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Show ; around in any houso, no matter 'how many partitions. The matter of wall space can be a distinct advantage. Modern furniture fur-niture not necessarily modern style furniture is often finished on the back the same aa on the front so it can be put anywhere in a room. Or, if it isn't, two pieces of furniture can be put back to back to divide a large room. For example, book shelves could be backed up to a davenport and the two pieces together would form a "wall." 5 Chief advantage of an open- planned house, thus, is that it costs less to build. There aren't so many doors and door frames to buy, framing for the walls, paint and plaster, and maybe not so many heat vents. Less elaborate elabor-ate heating equipment is often used us-ed because with fewer walls the heat may have a good chance to pervade the entire building. There are disadvantages, of course, especially where there are several children. But some families fam-ilies have no objection to the loss of a certain amount of individual privacy. And another disadvantage, for some people, is the matter of cooking cook-ing odors. But without plenty of ventilation and a good wall fan, such odors are likely to get "Open Planning" Is' Popular For Many New Homes One way of cutting the cost of building a new house or remodeling remodel-ing an old one is to use what architects ar-chitects call "open planning." Essentially this means leaving out walls, doors and in general leaving the house plan open. There's nothing particularly new about it: In many houses having living room-dining room combinations, combina-tions, the builders have taken advantage ad-vantage of "open planning." But the idea can be carriect further fur-ther and furniture and equipment arrangements employed to divide other areas. Such a house can have all of the good features good traffic lanes and plenty of wall space but it will cost less. There'll be fewer doors and partitions, par-titions, and as all house-builders know, that's where the money goes. |