The 1950s ranch home that witnessed the growing up of my two brothers and I was an open concept design decades before the term defined what a house should be.

The living room was for playing the piano or listening to Mom play the piano. It was for watching television. It was for playing the stereo. It was for sitting on a sofa. It was for looking out of two large picture windows to see who might be looking in at us while we did our living.

The dining room was open, too. Picture windows ran the full length of one wall. Its table-china-cabinet-buffet were big and left only a narrow walkway of space so we pretty much moved through it rather than occupy it, to get to the kitchen, where we looked out more windows as we walked to the back door. One of our three bedrooms had a door at each end so we walked through it, too.

Thus, we generally kept meeting up with each other and kept watching people outside watch us inside. I think each one of us would occasionally have liked less open concept and more private space but at least it can be noted we were ahead of our time.