Open Plan Gone Awry

Well, I'm back. Have been in my too-small and insect-infested rental house for a month now...and have more than 60 mosquito bites to show for it...and we are desperately, daily, house hunting. And so far, the results of our search is, at best, dismal. Contrary to local myth, Johannesburg is much more costly than Cape Town, it rolls up its sidewalks at 6 pm (except for the unbelievable abundance of bars, clubs, pubs, and other watering holes), the roads are worse than any country road I've ever driven, at any given time half of the traffic lights in town are not functioning, the traffic is akin to LA's, and I don't think I have ever encountered so many rude, self-absorbed people in such a short time anyplace else in my life. To put it succinctly, Joburg sucks and I am not happy here. (And that is without even giving a passing mention to the absolutely horrific weather here.)

But despite my feelings, I am stuck here, at least until we can find a way back to the Cape and, because Hubby must pay back the cost of relocation if we leave within one year, we are pretty much stuck here for a while. (Don't even ask about the move...suffice it to say that my list of grievances against the moving company has more than 50 items on it, from breaking a piece of heirloom china to packing an antique doll beneath a cast iron door stop to finding my missing lingerie packed in a box beneath a soiled dog bed and blanket to damaged furniture.) Yesterday was Valentine's Day and after a sumptuous lunch at a landmark restaurant, Hubby and I hit the streets, looking for open houses (called "show houses" here).

I am not impressed with South African architecture, in the main, but then I'm not terribly fond of certain trends in American home design in recent years, either. I remember when the “open plan” concept, as applied to homes, began popping up on such programs as “This Old House” and Bob Vila’s home renovation shows. Touted as the latest and greatest thing in home design and already incorporated in newly-built tract homes, I was appalled at the blatant attempt on the part of builders to reduce their construction costs (fewer walls, less cost to build) by snookering people into accepting their self-serving, penny-pinching new design as something desirable. Two decades later, open plan is not only incorporated into newly built homes, you are hard-pressed to find a separate kitchen in even older, classic homes…everybody has jumped on the bandwagon and remodelled under the “open plan” banner. And, for the most part, the results I have seen have been unmitigated disasters.

I hate open plan. Just hate it. When I have spent hours banging about in the kitchen, dirtying pot after pan, piling the sink full of soiled dishes and littering the countertops with colanders, cutting boards, measuring cups, half-emptied cartons of milk and packets of pasta, why would I want the disaster-filled kitchen to be in full view of my guests? Or even my family, for that matter? Clean as I go along? Sorry, when making a choice between burning the chops or swabbing the sticky stuff in the sink, the chops win out every time. Besides, that is what kitchen doors are for…to separate the grunt-labour involved in putting a meal on the table from the innocents who should be allowed to eat their meal in peace, unburdened by the potentially guilt-inducing knowledge that their smiling hostess has just sweated off the equivalent of a marathon in her pursuit of their gastronomic happiness.

Think about it for a minute…have you ever worked in an open plan office? Think not? Do the words “cubicle” or “cube farm” ring a bell with you? If you truly haven’t ever been subjected to this kind of work environment, do you know anyone who has? Know any cube denizens who love working in a cube? There is no privacy…the sniffles of the allergy sufferer to your left cannot be shut out; the incessant and annoying giggle of the phone-addicted twit on the right cannot be silenced, and the toilet-mouthed guy with the booming voice over your third wall precludes any phone conversation you might want to make, for fear of the background noise of sniffles, giggles, and F-bomb backdrop offending your listener. You cannot speak freely as you most certainly will be overhead, and your activities (or lack thereof) are visible to anyone who happens to walk by your non-existent cubicle door. I used to laugh when given a “confidential” memo to type…just how confidential is anything you type up in a cube where anyone can stand at the entrance and see your computer screen without your knowledge because your back is to the doorway? Life in a cube farm is devoid of any kind of privacy, peace, or dignity…why would we want to replicate that in our homes?

But the marketeers did their jobs well, eventually convincing First World home buyers across the globe that spending more money for less privacy, fewer walls (and a lot fewer cupboards!) was the hip, modern, trendy thing to do (did I mention I also hate “trendy”?). Now, a couple of decades later, in order to attract serious buyers a house must have an open plan kitchen. And that is where it all started to go wrong.

