Disclaimers ...
- Dean doesn’t hate open concept
- Dean was one of the first designers in LA to advocate eat-in kitchens and to predict the death of the formal dining room among Millennials
- Dean is famous for adding walls, but then opening them up
- As with all design trends, the pendulum must eventually swing back
The problems with Open Concept:
- Life is not as simple as a one-size-fits-all formula
- Most cooks can’t engage in deep conversation and avoid burning dinner at the same time
- The wrong open concept makes a small house smaller real FAST
- I don’t want to walk in the front door and feel like I’m in your kitchen
- Too much openness destroys intimacy - the “law of significant enclosure”
Real design advice:
- Creating drama and “space” in a home isn’t about technical distance. It’s about pauses, previews and pathways.
- Evolutionarily, we don’t want too much open space around us.
- The more outdoors you see, the less indoors you need.
Other DIY gimmicks
- There’s a huge difference between designing and decorating
- Always redoing the most expensive parts of the house.
- Drama ... who could have guessed you had poor insulation, structural problems and knob and tube wiring in your 100 year old house? Better add $40k to the budget.
- DIY TV is the equivalent of NCIS or Law and Order SVU ... it’s a procedural.