Originally Posted by
catherine
Both my sons--one has two small children and the other will have his first in a couple of weeks--have kind of reversed one of the raisons-d'etre for the open living/kitchen area, that being "I can watch the kids while I cook."
While both their living areas and kitchens are kind of open, they have turned a den into an adjacent playroom that is shut off from the open areas. They can put a gate there, but the toy mess is contained. So it seems that some people realize that open is nice, but mess is not, and how much mess do you want visitors--and yourself--to be in the midst of all the time? The TV is also in the playroom, so they just go in there and hang with the kids and watch TV, leaving their living rooms nice and neat and looking like the parlors of yesteryear.