As usual WTG makes several important points!

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It's something people don't think about with open concept floor plans.

There is so much people don't think about with open concept floor plans!! I see many that I like the way they look, but I just don't want one for myself, for WTG's reasons and many more. Too inconvenient for so many things!

Mrs. M has always dreamed of an open floor plan and thinks a pool and a basement hangout means the grandkids will come and stay more often.

Does this change your opinion?

(I am more worried about what appears to be a 30-year-old roof)

I'm a practical soul who has no grandchildren. So sue me.

No, it really doesn't change my opinion, but I understand the situation better.

Re the pool. Not sure if pool use where you currently are is year round. Around here, and I'm guessing in Cleveland, outdoor pools are used from Memorial Day to about Labor Day. Might be able to stretch to the third week of September in really warm years. That's it. Three months of use. If you can afford it and it's important to you, then by all means do it.

I dreamed of an open floor plan, built a house with one, used it for nearly 30 years, and knowing what I know now would have done it completely differently. Until you've lived in one, it's hard to imagine how it will work for you and how you'll feel in the house.

Tall ceilings are impressive, but they can be cold and uninviting if they just soar straight up. They're great in a cathedral, not so much for daily living. They're not scaled to ordinary size humans.

We seek a sense of safety and intimacy in our living spaces. If the space is just big, but not well-defined with architectural elements that break the space up into usable chunks, you're left with this vaguely uncomfortable feeling that something just isn't quite right.

You'd be amazed at how air circulation is different in a house with tall ceilings. See that open railing in the Case Road house? You'll probably have cold air tumbling down from the second floor into your open floor plan living space as you sit on your sofa directly below. don't ask me how I know this.

In the house you're currently considering, I think the ceilings in the eating area and kitchen are too tall. For me, they lack a sense of intimacy.

Also consider the lighting. If you are seriously pursuing this particular house, go to see it at night and see how the interior looks at night and if you're comfortable with the lighting plan.

We really underestimated the issues in our Door County house, even though we thought about lighting a lot.

Recessed lights in the ceiling will give you some general lighting but probably not enough; the light will be too dispersed by the time it gets from ceiling to floor.

Want to read a book or knit? Where do you sit and where is your light going to be?

We had some track lights pointing at the fireplace and another part of the living room in our Door County house, but it didn't work out well.

Besides having end tables with table lamps for task lighting, we ended up using those old fashioned brass floor lamps, the ones with a three-way mogul bulb plus three more standard base bulbs for general lighting. They put out 600 W of light when they're all on.

We had a loft, and we found that if we put one of the big floor lamps up there, it reflected the light off the ceiling and lit the entire space. But we had to run up and down the stairs to turn them on and off at night.

The house you're looking at has dark wood ceilings. No light reflection is going to happen there.

Need to change a light bulb in the fan in the living room? You'll need a 12 foot stepladder to get to it.

The other thing I would do is turn on the exhaust fan in the kitchen and see how much the sound travels through the space. Also the clothes dryer in the laundry room. Our utility space was at the back of the house and seemed pretty far away from the living room. But sure as shootin', you could hear that dryer running when you were sitting in the living room watching TV. I would have put a pocket door in had I known the sound would travel like that.

I have to admit that I view the Case Road house as just a whole bunch of projects because I would want to change the finishes all over the place, and having lived in an open floor plan I think there would be practical things there that you wouldn't like once you moved in.

But houses, like everything, are very personal things and YMMV on this one. Sorry to go on like this, but I figure it's better to throw out some things to consider before you commit to a particular open floor plan house.

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Mrs. M has always dreamed of an open floor plan and thinks a pool and a basement hangout means the grandkids will come and stay more often.

Yes about the pool but no about the open floor plan.

I am convinced (even without reading WTG's post) that open floor plans look lovely but are better in theory than in practice.

How neat does Mrs. M like to have the house? An open floor is just a mess waiting to happen....

Although, I went back and looked at the photos again... They have so much little decorative items and all that crazy wallpaper, it's a little hard for me to figure it all out...

It's been on the market for 3 months, I bet all that wallpaper is the reason! The more I look at it, the less I understand the house...

There are lots of details about the house that I like, and redecorated (and painted etc) I bet it would be a lovely place, and indeed, one that grandkids love to spend time at.

But WTG does lay out the problems in a pretty convincing way...

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Originally posted by Steve Miller:
Here's another one. 5 miles from the kids - a plus. Ground floor MBR and laundry - both real plusses. Finished basement.

Ignore the wallpaper, I can deal with that. Wood floor is nice, bath floors and finishes not so much. Nice Heatilator fireplace - haven't had one of those since I was a little kid in MN.

Pool is interesting. I've had pools before but never in that climate. I called a pool company and there is a bit of a war dance you have to do spring and fall to keep it safe over the winter. Doesn't sound terribly difficult but the service I called gets $500 in fall and another $500 in Spring to do the work so there may be more to it than I think.

5266 Case Road

This looks like a perfect grandma's house. The grandkids will love the pool and there is plenty of room for them to come stay.

I'm going to side with Pique. I kind of like it! That style floor plan with the 2nd floor balcony overlooking a soaring family room with fireplace was pretty much the generic build around here from like 2000-2006, so when my kids were little, we spent a lot of time a lot of in houses that had that exact open floor plan (all their playdate friends lived in big new developments with pretty much that exact house in various sizes).

