I grew up in a house that looks like the first picture in the article ("An open-concept house in Massachusetts in 2005"). To me it always felt more like a hotel

I grew up in a house that looks like the first picture in the article ("An open-concept house in Massachusetts in 2005"). To me it always felt more like a hotel than a home, and the way sound traveled was horrible. You couldn't watch TV or talk in the family room at any reasonable volume without disturbing whoever was trying to sleep. It also seemed like a ridiculous waste of space. Instead of those high ceilings we could've had 2-3 more rooms. There was also a constant battle between the family room and the living room, which housed the piano. The person watching TV would turn up the volume to hear over the piano, then the person playing piano would play a little louder so they could hear over the TV, and this would continue until both were shouting at each other. Open concept homes look great in pictures but they're terrible to live in, imo.