate where any kind of heating/insulating is a strange and mysterious thing.
I love real estate porn, but I rarely watch the shows now, I just cruise the MLS looking at houses I couldn’t ever afford.
Granite countertops is kind of a meh to me. Great if they’re there but I wouldn’t miss them if they weren’t. We put in butcher block counter tops here when we redid the kitchen and they were supposed to be a temporary cheap countertop but I was surprised to find that I loved them. If I did it again I would have someone else do the first sanding/oil coating so they end up smoother than I managed but they were much easier to care for than I imagined and other than the need to wipe up any water right away they are pretty much bullet proof.
I prefer more defined rooms but only if the kitchen is large. Everyone crowds into the kitchen on a fairly regular basis so there needs to be room for them. If space is at a premium open concept is an acceptable compromise.
I hear people rave all the time about granite before they have it but once they do they don’t love it quite so much, same with tile. One main problem is dish and glass breakage with both. I don’t know many people who would pay for granite on their own and only have it if it comes with the house. Granite is starting to get a bad name so I have more clients happy to see a modern formica.
Another thing about both is that people think it’s a good investment because it lasts forever but tile colors and styles especially go in and out of style. If I show a house with 15 year old tile people are calling it “dated” and complaining about the cost to replace it. The people who installed it thought it was a good investment because it lasts forever but now their house isn’t selling because of it. That’s less time than a good vinyl floor lasts and there’s vinyl out there that looks so much like tile you have to feel it to tell the difference. I see 100 year old houses with pristine, original, bathroom tile that people feel the need to change because it’s not the most current style. I predict in ten years people will be calling black granite countertops “dated” and turning their noses up at it over whatever color is popular at the moment.
Most people still like open concept but some people don’t because of the noise and keep-the -kitchen-hidden issue. I wonder if part of our obesity problem is a kitchen in the main living area. In a house with the kitchen separate from everythng else you don’t walk through it much. In an open concept house you’re in or through the kitchen all day.
Yes, people will not buy house because of paint colors or clutter or a thousand other things that don’t matter. If someone says they don’t like a paint color I’ll say “if you buy this house I’ll paint this room for you”. No one has ever taken me up on this offer.
