Open kitchen: regret or the ultimate experience?

We deliberately kept our kitchen closed back then. One reason was, among other things, our cat, which should ideally not go into the kitchen and mostly respects that despite the door usually being open. This is partly due to the initial consistency and probably also because we hardly have anything lying around that is interesting to the cat. With an open kitchen, it would probably be much harder to enforce this.

By now, despite having a cat, I would probably plan the kitchen to be open in order to reduce walking distances.

But I also believe that especially in small houses, counter space can be lacking if the kitchen is open to the living room.
An open kitchen must offer a certain spaciousness; otherwise, it doesn’t have the desired effect.

There are so many solutions. Our now adult but by no means fully mature children each also have their own open kitchen, which is quite conducive to order and household harmony. With appropriate planning using movable walls, a kitchen can be open or closed at times – this has already been a building trend. Some kitchens are divided into a show kitchen and behind it a closed working kitchen. There are so many more possibilities than the very common "either-or thinking" in our country.

I never get tired of writing: Always think from the goal. Restrictions that are mentioned to you do not have to be accepted immediately. Good goal-finding is the actual cognitive effort. Unfortunately, we are increasingly forgetting what that is and how it works. One method is the continuing "why" questioning as children practice until parents react with irritation out of helplessness. The fun in the seriousness of the substance only begins at the first "why" question that is not quickly answered. Or as Hannibal Lecter asks in "The Silence of the Lambs": "What does it mean in itself." How it works is nicely described in the first approximation in the large online reference work under 5-Why-Method.

I am also in favor of open kitchens… ours new (is being installed at this very moment). It is also open again and offers the possibility to talk while cooking/baking etc. and simply do these activities together instead of each being separated in their own room.

That is why we have a kitchenette. Dining table that can also accommodate 8 people if necessary.

I hate open kitchens. Like really. I want to be able to work in a kitchen but please not have to look at fruit bowls, kettles, toasters, etc. from the sofa. The trend of making all these things invisible for a hell of a lot of money until the kitchen matches the beige grey black lacquered TV wall sofa lounge combo—I’m dying of boredom. We have a 22 sqm eat-in kitchen and next to it a separate room as a living room. That way you don’t have to wipe cooking fumes off the piano. And the dog bowl is far enough away and doesn’t have to fit into a design concept.

Nothing more to say! I have cursed all open kitchens so far. Kitchen is for cooking and working and the smell of frying, and living room is for living and being tidy and not smelling like a fast-food place... and I have yet to see a ventilation system that really sucks away 100% of smells (and grease particles) when frying.

and I have not yet seen a ventilation concept that really sucks away 100% of the odors (and fat particles) while frying.

But if you are honest with yourself, you will also spread the odors in the apartment with a closed kitchen. Because eventually you have to open the door to the kitchen and to the living room. And a house or an apartment with constantly closed doors always looks like a prison and is uncomfortable.