Yes, big open houses like that can be loud. Yes to difficult to furnish. Yes to drafty and hard to heat. But they are impressive and if Mrs. Steve is after that look, that house has it in spades. And that one has some interesting details that I have never seen in the generic builds around here - the ceiling paneling, doorway transoms, and some of the ceiling angles give it a lot of unexpected interest. If you really end up hating the open floor plan because of noise or heating/cooling issues, you can wall in the railing/balcony area or I have actually known someone who built a bonus room on the 2nd floor by closing in the giant cathedral ceiling area over the family room - I don't even think it was that expensive to do. But I will say, my kids spent many a happy hour tossing balloons and little parachute guys or firing nerf guns from the upper balcony down onto people below. It's a fun feature for kids!

This house also suffers from dated-ness...all that wallpaper, the drapes, the pastel carpet, etc. What is it about Cleveland-- are there no carpet stores that sell nice neutral carpet? Again, though, all that can be fixed fairly easily. I'd probably also change out that ceramic tile on the first floor - there's a lot of it, white ceramic tile is a nightmare to keep clean and nice looking, the forest green accent tile is super dated, and ceramic tile is kind to nothing (feet and knees, little kids falling, and dishes that get accidentally dropped). I won't speak to the pool because I've never had one and never wanted one, but I will say that LL#1 had a friend whose grandparents had a pool with covered patio thing exactly like that and she spent LOTS, and I mean LOTS of time at that kid's grandparent's house every summer. I think Mrs. Steve is exactly right about being the hangout house - grandma's house will be the place the kids want to be. WTG is right about the limited pool season - you are probably looking from memorial day to labor day. Some people around here install pool heaters -- my friend has one with a gas heater - works great, but is $$$, but she justifies the expense because she swims for exercise every day and it's cheaper than a gym fee. But interestingly, my parents' neighbor had some kind of solar panel pool heating system where the water circulated through solar panels in the yard and that thing rocked!!! They lived in the Poconos where it is colder than here and they kept their pool open til mid-late October -- and the only utility cost was for the electricity used by the pump that circulated the water through the panels. I'd look into that if you want to extend the season a bit, although once the kids go back to school, they probably won't be in "hang out by the pool" mode anymore.

As always, Lisa is on the money and is much more in touch with benefits of this style of house that weren't relevant to us.

I hadn't heard about the solar pool heaters. That's pretty cool.

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And that one has some interesting details that I have never seen in the generic builds around here - the ceiling paneling, doorway transoms, and some of the ceiling angles give it a lot of unexpected interest.

I noticed those too, especially as it relates to hanging wallpaper in a room with those angles. Whoever put that wallpaper up was pretty damn good at what they do!

The wood ceilings will definitely bring the ceiling height down visually and give the room some intimacy. After we built our Door Cty home with wallboard ceilings in the great room area, I saw photos of a similar house with wood up on the ceiling. We toyed with doing something similar in but didn't want to spend a lot of money on cosmetic stuff in a vacation home.

Thanks for sharing your house hunt with us, Steve. It's great to think about something other than the election....

If you go for that house, I would negotiate hard. The decor is very taste-specific so unless they find a buyer who digs faux-Victorian, it will need a lot of cosmetic updates....I suspect it has been sitting and will continue to sit for a while waiting for the right buyer. Winter is coming and the market is slowing. And WTG and SK are correct - lots of people will see the pool as a liability not a plus. And it's <3000 sq ft for that price - I don't know the market in Cleveland but compared to the lake houses you posted, that seems expensive-ish.

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It's great to think about something other than the election....

OMG so true!!!!

What's above the garage? Attic storage?

All in all it is a very nice house. Good bones. You maye want to do cosmetic changes, but you're more than capable there. Wallpaper is a pain to remove but can be pretty easy if it were properly applied, and that house looks like it would have been. Looks like higher end paper.

Great outdoor living space, plenty of room for kids running around inside.

I can definitely see that as a grandkid's haven.

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Originally posted by wtg:
Thanks for sharing your house hunt with us, Steve. It's great to think about something other than the election....

I am glad people are enjoying this thread. I'll post more houses as they come up.

I like all of the great information you guys provide too - things I would never have thought about and things I missed looking at the pictures. In fact, we've pretty much written off the house with the pool based on what you guys said about them (combined with the fact I don't want to maintain one )

I think I like this one the best so far, although the geothermal heat thing makes me nervous. Lot is larger than I want but it looks to be mostly woods that won't need to be maintained. I wouldn't change much besides paint colors, although that is an awful lot of wood.

We're calling it "The Art Project"

Steve, that's the house WTG posted a few days back!

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Originally posted by wtg:
Not on the lake and in a somewhat higher price range....but I love this house....

https://www.realtor.com/reales...M42226-88732?view=qv

You're gonna have to give her a finder's fee or something!

Also, we both liked that house a lot, and even though I usually do not like colored paint like that, I even like the walls in this house!

Ha! That's the one I posted earlier, the one that makes me want to move to Cleveland! And while I would never have picked that color and painted my house here like that, I totally love the blue in that house. I'd even ask them to leave the rug in the living room.

For me, it's move-in ready.

And yes, I know that's an open floor plan but I still like it. The ceiling is vaulted but not quite two stories. Love the skylights. The kitchen ceiling is not that tall, ithe kitchen is in it's own "nook" and I love the cabinetry and layout. And what look like Corian counters in a taupe color. I'm a browns rather than a grays person.

And I love the woods and shade garden. Beautiful landscaping, with an open sunny area in the middle.

I think part of what appeals to me is the simplicity and lack of clutter. I'm going through a minimalist phase....

Killer laundry room, too.

I didn't notice the geothermal heating. The listing says something about a screened in patio, I think. Couldn't see it in the pics, but if you have screened outdoor space in that climate it's huge; skeeters and yellowjackets are the biggest nuisance in the summer.

SK and I will be fighting for the guest bedroom....