You see, aside from the desire to save some money on construction and gouge gullible buyers out of a few extra bucks, the concept of “open plan” was supposed to be a way to keep the cook from being isolated from the family during meal prep times. Personally, I relished that brief respite from the demands of family life…let Daddy parent the little darlings for a while so I can vin his coq for him, steam a little asparagus and whip up some lemon butter and a mountain of fluffy mash to delight his taste buds. But sentimental home buyers…read that guilt-saturated career moms who left the fruit of their loins in daycare while they work…bought into the “spend more quality time” with their kids idea and the open plan concept took off.

But, like anything else, the basic reason for the whole concept became forgotten as the trend saturated the market and owners of traditional kitchens began dragging down cabinets and smashing down walls. Open plan as a concept, but devoid of reason, began to take over. Traditional houses, venerable older homes, seldom had family rooms and if they did, those family rooms were seldom adjacent to the kitchen. In the more classic home layout, the dining room was adjacent to the kitchen and the living room was generally on the other side of the dining room. In the frenzied stampede to jump on the open plan band wagon, homeowners overlooked the obvious: the room in which Mom slaves over a hot stove is NOT adjacent to the room where the kids sprawl out in front of the tube…but open plan now rules home desirability so dining rooms and kitchens began merging into a single open space. The fact that Hubby and kiddies were still in a separate room and Mom can no longer close the kitchen door on the mountain of dirty dishes and other detritus of meal preparation was immaterial in the face of the power of the trend.

The next phase of the movement returned to the new home build. I now live in a house that was built to have the lounge and dining room in a single open plan space. Interestingly, the living room is beyond the dining room and it has double doors on it to shut out the noise from the kitchen and the cooking smells! A large granite breakfast bar divides the dining space from the kitchen space…what kind of sense does that make? A breakfast bar literally beside the dining table! The purpose of the open plan concept is completely defeated in this house…Mum is still isolated from Dad and the kiddies while she cooks and they sprawl in front of the big screen, but now Mum can’t shut the kitchen door to hide the eyesore the kitchen became during meal prep.

Developers, however, are building on their success. If people will swallow the ridiculous notion of paying more money for fewer walls simply by telling them that this is a new trend, why not take it further? A couple of years ago we looked at a flat we were considering as a rental…until I saw the bedroom. The bathtub and the sink were in the bedroom, as was a shower stall. Only the toilet had its own walled-off space with a door. The salesman tried to tell me this was “romantic,” but I am sorry, as much as I love my husband, some things…like spitting toothpaste into the sink and gargling afterwards…should just remain private. Besides, who needs the steam getting into the closet and mildewing the clothes?

In our house hunting last week we saw a house that just floored me…this open plan bathroom thing had been incorporated when it was remodelled but they had just gone too far…from the bed you could see the toilet and there was no door! Speaking only for myself, there are times that being able to close the loo door is all that saves the rest of the family from being gassed in their sleep, such is the consequence of indulging in certain delicious but pungent and lingering culinary delights.

Maybe I am just getting old, but I value privacy. I want a door on my bedroom…a door that locks. It is nobody’s business but my own what goes on in there. I want to close my kitchen door when I bring out the roast so you don’t see the greasy pan, the gravy spilled on the stove, the mixer beaters coated with mashed potatoes still plugged into the machine…you should be looking at the art on the walls, the beautiful garden out the window, the perfectly steamed artichokes sitting invitingly in front of you. I want a door on my bathroom, too. There is nothing “romantic” about some of the ablutions and processes we go through to make ourselves clean, well-groomed and presentable. Give me a door and allow me to keep a little of the mystery alive, please!

Most of all, let’s stop getting sucked in by greedy corporations because they prey on our insecurities and lingering adolescent desire to be “cool.” Paying more money for a house that has fewer walls, less storage space, and deprives you of essential privacy because some marketing hack in a construction company tells you it is the “newest concept” (read that “trendy and saves us big money”) makes no kind of sense at all.