Kitchens are not a social gathering center piece.

Not at all. Perhaps you are a slob and don't keep it clean or have ventilation while cooking.

Is an open floor plan a requirement of your local deep-state commie-crat HOA?

My biggest gripe about open floor plans is noise - clatter from the kitchen area, overhearing a phone conversation not involving me, hearing my spouse's iPad playing a podcast through those tinny sounding speakers, etc. etc. We told our real estate agent that it was an absolute non-starter when we decided to move from our single family detached 4 bedroom + den home on 3 levels and started looking for a condo to move to.

I like it open. Most people have portable phones so the conversation can be moved away easily. No pod cast here, but music on most of the day and is easily heard if you are reading in the living room or making coffee in the kitchen.

I'm sitting in the living room. My kitchen has an 8' slider and from here I have a nice view of the outdoors. I don't want a wall to obstruct it.

I can also sit and watch the news and see the timer on the air fryer and microwave if they are in use.

Every guest loves the smell of my cooking.

If you have a vented range hood, which should be required in any new construction even if the house is all electric, you don't have "kitchen oil residue."

I see plenty who only have activated charcoal "vent fans" so code must vary on that!

We have a 4 handset cordless phone providing service for our "land line" so whether someone in the open floor plan units we inspected would be using their cell phone or one of our cordless handsets, the noise factor would be identical. If the kitchen slider existed and was closed in most open plan units we inspected, it would shut out all potential natural light requiring us turn on lights to see what we were doing in the kitchen.

Our current condo (traditional floor plan) has the kitchen and kitchen nook in a straight line with the nook facing a large floor to ceiling bay window with the main bay facing directly east with one of the side bays facing northeast and the other facing southeast. Except when very overcast, we never need to use lights when working in the kitchen or eating our meals at the table in the nook.

I'm an only child and grew up in a quiet household in a quiet neighborhood. I'm easily distracted by noise and am used to having my own room. Same/same for my wife.

Prompted me to take a picture of back of my house today:

I remember that white stuff. Don't miss it much. I bet you don't see much of the neighbors once the leaves come back. Plenty of summer privacy.

Eight inches of powder snow with a crust of sleet/freezing rain on top is a pain in the ass but infinitely preferable to hurricanes and flooding . Most of last weekend's snow is starting to melt , shaded areas of course will take a while longer . We were "lucky" , the snow here was light and fluffy . Farther south they got a wet heavy mix that collapsed roofs .

I knocked off about ~ a half-ton of snow - from my eaves - .. this aft .. with the long handled roof rake - .. it was then that the real work started - moving it all away from the house ... .. achy-breaky-joints .. ps : we had a rare earth quake last night -

- I didn't notice - it was a couple hundred miles away - but a friend of my son lives quite close - said the _ noise _ was quite something - I'd never considered that before .. John T.

Worst snow in years and what you see is all ice now. Nights down to single digits and it has not been above freezing since it fell.

There are occasional tornadoes. I actually saw one destroy a school gym about a half mile from here many years ago. A son was driving and it was coming towards us maybe a couple of hundred yards away. I told him to floor it and we had no problem.

I started up the snow thrower for the fist time in 3 years with no problem right after snow stopped before freeze. Hit a newspaper buried in the snow on the driveway and it took me and my neighbor nearly a half hour to remove it. Winter is no fun but I am not sure I would like an endless summer.

Up here a snow blower would be about as useful as teats on a boar ... I have a JD 317 yard tractor with a power up/down front blade and a Yanmar YM1500 4WD compact tractor with a back blade . The back blade is a recent acquisition and I'm still learning how to use it most effectively . I've thought about making a mount for the Yanmar to mount the front JD blade . Fabricating a mount looks easy , but the plumbing was a bit too expensive for the perceived benefit .

Yes tractor would be better. While neighbor and I were in garage getting newspaper out of snow thrower, the neighbor across the street came over with his tractor and started to plow me out but I came out and finished it.