I'm always torn about this. My girlfriend and I (no kids) just bought a 1050 sq. ft. house in a very dense area and the biggest problem with separate rooms/sepa

I'm always torn about this. My girlfriend and I (no kids) just bought a 1050 sq. ft. house in a very dense area and the biggest problem with separate rooms/separate spaces is square footage--it's hard to do that without making it feel really cramped. And that's just with two of us and two dogs. We ended up taking out all of the walls on the first floor to create a large kitchen/living/dining space and it feels so much larger and more pleasant than it did beforehand when there was a (small) kitchen, a (small) living room, and a (small) third room that was probably being used as a dining room. If you live somewhere where square footage is cheap--although, growing up in such a place, heating and air conditioning might not be!--I can see the appeal. But urban life puts some severe constraints on space and more open plans seems to make it more pleasant as well as more usable, at least for me. I don't know if I'd want to go back. (Though, at the same time, I really value having an office with a door that I can close. That too is important!)