Last summer, I was in a realtor’s house for a dinner party. She showed me around, explaining all the different renovations the house underwent to get to its current condition.
What struck me was how many walls in the house this realtor knocked down over the years. When I asked her about this, she explained that for decades, architects built homes with walls in between each room. The idea of an “open concept kitchen” or “open concept living areas” hadn’t occurred to anybody.
It wasn’t until the late twentieth century that some architects decided to try something different. Now, we call rooms without walls “spacious” and “open concept.”
For a while, people said these architects were cheap. They were “too lazy” to include the walls in their designs. Over time, though, the old walls started to make us all feel claustrophobic. Now, it’s rare to find a new home with walls in between every room.
Old ideas often hold us back. We need to tear them down to move forward. And over time, new ideas become the norm. But every new idea gets pushback. Don’t be discouraged.