- Open-concept floor plans have been a go-to design feature of homes in recent years.
- But they're starting to go out of style, according to a real-estate expert.
- People want more divided spaces in their homes as they spend more time in them.
If you watch home-improvement shows or follow home-decor topics on social media, you're likely familiar with open-concept floor plans.
They've been a go-to in American home design in recent years, offering a kitchen, living, and dining area in one large room.
The setup makes entertaining easy, and it allows families to spend time together while one person is in the kitchen and another is in the living area, for instance.
But as Rachel Stults, the managing editor at Realtor.com, told Insider, the floor plans are losing traction with homeowners.
"I don't think that we're going to see it go away entirely, but this is definitely something that happened during the pandemic," she told Insider of people gravitating away from open floor plans. "We were all stuck inside, and we had nowhere to go and our families were with us."
"All of our homes that became one big open room were suddenly not conducive to living," Stults added. "It created a desire to have a defined space, or at least the ability to close one off if you need to."
She said that people have responded by either changing their homes to fit their new needs or searching for a new home that can fit their lifestyle, as many people still work from home.
"We have seen people put up more definition if they can by putting up walls, or looking for homes that have a closed-off kitchen or a closed-off dining room," Stults said. "Even the formal dining room had been on its way out, and I think it's making a comeback now because people just really want to separate the spaces."
Open floor plans are constantly featured on home-improvement shows, making their popularity seem ubiquitous.
You can see open-concept floor plans on the most popular HGTV shows today, including "Celebrity IOU" starring the Property Brothers, the competition series "Rock the Block," and "100 Day Reno."
But as Ronda Kaysen, a real-estate reporter for The New York Times who has interviewed HGTV executives, told Insider in 2020, that has more to do with ratings than a preference for the design itself.
"The network brought in shows like 'Fixer Upper' so the men wouldn't run out of the room the minute the channel turned to HGTV," she said to Insider. HGTV didn't respond to Insider's request for comment on the matter at the time.
She expanded on the topic in a 2019 interview with NPR, saying that male viewers are more likely to watch home-improvement shows if a demolition is part of the renovation.
"Dudes will only watch HGTV if there are sledgehammers," she told NPR, going on to point to "Property Brothers" as an example. "This is how you get your boyfriend to sit with you on the couch and watch it, only if you get to watch Jonathan Scott knock down a wall."