Special rooms provide separate spaces

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
How can families achieve domestic peace? How do they avoid sibling battles and mother-daughter screeches?
The answer: Keep everyone apart.
In the upscale sector, builders are offering house plans with lots of separate spaces for family members to get away, the Wall Street Journal reports.
It's a shift away from spacious family rooms where everybody hangs out together whether they want to or not. That developed in the 1980s and '90s because architects saw the design as a way to save on building costs.
The new home alone designs, which offer features such as single-person computer alcoves and sewing and study rooms, are seen as status symbols. Privacy is a luxury. But they are also a plus for couples in second and third marriages accustomed to having time alone, and families with grown children who come back to visit.
And more walls do not mean more space, the Journal notes. Living rooms and other common rooms are shrinking.
What's next? Builders say some clients want movable walls with which to close off rooms. Think how handy that would be when family gatherings get tense.