The Lie of the Great Room
The floor is sticky. Just a little bit. A ghost of spilled juice from 49 minutes ago. My right elbow trembles, not from the strain of the plank, but from the effort of ignoring the high-pitched theme song of a cartoon dog detective burrowing into my brain at 99 decibels. My son is a foot from my head, his breath smelling of sugar. My daughter is using my elevated legs as a tunnel for a toy truck. In the corner, a laptop glows; my partner is on a video call, nodding with the strained patience of someone pretending their home isn’t a nursery school held in a wind tunnel. This isn’t a workout. It’s a performance art piece about the complete disintegration of personal boundaries.
We were sold a lie. A beautiful, sun-drenched, architect-approved lie. The lie was called the ‘great room,’ and it promised us connection, togetherness, a frictionless existence where cooking, living, and playing could all happen in one harmonious space.
We tore down walls with sledgehammers and glee, chasing a magazine photo of a family that probably hated each other but looked fantastic doing it. For a while, it worked. We could cook dinner while helping with homework, all within one glorious, echoey chamber. It felt modern. It felt right.
But we didn’t account for the slow creep of everything.














